George Crane (2) (1940–)

Beautifully written; sentences of joy and adventure. What I liked most, though, was the story of two very different men learning to trust one another. Maybe's it's "believe in one another". I appreciated, too, the reflection this book inspired on what it means to practice, in a Zen sense. (Spoiler alert) The final showdown between Power-Money-Sex and Pure Zen leaves me thinking that this story is multi-layered and to be continued, but perhaps not in this lifetime.

George Crane is a hard drinker, a womanizer and a poet; Tsung Tai is a monk living a simple life in New England after fleeing from China. In spite of their differences, the two form a close friendship that will ultimately lead them to the edge of China in search of the bones of Tsung Tai's late master. Crane is a perceptive writer who avoids romanticizing poverty and hardship, allowing him to bring tiny villages and their inhabitants to life. Equally enthralling si the pair's near fatal show more ascent of a mountain with no path, part of Tsung Tai's futile attempt to finally give his master's bones a proper burial. A book that's remained vivid in my mind for more than a year. show less

In 1959 a young monk named Tsung Tsai (Ancestor Wisdom) escapes the Red Army troops that destroy his monastery, and flees alone three thousand miles across a China swept by chaos and famine. Knowing his fellow monks are dead, himself starving and hunted, he is sustained by his mission: to carry on the teachings of his Buddhist meditation master, who was too old to leave with his disciple.Nearly forty years later Tsung Tsai — now an old master himself — persuades his American neighbor, show more maverick poet George Crane, to travel with him back to his birthplace at the edge of the Gobi Desert. They are unlikely companions. Crane seeks freedom, adventure, sensation. Tsung Tsai is determined to find his master's grave and plant the seeds of a spiritual renewal in China. As their search culminates in a torturous climb to a remote mountain cave, it becomes clear that this seemingly quixotic quest may cost both men's lives. show less

The Woodstock author befriends his neighbor and fellow poet, Tsung Tsia, an elderly Ch'an (Chinese Zen) monk who fled Mongolia in 1959. Together they travel to Mongolia in 1996 to locate the burial place of Tsung Tsia's teacher, Shiuh Deng. Tsung Tsia's irrepressible optimism conflicts with Georgie's sarcasm and nihilism as they climb the mountain to the teacher's cave.