George Crane (2)

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.

An alright read, quick. Crane's voice and personality gets annoying fast. And his poetry is rubbish. However, he keeps the book interesting and relevant through the innumerable dialogues which almost perfectly capture the essence of Tsung Tsai.

An exciting story, a wise monk, and (sort of) the education of the writer/narrator as he accompanies his ch'an teacher on a return to Inner Mongolia decades after he fled Chinese persecution. This is a stirring adventure story heightened by poetry, a tale of personal growth, and Buddhist teaching.

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.