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Bone of Space: Poems by Zen Master Seung Sahn

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Zen Master Seung Sahn is the first Korean Zen Master to live and teach in the West. After becoming disenchanted with academics and then radical politics as ways to help people understand life, he turned to Buddhism. Given transmission at the age of 22 by the famous Zen Master Ko Bong, Seung Sahn became the youngest Zen Master in Korea. After three years of silence, he worked to revitalize Korean Buddhism and became the abbot of five temples in Seoul. He taught in Japan, founding temples in Tokyo and Hong Kong; in 1972, he came to the United States and found the community of students which became the international Kwan Um School of Zen.

" Bone of Space is in the remarkable tradition of Zen poetry begun in China in the T'ang dynasty, and today -- on the evidence of these poems -- as much alive as ever. As with the ancient poems, the best of which revealed wisdoms too deep for prose, these startle with their boldness, freshness, sharp intuitions. The collection should be thrust at once into the face of American Zen, and well beyond." Lucien Stryk

130 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

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Seung Sahn

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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Profile Image for Alisa Žarkova.
98 reviews18 followers
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July 2, 2019
Draugė atneša arbatos.
„Važiuoji į Indiją, Deivai?“
Ji išėjo liūdna, nesulaukusi atsako.
Lova šilta
Dienos pabaigoje
Medinė fleita
Tai mano svajonė –
Per daug galimybių
Tik vienas protas, kuriam reikia rinktis.
Jokio patvirtinimo...

[Dave]
57 reviews3 followers
August 26, 2021
Really fun short read. A different view of zen master seung sahn’s teaching, more intimate maybe the most direct experience of his mind. Something I’ll revisit often
Profile Image for Paul Miller.
85 reviews
January 24, 2024
Bone of space KATZ! yet we
like Alice's Queen believing
six impossible things before
breakfast and then perhaps
disbelief sets in before lunch
Bone cuts off thinking with a
vorpal sword O frabjous day
Not holding to fixed views
as the Buddha talked about
in the Metta Sutta the bone
views all things that appear
as never having appeared
He does the zen teaching of
Seung Sahn "put it all down"
The bone of space is sketchy
we must admit for surely
everyone must identify with
a point of view and argue
its rightness to the extent
of hatred or bloodshed but
no the bone of space prefers
put it all down clear like space
some say he chortled in his joy

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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews

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