Zen and the Art of Anything
I.
My Story and This Book
my story
The year was 1990, and I was presenting a paper on Zen at a Buddhism conference
in southern Taiwan. In the course of the paper,
I made a passing reference to Bodhidharma,
the traditional bringer of Zen to China from India.
After the presentation, a resident Buddhist monk approached me, and,
with a whimsical smile, pointed to me, and said,
"You are Bodhidharma!"
I was rather pleasantly mystified by that, but could elicit no further elaboration.
The monk simply left, and I was left to ponder the classic Zen koan, or riddle:
"Why has Bodhidharma come from the West?"
And why, then, had I come from the West to talk to a largely Buddhist audience,
about Zen?
In what way was I, late in time, following Bodhidharma's model?
And why, as a Westerner, several years later, should I attempt a book
about Zen?
I am in many ways an unlikely candidate for such a project.
First, I'm an academic, and academics don't write much about Zen.
They may study about it, and teach a small segment or even a ...
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