Hakuin Zenji was born in Hara, Japan, on January 18, 1685. He began
monastic studies as a teenager, studied with the great master
Shōju Rōjin, and developed his teaching over a long career
spanning more than fifty years. An enormously popular teacher
during his lifetime, he died a few days short of his eighty-fourth
birthday, in Hara where he had begun, and is said to have left more
than 90 dharma heirs.
Norman Waddell was born in Washington, D.C., in 1940. He has
published more than a dozen books and is considered one of the
finest translators of Japanese sacred texts of our time.
"Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn is an authoritative volume
translated from Japanese by Norman Waddell; an essential set of
texts from the great master Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1769). Hakuin's
tireless teaching and writing reinvigorated the ancient Rinzai line
of Zen from China which is now a world–wide force. This book serves
to illuminate his dry, edgy, practical and often funny way of
teaching Zen in the contemporary world." —Gary Snyder, Pulitzer
Prize winning author of Turtle Island
Praise for The Old Tea Seller: Life and Zen Poetry in 18th Century
Kyoto
"Norman Waddell has brought us an important Japanese Zen poet who
has been too long neglected. The biography is detailed and
informative but Waddell has gone further and has translated all of
Baisao's published verse (including some taken from holograph
manuscript) and prose, as well as many of Baisao's letters and
verse
This book will stand as the definitive work on Baisao for
many years." —The Zen Site
"[A] delightful and exquisite volume
Norman Waddell has done a
marvelous job pulling all of this material together." —Spirituality
and Practice
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