DAVID CHADWICK

La obra nos describe el proceso que llevó a un oscuro religioso de un pequeño templo de una perdida aldea japonesa, hasta su apoteosis como maestro zen, con cientos de seguidores, en la vibrante San Francisco de los años sesenta. David Chadwick, escritor dotado, y uno de lo primeros discipulos americanos de Shunryu Suzuki, no solo se limita a trenzar un relato minucioso de la vida de este gran maestro zen, sino que salpica el libro con un buen numero de enseñanzas ineditas de este influyente e irrepetible personaje del zen contemporaneo.

David Chadwick, a Texas-raised wanderer, college dropout, bumbling social activist, and hobbyhorse musician, began his study under Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1966. In 1988 Chadwick flew to Japan to begin a four-year period of voluntary exile and remedial Zen education. In Thank You and OK! he recounts his experiences both inside and beyond the monastery walls and offers insightful portraits of the characters he knew in that worldthe bickering monks, the patient abbot, the trotting housewives, the ominous insects, the bewildered bureaucrats, and the frustrating English-language studentsas they worked inexorably toward initiating him into the mysterious ways of Japan. Whether youre interested in Japan, Buddhism, or exotic travel writing, this book is great fun. To learn more about the author, David Chadwick, visit www.cuke.com.

Shunryu Suzuki is known to countless readers as the author of the modern spiritual classic Zen Mind, Beginners Mind. This most influential teacher comes vividly to life in Crooked Cucumber, the first full biography of any Zen master to be published in the West. To make up his intimate and engrossing narrative, David Chadwick draws on Suzukis own words and the memories of his students, friends, and family. Interspersed with previously unpublished passages from Suzukis talks, Crooked Cucumber evokes a down-to-earth life of the spirit. Along with Suzuki we can find a way to "practice with mountains, trees, and stones and to find ourselves in this big world."