{"product_id":"appalachian-zen-journeys-in-search-of-true-home-from-the-american-heartland-to-the-buddha-dharma-9781948626804","title":"Appalachian Zen: Journeys in Search of True Home, from the American Heartland to the Buddha Dharma","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis luminous memoir combines the hardscrabble setting of Appalachia with the spiritual wisdom of Shunryu Suzuki's classic \u003ci\u003eZen Mind, Beginner's Mind\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Amazing and intense. A unique, entertaining, and valuable contribution to the Dharma literature, \u003ci\u003eAppalachian Zen\u003c\/i\u003e addresses a part of the Western Dharma world that hasn't received much attention: class.\" --Rev. Sumi Loundon Kim, Yale University, author of \u003ci\u003eBlue Jean Buddha\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSitting Together\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eAppalachian Zen\u003c\/i\u003e describes a journey we all take, one that Buddhism calls \"seeking our true home.\" Edgy, lyrical, and lovingly rendered, this book recounts how a kid from a Pennsylvania mill-town trailer park grew up--surrounded by backwoods farms and amid grief, violence, and passionate yearning--to become something improbable: a Buddhist minister teaching Zen. Author Steve Kanji Ruhl takes readers on an adventure of discovery, roving far from the Appalachian Mountains of central Pennsylvania on a footloose Zen pilgrimage to Japan and beyond.Featuring vivid firsthand accounts of spiritual seeking and teaching in Japanese temples, as well as forays to Tokyo and Hiroshima, the alleys of Kyoto, Amish cornfields near the Susquehanna, and a monastery in the Catskills, \u003ci\u003e Appalachian Zen\u003c\/i\u003e includes robust historical sketches, rapt nature passages, and cultural references ranging from Proust to punk rock. Throughout the book, Ruhl engages Buddhist themes of awakening and the death of the self by confronting the lives and deaths, including two by suicide, of his loved ones. This provocative memoir tells how it \u003ci\u003efeels\u003c\/i\u003e to practice Zen, and to move toward a life of hard-won forgiveness, healing, and freedom.\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Monkfish Book Publishing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/13\/2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781948626804\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 356\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 01\/01\/0001\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/01\/2022 pg. 146\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/26\/2022\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Steve Kanji Ruhl","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42451400884405,"sku":"9781948626804","price":18.69,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_fcd472db-992c-4d68-92bb-7bc5177f74cf.jpg?v=1666108209","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/appalachian-zen-journeys-in-search-of-true-home-from-the-american-heartland-to-the-buddha-dharma-9781948626804","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}