Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Much as Coleman Barks breathed new life into the work of the great Sufi poet Rumi and reached the hearts and minds of contemporary readers, David Rothenberg now brings us vividly poetic new versions of the enigmatic koans and riddles from the classic Zen Buddhist text, the Blue Cliff Record. Blue Cliff Record: Zen Echoes is an accessible contemporary distillation of this twelfth-century treasure of Zen Buddhism, a lively feast of words and images designed to stretch and open the mind.
Synopsis
Revisiting these 100 classic case studies, Rothenberg enlivens the process, and if he returns one to translations from the original, if his practice deepens another s practice, so much the better. from the foreword by Sam Hamill, editor and translator of the Essential Chuang Tzu
It is astonishing how thousand year old riddles are brought here to evocative poetic life. David Rothenberg converts them into contemporary verbal music, and arcanum, a profound secret, a mystery without intellectual solution. Frederick Franck, author of The Zen of Seeing and The Buddha Eye
This vividly poetic version of the classic 12th century Zen treasurehouse, the Blue Cliff Record, breathes new life into its extraordinary collection of one hundred koans, ingeniously devised from contemplations, insight, and enlightenment.
Rothenberg s adaptation of the Blue Cliff Record is that rare thing, a work of art that is also useful. It is a bracing as a dive into a cold spring. Mark Rudman, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.
Poet, writer, philosopher, and musician, David Rothenberg is a contributing editor at Parabola magazine and founding editor of Terra Nova, the award-winning journal of deep ecology. The author of Hand s End and Sudden Music, his writing is featured in the anthologies The Best Spiritual Writing 1999 and The Soul of Nature."