Appalachian Zen: Journeys in Search of True Home, from the American Heartland to the Buddha Dharma

This luminous memoir combines the hardscrabble setting of Appalachia with the spiritual wisdom of Shunryu Suzuki's classic Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.

"Amazing and intense. A unique, entertaining, and valuable contribution to the Dharma literature, Appalachian Zen addresses a part of the Western Dharma world that hasn't received much attention: class." -- Rev. Sumi Loundon Kim, author of Blue Jean Buddha and Sitting Together

Appalachian Zen describes a journey we all take, one that Buddhism calls "seeking our true home." Edgy, lyrical, and lovingly rendered, Appalachian Zen tells how a kid from Pennsylvania mill towns, trailer parks, and backwoods farms grows up amid grief and rancor and passionate yearning, to become something improbable: a teacher of Zen Buddhism. It invites readers to an adventure of discovery, roving from the Appalachian Mountains of central Pennsylvania to a footloose Zen pilgrimage in Japan, and beyond

Featuring vivid firsthand accounts of spiritual seeking and teaching in Japanese temples, in forays to Tokyo and Hiroshima, in alleys of Kyoto, in Amish cornfields near the Susquehanna or a monastery in the Catskills, it includes robust historical sketches, rapt nature passages, and cultural references from Proust to punk rock.

Appalachian Zen engages the Buddhist theme of death of the self by confronting suicides and deaths of loved ones. Throughout, it engages the Buddhist theme of awakening.