Rating: 
Summary: Author's Subject Takes Charge
Review: This is a very well written, sad, poignant and at times unexpectedly funny book. Author George Crane brings life to his subject, Tsung Tsai, by presenting this story in a very "conversational" style. He captures Tsung's broken English in a way that is not only charming, but becomes curiously congruent with Zen philosophy -- focused meaning with few words. Thus, this book is a quick read, but you may need to go back and re-read passages and reflect upon them, for the profundity may escape you the first time. A reader may be a bit disappointed if expecting a travelogue type book that is rich in historical and cultural explanation. While Crane does introduce a bit of that, almost in a "teaser" sort of way, the story is firmly anchored in his relationship with Buddhist monk Tsung Tsai, and their oddly moving friendship that manages to overcome various cultural barriers. Because of this aspect of the book, I have thought of using it as supplemental reading in one of the sociology classes that I teach -- it does more to promote cross-cultural appreciation (NOT mere "tolerance") than many books that outwardly proclaim that goal. Crane is honest, that's for sure. He documents his ongoing troubles trying to be a worthy "disciple" of Tsung Tsai, and even in the end, describes incidents that reveal that he has not yet harnessed his impatient desires. Yet, he has at least, through his part grueling and part amusing journey with Tsung Tsai, begun to see that the Path is there. Excellent storytelling that may very well motivate many readers to seek out more knowledge on Zen (especially the Cha'n tradition) as well as recent Chinese history.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Kind of Zen Literature
Review: This is a wonderful book that is as close as most of us will ever get to a zen master. The writing is sparse and elegant and there is an amazing story that Crane tells. This book is the perfect way to lose yourself in a profound journey that entertains as it teaches. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: This is a beautiful book
Review: This is one of the most beautiful books I have read. The attempted destruction of Buddhism in China has seldom been written about so movingly. Tsung Tsai's story is an inspiration, and George Crane has done a superb job bringing it to life. I also found the description of 'Georgie's' relationship with Tsung Tsai a very revealing portrait of how a Buddhist master can work.
Rating: 
Summary: Spellbinding yet incomplete
Review: This is one of those none-too-common instances in Amazon where the reader supplied reviews of a book are almost as intriguing as the book itself. Several are written by people who have knowledge about Tsung Tsai beyond the covers of this book. That's both good and sad. It's good because each of these "insider" reader reviews helps feed the curiousity ignited in me by George Crane's homage to this amazing Ch'an Buddhist master. To read so many examples of this sort of reader feedback strongly suggests that, among a certain group, this extraordinarily talented and almost messianic monk is very well known and revered indeed. But it is sad because it also forces the question: why isn't more of this "extra-textual knowledge" IN Mr. Cranes's book? To speculate: perhaps Mr. Crane wanted to write prose with the feeling of poetry. If so, he partly succeeds. (Not to fret: historically, most attempts fall completely flat.)Or, maybe Mr. Crane has a sequal in mind. Surely, he'll have a market, but we who ourselves (sadly) lack the poet's gift of inner vision, yet wait anxiously for more about Tsung Tsai, will be sorely disappointed if a second volume reads like poetry in place of insight. "Bones of the Master" skirts that edge. I hope Mr. Crane tries again.
Rating:
Summary: Buddha Heart, Poet Mind, Odyssey of the Spirit.
Review: Weaving the extraordinary with the ordinary, George Crane, the author and co-adventurer, narrates a true story of courage, love and devotion that will pull the strings of your mind and heart 'till tears and laughter issue forth from first to final words. With poet's mind, he allows us to glimpse the pure Buddha Heart of Tsung Tsai, a Ch'an Buddhist Monk in this entirely believable spiritual odyssey. With the words of a poet, and the clarty of a child of wonder, he removes the baffle which seperates the possible from the impossible in this account which you will 'feel' long after you have turned the final page. As this work is not an attempt to push Buddhism or Taoism in your face, I hardily recommend it to all readers. Before you read the last words, you will feel the gentle wonder of it.
Rating: 
Summary: This Book [is not good] and Here's Why
Review: What you are looking at is a travelogue masked as a desire by the author to legitimize the only thing that ever (apparently) happened to him (aside from maintaining some sort of marriage w/child), and then corrupt that thing into a self-serving manuscript that actually undermines its own goal of bringing about an understanding of Ch'an. Here's the deal: He meets an ex-patriot Ch'an Master who stumbles out of the woods and into his life. The Master includes this otherwise n'er-do-well on a mission to Mongolia to retrieve his Master's bones, put them in a new Ch'an monastery, and return Ch'an to China. The voice of the book is ostensibly cultural reportage, and is idiomatically told as truthful, although the author doesn't outright say "this is the truth" and that's part of the problem with this book: The author, intentionally or not, manipulates perceptions and lines of thought in the book in a manner that is ultimately self-serving and distracting to the person who actually seeks to learn anything real about Ch'an. Here's what's good about the book: It's an interesting travel story that's well told structurally, a gripping read, with interesting (albeit a bit simplified) characters. Here's what [is not good]: At the heart of the book is the theme of a) delivering an understanding of Ch'an to the reader, and b) communicating some sense of the author's experience in Ch'an. (Remember, we're supposed to believe this is true.) Problems arise in communicating Ch'an when the author basically tells the audience, "I tried to read the Diamond Sutra, it was too hard, but I offer this poem I translated instead." This part of the author's subversive intent: It is clear that the author would prefer the audience to use his poem as their reference for Diamond Sutra (made entirely approachable by Red Pine, by the way) than approaching the text. This is troublesome because it subverts the nature of the Ch'an tradition of learning texts. Sure, why read the freakin' text when freakin' Joe Author is available to command a speaker's fee at your freakin' charity event in Woodstock? In terms of the author's own experience with Ch'an, there is a gap here that is just too big to be crossed. He narrates his experiences with sitting meditation by saying he gets bored on the several times he tries it up until about halfway through the book. Then he says, all of a sudden, "I sat empty for an hour." (or something to that effect: I don't have the text on me at the moment.) Anyone who has tried sitting meditation knows that sitting empty for an hour just suddenly does not happen after a few half-hearted attempts. Sitting empty for one second would be a miracle in itself: What is it, then, that the author is attempting to do? Legitimize himself in the audience's mind as a direct practcioner, nee Master, of meditation. Clearly this m-f'er doesn't have the chops as he seems to prove throughout the book. And then all of a sudden, he dvelops a habit that is developmentally, neurologically something that actually takes time to reprogram your biology to do ??? Just like that? Not bloody likely. This author is just trying to establish himself as a religious authority which clearly, he shouldn't. He would probably not own up to it anyway if you were to ask him directly. But he's not a direct guy. He's sneaky. Subversive. Perhaps even unaware of his own hubris. Which would be acceptable if he were just a guy sitting sitting on a buckwheat pillow in the den. But he's not, because he's in a (self-assigned) position of responsibility. He tells things that are both religiously and journalistically unacceptable. I don't know what his intentions are. I can't say as he does or doesn't, but I'd be surprised if he were honest enough to say, "Yes, I'm just trying to establish a little corner of the publishing world here. I said a few things that weren't exactly true." In this author's drive for legitimacy, success, and establishing himself (which poses a huge problem for anyone in search of a their not-fixed self), he bends the truth to sell the s-word as Shine-ola. Not to mention, by the way, this author has a preoccupation with mentioning many incidences of body function, i.e., I took a ____, we p____'d, blah blah blah. ...
Rating:
Summary: Hardest of the Hardcore
Review: Within the first 54 pages, I cried and laughed harder reading this, more than any other book. The first noble truth of Buddhism is "life is dukkha", which translates loosely as suffering. The essence of that, and human perseverence slaps you in the face, and caresses it with compassion, all at the same time. Tsung Tsai told George Crane he would write a book "like Bible... better than Bible." He just may be right.
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