Customer Reviews

Bones of the Master: A Buddhist Monk's Search for the Lost Heart of China

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First, let me say that this is a very well written, sad, poignant and occasionally 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 -- great 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 the oddly moving friendship that manages to break through 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 cultural understanding (NOT mere "tolerance") than many books with a direct goal to that effect.

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 will motivate many readers to seek out more knowledge on Zen (especially the Cha'n tradition) as well as recent Chinese history.

I read this book right on the heels of Victor Klemperer's diary, "I Will Bear Witness," chronicling the day-to-day life of a German Jew during the Third Reich. Tsung Tsai lived in China, a world apart from Victor Klemperer, but it seems that the heroism of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances transcends boundaries. As a child, Tsung Tsai watched as the Japanese fed poison to his mother and burned his family. After becoming a Ch'an Buddhist monk in Inner Mongolia, he narrowly escaped the Red Army's destruction of Buddhist lamaseries and literally walked to Hong Kong during the Great Famine. He was picked up, starving and near death, by some boat people who nurtured him to health despite his dangerous monkhood. Then he crossed a Hong Kong border teeming with red Army soldiers, spending the next 40 years in exile as an ordinary citizen of New York. This is the story of his return to China, at age 70, in a spiritual quest to honor his master, whom he had left in a cave on Crow Pull Mountain and who died during the Cultural Revolution without a proper Buddhist burial. His quixotic journey is enabled by George Crane, author, friend, journalist, poet and self-styled Zen Jewdist, who joins him on the trip as his spiritual Sanch Panza, full of Western vinegar. Together they both encounter and reflect the imbalance of China as it teeters between modernity and old customs, between heartless Maoism and a reawakened spirituality, between collectivism and family.

Ancient hills echo

The vrrroom of a Harley D

With polyphony.

The determined journey of Tsung Tsai, against real danger and the advice of all concerned, is awe-inspiring. Throughout this book, he becomes its and China's centered soul, giving life a perspective worthy of the Master Himself. He has visited death and has no fear of it. He is concerned only with that which is honorable and morally right. His selflessness is palpable. For example, he gives to the needy all of the equipment he brought to protect him on his arduous mountain climb. And his sense of self is equally palpable. Revered, almost worshipped, as a surviving Buddhist monk, he takes the time to minister to the people, to fulfill their long-ignored desires for Buddhism. Do not miss this book. It will move you.

And be sure to read the book to the end, right through the acknowledgements. There you will find that George Crane sent a physician back to China to reconstruct the face of a burned child they had met. As an adept, George Crane has learned from Tsung Tsai just as Tsung Tsai learned from his master. And so it goes, throughout history. We can learn as well, just by reading this book.

My name is Siri Crane, I'm sixteen, and George Crane is my father. When I was three years old my father came into the house one day in October after a big snow storm and told my mother and I that he was going to have tea with a monk from up the mountain. Tsung Tsai has been a part of my life ever since. If he doesn't exist then I think I must not exist either. I can't picture my life without him. I drank my first cup of real tea in his kitchen, he taught me how to make dumplings when I was seven or eight, I bowed to Buddha for the first time in his home. When we met our English was on about the same level. He always says that I'm his English teacher. He is my life teacher. All the time I spent in his kitchen, sitting as quiet as I could on my father's knee watching Tsung Tsai slurp tea and talk about poetry and about the government and Mongolia and the president and about John Wayne and movies and TV and mathematics and fish and noodles and pizza and tea and New York and how I was like a little wild horse just running all over the place all the time and about dharma and thoughts and medicine and everything else in the world. I used to think that Tsung Tsai knew everything. Now I know he doesn't know everything, but I know he knows everything important. If he is a figment of my father's imagination, then my father my be a great hypnotist as well as a writer. If Tsung Tsai is like Don Juan and just an imaginary guy meant to flesh out a book, then my dad has pulled quite a story over all our eyes, especially mine, because nothing can take away all the memories I have of him and all the things I've learned from him. If he's not real then I think I like the made up world with him in it better than the real world without him. I guess I can't make you believe me. I don't know any other way to convince you he exists, save inviting you to come visit us and driving you up his hill myself. So I guess you'll just have to listen to your own judgment, or take my word for it. Tsung Tsai is as real as it gets.

I read Bones of The Master all in one go. Couldn't put it down- didn't. My daughter ate cereal for two days. The writing is spare and strong leaving the story to stand in it's own clear light- and what a story! I fell in love reading this book. In love with a Chinese monk- his incomparable heart and beautiful spirit like a dance of light across a bright stream. George Crane is a poet of the first order and his telling of this tale has changed my life. I have new things in my interior world, new places to go...and for this I will be eternally grateful. This is a book I will read again and again- budda and fox, laughter and ageless silence.

The story is amazing enough, the likes of a good novel or film. The oddest couple ever - an impulsive American poet and an elderly Chinese Buddhist monk - set out on an improbable journey into Mongolia and Hong Kong to locate his late master's bones and conduct a proper ceremony over them.

The back story is astonishing. This elderly monk escaped the Red Army as it marched on his monastery in 1959. He fled across thousands of miles during a period of intense famine - at one point clinging to a train through a tunnel so narrow it scraped the skin off his knuckles. He left his teacher behind to cope with the revolution. George Crane's account of that escape is vivid and, at times, horrifying.

What else is wonderful about this book? The relationship between the writer and the monk, Tsung Tsai, is established with their meeting in Woodstock, New York, and steeped in their shared love of life and language. To read of them working together intensely to translate poetry from Chinese into English, catching one poet's appreciation and giving it like a precious gift to another language, is another rather miraculous event in the book.

The 17th Karmapa of Tibet has been making news lately with a tale similar to "Bones of the Master," but Tsung Tsai and Meister Crane show that ordinary people can follow the path of the bodhisattva as well, without fanfare, and perhaps without knowing it at all. This book is more than entertainment; it's inspirational.

A thrilling, funny and touching adventure that made me want to sell everything I own and join them. The writer could be a modern Sir Richard Francis Burton (the guy who snuck into mecca and translated all the arabian nights tales) and his honesty, wit and humor shine. NOT just for travel buffs or students of Buddhism.

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.

Many things struck me as I read this book. First, the carefully crafted structure of the writing itself was very Zen-like. Each sentence and phrase was executed with a poet's sensibilities, resulting in a work that is more expressive, more meaningful, and more pleasurable with less.

Next, I was thrilled by the often-subtle appearance of humor that colored the complex relationship between George and Tsung Tsai and allows the reader to understand the love and friendship the men shared.

The history and culture of Mongolia was smoothly woven into the modern-day tale, supporting readers with a necessary understanding of a part of the world largely unknown to westerners. With the vivid portrayal of the harsh and bitter existence in Mongolia, Tsung Tsai's quest was made all the more compelling. The details of daily life, and death, added poignancy for western non-Buddhist readers, and a temporal view of the transcendence of Zen.

I look forward to the rest of the story.

I don't know George Crane but I do know Tsung Tsai. He was my doctor for many years when I couldn't afford western medicine. I would call and ask if I could stop by, tell him my ailment, and he would say something like, "you come, you bring bread". That was the only payment he required. When I read Crane's book it was as if I was with Tsung Tsai again - I could hear his voice and see his mannerisms - to this day my husband and myself still speak many Tsung Tsai-isms and it was a joy to 'hear' him again in the book. George Crane has truly captured the real Tsung Tsai.