Messenger of the Heart: The Book of Angelus Silesius, with observations by the ancient Zen masters (Spiritual Masters) [Paperback]

Frederick Franck (Illustrator, Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Series: Spiritual Masters | Publication Date: March 2, 2005

The timeless wisdom embedded in these humble rhymes is beautifully echoed by the observations of the ancient Zen masters which punctuate the text, and in the haiku-like drawing by Frederick Franck.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This is not a book for speed-reading! Each verse and every quotation from the Eastern Masters deserves being pondered in the heart. A few minutes of "pointed mindfulness" add more to our life-experience than several years of rushing while sleepwalking. For meditation takes place "across the line called time," in the timeless. If I did not think this to be a necessary book, I would not have written it. Necessary for whom? For my friends and companions on the Way, whether I have met them or not. For all those who in the noise of our time feel a new need for inwardness. For all who may share my delight in discovering a Western Zen poet, who expresses in the traditional language of our own culture what we are apt to believe only the enlightened ones of the East have attained. For in this Western Zen poet I found a bridge between the essential insights of East and West. Such a bridge is proof—ever needed again—that although human beings from the East and the West may! differ in many things, they share the Inner Light, the Buddha Nature— to paraphrase Hui Neng. If I had another hundred years to live, I would postpone finishing this book. But alas, I don’t have another century, at most a few years, one, or two, or ten. This book is essentially a translation of a little book I re-discovered while browsing in a secondhand bookshop in Copenhagen on a stopover during my third trip to Japan. Its title: Der Cherubinische Wandersmann (The Cherubinic Wanderer). Its author: the seventeenth century mystical poet Angelus Silesius, who lived in a century of upheavals, wars, and revolutions, a time of religious conflict, almost as troubled as ours.

About the Author

Born in the Netherlands in 1909, Frederick Franck began his career as an oral surgeon before moving more seriously to his artist pursuits in the 1930s. Between 1958-1961, he served as a doctor on the staff of renowned missionary and humanitarian Albert Schweitzer in Africa. In 1962 Franck was the only artist invited to draw all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council in Rome, and for his efforts he was awarded a medal by Pope John XXIII shortly before his death. Frederick Franck's sculpture and artwork are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, and other public and private collections. He is the author of over thirty books, including The Zen of Seeing (1973), and the award-winning Pacem in Terris: A Love Story (2000), as well as an editor of What Does it Mean to be Human (2001), recently translated into Spanish and Chinese. He was recently honored with the World Citizenship Award by the Nuclear ! Age Peace Foundation. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands knighted him Officer of Orange-Nassau in 1994. Franck, now age 94, lives with his wife Claske at their estate, Pacem in Terris, located in Warwick, NY.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: World Wisdom (March 2, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0941532704
• ISBN-13: 978-0941532709
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #590,994 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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