Bones Of The Master

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Number of Pages: 304

Bones of the Master is a spiritual adventure story played out against the epic sweep of Chinese history that will give readers a rare and privileged glimpse into a lost mystical tradition. It charts two parallel journeys – two searches, two eras. The story begins in Inner Mongolia in 1959, it recounts a young monk’s near-miraculous escape from the Red Guards who destroyed his monastery and murdered his fellow monks. He fled over three thousand miles to Hong Kong carrying with him only five books of poetry and his monk’s certificate, both of which would have meant certain death had they been discovered. His mission was to escape the Cultural Revolution and carry on the teachings of his Ch’an Buddhist master, Shuih Deng, who was too old to leave with his disciples. The second journey takes place more than thirty-five years later, as Tsung Tsai, now an old master himself, leaves his cabin in Woodstock, New York, to travel with his friend George Crane back to Mongolia in search of the bones of his master – to rebury Shuih Deng with the proper Buddhist ceremonies – and to lay the foundation of a new monastery in a China that is rediscovering its spiritual roots. Tsung Tsai says, ‘I a