Front cover image for Zen and the birds of appetite

Zen and the birds of appetite

Thomas Merton (Author)
Collection of essays about complex Asian concepts with a Western directness. Merton believed that there must be a little of Zen in all authentic creative and spiritual experience and the Study of Zen, then, is not a study of doctrine, still less a polemic about ultimate religious principles, it is simply an attempt to reach the ground of pure, direct experience which underlies all creative thought and activity. His essays approach this experience through Japanese art and philosophy (Kataro Nishida), through the Zen of Suzuki, and through the Classic Zen Masters themselves. Dialogue between Merton and Suzuki explores the many congruencies of Christian mysticism and Zen
Print Book, English, 1968
New Directions Publishing Corporation, New York, 1968
essays
ix, 141 pages ; 21 cm
9780811201049, 081120104X
276806