Stranger in Tibet: The Adventures of a Wandering Zen Monk

by Scott Berry

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0870118587
• ISBN13: 9780870118586
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Kodansha
• Length: 324 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.

Customer Reviews

an unforgettable read...

I picked up and read this book some 10 years ago, and reflect upon it often. It is one of the most entertaining and amusing stories i have read, and the appeal is as much in the narrative as in the story line. The simple fact that it is a true story makes the tale even more remarkable. To even begin to imagine trying to retrace the journey, or attempt it in the way Kawaguchi did, would be foolish 100 years later, even with the maps and knowledge of the region. Buy the book, and enjoy one of the most curious, lively characters of the 20th century.

combines his journey with overview of the important places he stopped/passed

with the particular buddhist context, in an accesible type of prose, stripped of too much jargon and history

An unforgettable story

I still cherish the memory of reading this book. There are many reasons to recommend it, but I love it as a combination humorous travel story and spiritual reflection. It is also an interesting example of how identity and conciousness can transform in the crucible of a foreign culture. This book is great as travel writing, spiritual writing and personal history.

an all-time favorite

I picked up a copy of this book in a bookstore in Katmandu as a result of a recommendation from someone that had already spent time in the area. For me, just beginning on a month-long trek, the detailed description of the subject's travels were amazing. This is in part because the western most portion of a famous trek in Nepal (Annapurna Circuit) are covered during the adventure. However, now, 19 years after my trek I have begun to read this book again and am struck by the author's careful, almost painstaking attention to the details of the subject's trek through parts of Nepal and into Tibet about 100 years ago. This is truly a book that takes you back in time and lets you imagine what it must have been like to travel to a totally foreign and forbidding country with no safety net to achieve a goal as empowering as locating original religious manuscripts. If you have ever wanted to imagine what true adventure is like, this is the book for you. It is not clear that there are adventures left like this in the world. The story is filled with episodes when the traveler logically should have either frozen, starved, or been otherwise killed. Of course, for a book like this to succeed the story must be unimaginable on some level but still possible. The details are barely believable (such as ending up teaching within Lhasa while being a foreigner). However, the real mystery, never solved, concerns the subject of the story himself. One is left wishing to have met this bizarre and infuriating combination of bungling and brilliance.

Allternative View On Old Tibet

Scott Berry brought to light a most unusual book on Tibet based on the turn of the century manuscript of a Zen Monk's adventures in Tibet. Kawaguchi Ekai "Three Years In Tibet" was the contemporary of Alexandra David-Neel and Sir Francis Younghusband, the famous Tibetologist. The uniqueness of this book is that for the very first time, an account of Tibet was told from the Asian point of view. Kawaguchi was born in the Meiji Restoration Era, but he was certainly not a conformist of that era, he was much too eccentric for his time. Although the Meiji Era symbolizes the modernization and opening of Japan as well as the adoption of a strong Japanese identity; Kawaguchi was the direct opposite, a throwback to a much earlier age of high adventure focusing on Buddhist spiritual development. During the Meiji Restoration, western culture and western scientific methods were making inroads into the Japanese system, downplaying China's symbolic role in Japan. All things Chinese especially Buddhism was despise at, instead the state cult of Shintoism gained much favour of the Royal Court and the ruling clique. The Emperor though still a puppet emperor became the focus of the new cult of the emperor as the living embodiment of Amaretsu, the so called descendant of the Sun God. Kawaguchi had very strong affinity with Buddhism. In his early life although not yet a monk, he took the shojin vows of refraining from meat, alcohol and maintaining celibacy. Kawaguchi was first ordained in the Obaku sect (Obakusan or Mampukuji) a Buddhist sect imported to Japan during the Ming Dynasty retaining much of its Chinese influences like liturgy recitation and even the style of vegetarian cooking remained close to its Chinese identity. Although a member of this sect, Kawaguchi was disillusion with the worldliness of the members of the Sangha, his quest was for the original teachings that remains the heart and soul of the Buddhist Tripitaka. No other place suits his quest except for Tibet, where Sanskrit Buddhist texts remains locked up in the various monasteries as a safeguard from the Muslim invasion of India. Scott Berry illustrated the zest of Kawaguchi, comparing him with Hsuan Tung, the illustrious pilgrim criss-crossing deserts, vast nations, various tribes etc in his quest for Buddhist holy texts. Kawaguchi was not unlike the modern incarnation of Hsuan Tung. His quest for Buddhist texts brought him to Darjeeling, India (Little Tibet) where he stayed for almost a year, accustoming to the Tibetan culture and language. Tibet at the turn of the century was a very feudal nation, the rule of the Dalai Lama was totalitarian and unquestionable. China's influence in Tibet remained very strong, the Chinese Ambans acted as agents of the Manchu Court influencing various policies of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso. Tibet did not welcome visitors to her land, she was closed to foreigners except Buddhist pilgrims from Mongol