Adventures of the Mad Monk Ji Gong: The Drunken Wisdom of China's Famous Chan Buddhist Monk

Description

Follow the brilliant and hilarious adventures of a mad Zen Buddhist monk who rose from humble beginnings to become one of China's greatest folk heroes! Ji Gong studied at the great Ling Yin monastery, an immense temple that still ranges up the steep hills above Hangzhou, near Shanghai. The Chan (Zen) Buddhist masters of the temple tried to instruct Ji Gong in the spartan practices of their sect, but the young monk, following in the footsteps of other great ne'er-do-wells, distinguished himself mainly by getting expelled. He left the monastery, became a wanderer with hardly a proper piece of clothing to wear, and achieved great renown-in seedy wine shops and drinking establishments! This could have been where Ji Gong's story ended. But his unorthodox style of Buddhism soon made him a hero for popular storytellers of the Song dynasty era and Ji Gong remains popular in China even today, where he regularly appears as the wise old drunken fool in movies and TV shows.

"This admirable translation by John Robert Shaw maintains the boisterous flavor of the original tales, salted as they are with rogues and bandits, women both beautiful and plain, pompous wealthy who are brought down a notch or two, magicians and potions that heal and kill, and an array of eccentric characters of which Ji Gong is but one, albeit the most important." --The Zen Site blog "The enduring value of John Robert Shaw's translation is to make this critical text available, for the first time, to a large western audience so that this discussion can begin to move forward. It is my prediction that Crazy Ji has only just begun his own journey to the West." --Kung Fu Tea blog