{"title":"Books by Ryokan","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780834805705","title":"One Robe, One Bowl","description":"The hermit-monk Ryokan, long beloved in Japan both for his poetry and for his character, belongs in the tradition of the great Zen eccentrics of China and Japan. His reclusive life and celebration of nature and the natural life also bring to mind his younger American contemporary, Thoreau. Ryokan's poetry is that of the mature Zen master, its deceptive simplicity revealing an art that surpasses artifice. Although Ryokan was born in eighteenth-century Japan, his extraordinary poems, capturing in a few luminous phrases both the beauty and the pathos of human life, reach far beyond time and place to touch the springs of humanity.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56294970458485,"sku":"9780834805705","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780834805705_cf8273f9-a089-49b6-b049-cf0d53f98b06.jpg?v=1786015895"},{"product_id":"9781590309827","title":"Sky Above, Great Wind","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe delightful and often funny poetry of Zen’s quintessential free spirit, Master Ryokan—in a fresh translation by a beloved American Zen figure\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRyokan Taigu (1758-1831) was a monk in the Soto lineage of Japanese Zen who spent a good part of his life as a hermit, writing poetry, playing with children, and creating simple and exquisitely beautiful calligraphies—sometimes using twigs as his instrument when he couldn't afford a brush. He was never head of a monastery or temple and as an old man, he fell in love with a young Zen nun who also became his student. His affection for her colors the mature poems of his late period.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis loving tribute to the great legendary nonconformist includes more than 140 of his poems, 13 examples of his art, and a selection of laugh-out-loud funny anecdotes about his highly idiosyncratic teaching behavior.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304307994997,"sku":"9781590309827","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781590309827_f08fb11f-8c2b-4f82-94d7-25de0a444c6c.jpg?v=1786023132"},{"product_id":"9781966608158","title":"This and That","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eZen poems of everyday awakening.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA fresh translation of short poems by the Japanese Zen poet Ryokan that reads well as modern American poetry, accompanied by an introduction and commentaries on the poems from the translators. Most of the existing translations are stiff, or sentimental, or awkward as poems in English. This effort is comparable to Gary Snyder's Han-Shan poems, or Thomas Merton’s \u003ci\u003eChuang-Tzu\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne of the greatest poets of the Edo period and certainly one of the most loved, Ryokan was a highly original and eccentric master artist and Zen practitioner. A solitary hermit who begged for food and lived among the poor, often in dire need himself, his offbeat poems are moments of everyday awakening, characterized, as was his personality, by both austerity and playfulness. This translation aims to retain Ryokan’s charm without undue sentiment or saint-making, allowing for his rougher edges to appear.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56369452843381,"sku":"9781966608158","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781966608158_088d5a2a-5e14-4468-847a-11d329065b43.jpg?v=1786030865"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-ryokan.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}