Appalachian Zen: Journeys in Search of True Home, from the American Heartland to the Buddha Dharma

This luminous memoir combines the hardscrabble setting of Appalachia with the spiritual wisdom of Shunryu Suzuki's classic Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Appalachian Zen describes a journey we all take, one that Buddhism calls "seeking our true home." Edgy, lyrical, and lovingly rendered, this book recounts how a kid from a Pennsylvania mill-town trailer park grew up-surrounded by backwoods farms and amid grief, violence, and passionate yearning-to become something improbable: a Buddhist minist...