Tag Archives: John Blofeld

If I were ever forced to evacuate my residence due to some cataclysmic-event and I could only take with me one item, it would without question be “The Zen Teaching of Huang Po.” Others have used the analogy of being stuck alone on a desert island and having this as their sole possession would surely suffice their intellectual needs. Huang Po is the old Grand Master and quintessential Zen Buddhist  teacher of the Tang Dynasty (died circa 850).  Huang Po’s teaching encompasses and encapsulates so many angles of the Buddhadharma and Mind-Only school that his work is simply an indispensable Mind-tool. Like the above image for this blog-post, I have many copies of Blofeld’s translation but my favorite by far is the 1994 Shambhala Pocket Classic; unfortunately, the Shambhala editions of Zen classics have dispensed with many of the “pocket-series”–Blofeld’s marvelous work among them.  Copies of the out of print pocket-book edition are going for triple-digit figures! I routinely carry mine with me when dining-out, it’s like an old and faithful companion. read more