Home › Magazine › Fall 1996 › Original Dwelling Place: Zen Buddhist Essays

Original Dwelling Place: Zen Buddhist Essays

Michael Sierchio

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Robert Aitken

Counterpoint: Washington, D.C., 1996.

256 pp., $22.00 (cloth).

This new collection of essays by Robert Aitken Roshi takes its title from case 42 of the classic Chinese koan collection Wu-men Kuan, “Gateless Barrier.” In this koan Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, arrives at the scene of a great assembly of Buddhas only to find that all have returned to their original dwelling place. This “original dwelling place,” not a specific location but rather a state of mind, is the recurring theme of Aitken’s book.

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