Appalachian Zen - by Steve Kanji Ruhl (Paperback)

About the Book

"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 minister teaching Zen. Author Steve Kanji Ruhl takes readers on an adventure of discovery, roving far from the Appalachian Mountains of central Pennsylvania on a footloose Zen pilgrimage to Japan and beyond. Featuring vivid firsthand accounts of spiritual seeking and teaching in Japanese temples, as well as forays to Tokyo and Hiroshima, the alleys of Kyoto, Amish cornfields near the Susquehanna, and a monastery in the Catskills, Appalachian Zen includes robust historical sketches, rapt nature passages, and cultural references ranging from Proust to punk rock. Throughout the book, Ruhl engages the Buddhist themes of awakening and death of the self by confronting the lives and deaths, including two by suicide, of his loved ones. This provocative memoir tells how it feels to practice Zen, and to move toward a life of hard-won forgiveness, healing, and freedom"--

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2023 Nautilus Book Awards Gold Prize for Memoir

This luminous memoir combines the hardscrabble setting of Appalachia with the spiritual wisdom of Shunryu Suzuki's classic Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.

"Amazing and intense. A unique, entertaining, and valuable contribution to the Dharma literature, Appalachian Zen addresses a part of the Western Dharma world that hasn't received much attention: class." -Rev. Sumi Loundon Kim, Yale University, author of Blue Jean Buddha and Sitting Together

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 minister teaching Zen. Author Steve Kanji Ruhl takes readers on an adventure of discovery, roving far from the Appalachian Mountains of central Pennsylvania on a footloose Zen pilgrimage to Japan and beyond.

Featuring vivid firsthand accounts of spiritual seeking and teaching in Japanese temples, as well as forays to Tokyo and Hiroshima, the alleys of Kyoto, Amish cornfields near the Susquehanna, and a monastery in the Catskills, Appalachian Zen includes robust historical sketches, rapt nature passages, and cultural references ranging from Proust to punk rock. Throughout the book, Ruhl engages Buddhist themes of awakening and the death of the self by confronting the lives and deaths, including two by suicide, of his loved ones. This provocative memoir tells how it feels to practice Zen, and to move toward a life of hard-won forgiveness, healing, and freedom.

Review Quotes

"Amazing and intense. A unique, entertaining, and valuable contribution to the Dharma literature, Appalachian Zen addresses a part of the Western Dharma world that hasn't received much attention: class." -Rev. Sumi Loundon Kim, Buddhist Chaplain, Yale University, author of Blue Jean Buddha and Sitting Together

"Zen is becoming native to America and the West, and there's no better place to see what this looks like than with Steve Kanji Ruhl's Appalachian Zen. It's an intimate memoir; you can taste and smell and feel his journey into the depths. At the same time, it's a very good invitation into the details of a contemporary Zen life. I strongly recommend it." -James Ishmael Ford, author of Introduction to Zen Koans: Learning the Language of Dragons

"Appalachian Zen is the record of the journey of a restless soul in search of home, who finds it, finally, in the dynamic silence of Zen. Steve Kanji Ruhl's poetic descriptions of his birthplace in hardscrabble Appalachian Pennsylvania, his wanderings through Japan, his education in elite universities, and of the often harrowing incidents of his life, make this book an engrossing read. What is life, what is death, why are we here? No one avoids such questions, here explored with honesty and depth." - Norman Fischer, Zen priest and poet, author of When You Greet Me I Bow: Reflections from a Life in Zen and Selected Poems 1980-2013

"This beautifully written memoir traces the author's pilgrim's progress from the conservative American heartland to the depths of the Buddhist dharma, mirroring Martin Buber's claim that every journey has a 'secret destination of which the traveler is unaware.' Insightful, accessible, and emotionally transparent, this epic spiritual journey from West to East and back again will open your mind and widen your heart. I recommend it highly." - Mark Matousek, author of Sex Death Enlightenment and When You're Falling, Dive

"A wise, wonderful, and fierce book." - Andrew Harvey

"Ruhl charts his extraordinary life, from growing up in Appalachia to becoming a Zen Buddhist minister....[His] Ruhl's remembrance is exceedingly intelligent and full of lucid insights into the character of Zen Buddhism as well as the failings of 'contemporary pop-Buddhism' in the Western world." - Kirkus Reviews

"In this incisive memoir, Zen Buddhist minister Ruhl (Enlightened Contemporaries) reflects on his tumultuous relationship with his Appalachian Pennsylvania roots... Readers will find this a powerful synthesis of American Zen philosophy and cultural analysis." - Publishers Weekly

"Steve Kanji Ruhl's Appalachian Zen, a riveting account of the seeker's journey, a long winding road of loss, love, forgiveness and liberation, is destined to become a classic among spiritual memoirs. It shows us that Zen is not so much about ritual or practice as it is about a life lived with courage and curiosity." - Willa Blythe Baker, founder and spiritual d

About the Author

STEVE KANJI RUHL, ordained as a Zen Buddhist minister through the Zen Peacemaker Order, is the author of Enlightened Contemporaries and two volumes of poems, The Constant Yes of Things and Paintings of Rice Cakes Satisfy Hunger. He received his Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University and has been a speaker at Harvard's Center for World Religions, Yale Divinity School, the Omega Institute, and elsewhere. A Buddhist adviser at Yale University and faculty member of the Shogaku Zen Institute, Ruhl also teaches independently through his Touch the Earth cyber-sangha. He lives in western Massachusetts. www.sevekanjiruhl.com