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BOOK REVIEW | EASTERN HORIZON 39
BOOK REVIEW
Dharma Drum Mountain Taiwan Dharma Drum Retreat Center New York, USA
Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts, Taiwan Dharma Drum Center Vancouver, Canada
They taught me to find discarded fruit and bread in mission to bring the dharma to the West. Besides, what
back of convenience stores and food markets. They did it matter? The lessons Dongchu had taught me made
showed me that I could make a little money here and it a matter of indifference to me whether I slept in a big
there from odd jobs, sweeping up shops or tending a room or a small room or in the doorway of a church.
pretzel stand. I learned that I could store my things in a
locker at Grand Central Terminal and wash clothes at a Some people may have felt pity for me, but I didn’t pity
laundromat. myself. I didn’t feel that I was unlucky. Some people
feared me and worried that I would ask for money or
My students pointed out the fast-food restaurants that other help. I decided it was best not to call on anyone,
were open twenty-four hours, and they told me that although I did accept some offers of help. I spent nights
I could spend my nights at these places, resting and at the apartments of my followers. Master Haolin
drinking coffee. welcomed me and let me stay at his monastery in
Chinatown. But I did not want to stay there too long,
I wandered through the city, a monk in old robes, because I did not know if I would be able to repay him
sleeping in doorways, nodding with the homeless for this service. I preferred to wander.
through the night in coffee shops, foraging through
dumpsters for fruit and vegetables. I was in my early This may strike some of you as strange—that a friend
fifties, no spring chicken, but I was lit from within by my and fellow monk would let me leave his monastery to
