Tales from the Temple: A Collection of Zen Prose Poems Translated from the Korean

In this collection of prose poems, Musan Cho Oh-hyun, renowned abbot of Baekdamsa, one of Korea’s central Zen temples, innovates on a millenia-old Buddhist literary tradition going back to Buddhist classics like the Biographies of Eminent Monks. Tales from the Temple not only presents instructive and amusing anecdotes from the lives of famous monistics from Korea, Japan, and China, it also depicts the lives and concerns of the common people-undertakers, fish mongers, fishermen, blacksmiths, and farmers-in a way that critiques social hierarchy and particularly monastic pride.