What motivated Sodo-san to spend the last twenty years of his life in a “temple under the skyâ€â€• a corner of a public park where he taught passersby what it means to be forever young through the funky tunes he played on his grass flute?
In The Grass Flute Zen Master: Sodo Yokoyama, we are seeking not only a truer understanding of this well-loved monk, but of zazen, Zen meditation, itself. In his search for insights into Sodo Yokoyama’s life, Arthur Braverman skillfully weaves a tapestry from seemingly disparate threads―the brief taisho period into which Sodo-san was born and where individualism shone; his teachers, both ancient and contemporary practitioners of Zen Bhuddism; the monk’s love of baseball; and the similarities Braverman finds between Sodo-san and Walt Whitman, who both found the universal in nature.
Through conversations with Joko Shibata, Yokoyama’s sole disciple, and careful study of his teacher’s poetry, an intriguing tension between the personal and the universal is revealed.