Dropping Ashes on the Buddha

Zen teaching is like a window. At first, we look at it and see only a vague reflection of our own face. But as we learn, and our vision becomes clear, the teaching becomes clearer too. Until finally it becomes completely transparent. We see through it. We see everything. Our own face.

This book is a collection of Sung San’s teachings in America—dialogues, stories, formal Zen interviews, Dharma sermons, and letters. Words arise as situations appear; each situation is both a game and a matter of life and death.

Compiled and published by S. Mitchell, New York, 1976.
Sung San Tae Son Sa Nim (Korean: 숭산행원대선사) (1 August 1927 — 30 November 2004) — a Zen master of the Korean Buddhist order Jogye. Founder of the international Zen school Kwan Um. The seventy-eighth teacher in the lineage of the teaching from Shakyamuni Buddha. The first among Zen masters of Korean Buddhism to start teaching in the West. Taught intensively around the world starting in 1972 until his death. In recognition of his merits in spreading the teaching, the Jogye order granted him the title Tae Son Sa Nim (Great Honored Teacher).