ZEN DUST [ROSHI ROBERT AITKEN'S COPY] + TYPED AND SIGNED POSTCARD

ROSHI ROBERT AITKEN'S COPY SIGNED ON THE FRONT ENDPAPER. Also included is a typed and signed postcard dated May, 1979 to Zen Pioneer Bill Kembo Wyatt (the first person ordained as a Zen monk on British soil) mentioning W. S. Merwin (a student at Aitken's Maui Zendo) and Aitken's friend Gary Snyder. First and only edition of this indispensable work for Zen students. Thick octavo bound in bright orange cloth with gilt titles to spine and Chinese characters blind-stamped to front board. xxii, 574 pages. In the scarce price-intact dust jacket. Text includes background notes, descriptive bibliography, 12 genealogical charts, 2 maps, indexes, and 10 plates of reproductions of drawings by Hakuin. Extended biographies of more than fifty major Chinese and Japanese Zen figures set the historical background of Koan Zen, and trace the characteristic styles of the various masters. Ruth Fuller Sasaki was abbess of the Zen temple of Ryosen-an, Daitoku-ji, Kyoto, where she served as director of the First Zen Institute of America. This important text was one of the early books Sasaki saw to completion at The First Zen Institute with the help of Philip Yampolsky, Burton Watson, and the poet Gary Snyder. Koan study is the method of religious practice unique in the traditional Zen Buddhist school of China and Japan. This book is the first scholarly examination in any language of this method for bringing the student to and maturing the experience of satori - direct intuitive awakening to Reality - tracing this technique from its inception in T'ang China to its culmination under the 18th century Japanese Rinzai master Hakuin. A publishing flaw has left a crinkled edge to page 97 otherwise a tight, clean and unmarked copy. In a very good price-intact dust jacket with only minor spine sunning, now in a protective archival wrap. A unique and important association copy. See photos.…