Taiwan

Reuven BenYuhmin

My three most important teachers/influences to date: Suzuki Roshi, late abbot Tassajara Zen Monastery where I was head gardener ('69-'71). Roshi taught beginner's mind, a beginning again & again that never ends. Alan Chadwick, master horticulturist, threw rocks at us at Green Gulch Farm & asked us to perform impossible Malarepian tasks. He brought everyone to tears; I smiled he smiled back. & late master calligrapher, Hsieh Tzung-An, with whom I studied for twenty years. Reverence & respect, he taught, induce a stillness of mind & a mind in repose becomes the mirror of the universe. Calligraphic speciality, the Great Seal Script found on ancient Chou Dynasty bronzeware. Lectures on aesthetics & exhibits of my calligraphy in US (1987) sponsored by the Taiwan government.

Have lived in Taiwan since 1978 & teach contemporary American poetry/poetics at National Central University, Chung-Li.

Ordained Buddhist monk here in Taiwan (1980). Took robes in Burma, ordained Samiddhi Bhikkhu by Venerable Sayadaw U. Janaka (1995).

Publakaka: Kumarks Dancing With Chitta Before The World: Collected Poems 1978-1994 (1994); Click The Light Switch (1994); sTimulate (Aleya Dharma Press, 1994) written during a 100 day fast; The Green Book (Aleya Dharma Press, 1994); Mahakasyapa Smiled (1995); Our I Dear (1996); Mind of The Happy One (1997); Thisembalance (1998); Evam (2000) 8 years of practice for this & from which "Born To Be Separated" and "Optics Inclines" are taken. Pearls In A Pile Of Shit (2000); Pastel Presents (2000) Out of Order (2001) & more, many many more all unpublished except where publisher is noted. Picture/poems published in Jack, Fish Drum, Sugar Mule, Butterfly, Living Nutrition, etc.

Writing & olives, my last addictions. Yeah, let it all go!

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