The Moss Garden Journal Of Chan Wing Tsit

1750. A young Buddhist priest traveling to Korea is caught in storms, driven across the Pacific and shipwrecked. Lacking survival skills, he is taken in by the local people who are far from the barbarians he expected; they are complex, political, sophisticated, urbane and multilingual; a community of traders and priests with deep cultural and spiritual ways and little need for his Buddhist dharma.What does a Buddhist priest have to offer a complex, sophisticated culture steeped in political and commercial intrigue? Shipwrecked and alone among people of an ancient tradition with deep understanding of spiritual and pragmatic ways, who speak numerous languages and are preeminent traders maintaining deep and powerful social and spiritual customs, a young priest is forced to come to grips with the deeper teachings of his own path. This historical novel follows him as his assumptions of superiority fall away and he explores both the deeper aspects of Buddhism and the complex indigenous spiritual and cultural traditions he finds himself immersed in. The Chinook people were among the most sophisticated and successful trading communities of the nations of not only the Pacific Northwest, but of the entire Continent. Their business and political machinations rivaled those of any empire or culture in history. Murder, love, intrigue and endless plots drive our protagonist's journey of personal and cultural discovery as he comes to grips with both his own and his new family's challenges, strengths and weaknesses.