Liza Dalby
With its fascinating story of characters caught up in a world they themselves don't understand, Hidden Buddhas may well be Liza Dalby's best work yet. Besides taking us on a journey through little-known corners of Japan, it offers us an engaging and believable portrait of people driven to do things they may not have imagined." --Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha According to esoteric Buddhist theology, the world is suffering through a final corrupt era. Many in Japan believe that after the world ends, the Buddha of the Future will appear and bring about a new age of enlightenment. Hundreds of temples in Japan are known to keep mysterious hidden buddhas secreted away except on rare designated viewing days. Are they being protected, or are they protecting the world? From these ancient notions of doom and rebirth comes a startling new novel by the acclaimed author of Geisha and The Tale of Murasaki. Hidden Buddhas: A Novel of Karma and Chaos explores the karmic connections between Japanese fashion, pilgrimage, dying honeybees, bad girls with cell phones, murder by blowfish, and the Buddhist apocalypse. Something of a Buddhist Da Vinci Code, Hidden Buddhas travels through time to expose a mystery you will never forget."
“In white, everything was vividly stark, like those line drawings in which everyone's black hair seems to literally to grow from the paper.”
“I could always tell when I was ready to write again, for I became irritable.”
“I was convinced the answer to life's enigmas must lie in connecting our emotional yearnings to nature.”
“Fate is unmoved by one's pitiful hopes; what changes, bowing to fate, is what one hopes for.”
“This journey was the last time I could freely caress my memories. I imagined a small lacquered box inlaid with silver and gold in a pattern of curling waves, inset with silver cranes. Into this imaginary box I placed all my memories of Ming-gwok and secretly tucked it away in my heart.”
“Започнах да изпитвам чувството, че на моменти сърцата ни се пристрастяват с особена сила към някои природни явления. Пламтящото небе, когато есен слънцето потъва зад оголените клони на дърветата, отеква в сърцата ни със самотния блясък на умираща красота. Затова поетът използва образа на залеза, за да запечата есента в своята поема. Залезът е същината на есента. Всеки сезон си има своите образи, отразяващи същността му, изразена посредством поетична чувствителност.”
“I cannot pretend that I understood my mother at the end of her life. I was trying to follow the goals she had set me even though she had rejected them for herself. I took the following to be her death poem: Why do we suffer so in the world? Just regard life as the short bloom of the mountain cherry. Over the years, my opinion of this poem changed. At first I considered it another lament in the pessimistic mode she so often adopted. Then one day I realized it was actually joyous, and my entire understanding of her was transformed. In the end she had no more sorrow than does a cherry blossom at its falling.”
“It seemed to me that people do a rather good job of creating levels of hell all by themselves, and this was something worth writing about.”
“What was the point, I told myself, of trying to explain to people who would never understand? Frankness just stirred up trouble amoung women who thought only of themselves, always looking for reasons to carp and complain. It was so rare to find anyone who truly understood, I had learned to keep my thoughts to myself. In fact, if I had never had the experience of knowing such a one, I might have said it was impossible. Most people judge everything by their own narrow standards. Page 357”
“But how ridiculous that I should bereft simply because I couldn’t spend hours in my world of make-believe! Wasn’t the reality of my life interesting enough? This is surely the time to let go of grievances, I told myself sternly. What good does it do to dwell on them? Brooding on a nest of grudges will only hatch more grief.”
“Why couldn’t I simply accept things as they were and be grateful? I wondered. How I envied people whose desires were simple and who could find joy in life as it is. Surely there was no reason why I shouldn’t take pleasure in the marvelous things I was in a position to see and hear – yet all I felt was weariness. Page 329”
“I realized that when we finally reached Miyako, I would be stepping into a new life and would have to stop thinking about Ming-gwok. I imagined a small lacquered box inlaid with silver and gold in a pattern of curling waves, inset with silver cranes. Into this imaginary box I placed all my memories of Ming-gwok and secretly tucked it away in my heart.”
“The moon is more interesting than the unchanging sun. That is surely why it is used in poetry and the sun is not—unless one talks of dawn or dusk, when the sun briefly hovers on the edge of day.”