Love Rōshi

<p><b>Robert Baker Aitken's correspondence with Buddhist sympathizers and solo practitioners reveals a significant little-understood aspect of American Buddhism.</b></p><p>Love Roshi explores the relationship between Robert Baker Aitken (1917-2010) American Zen teacher and author and his distant correspondents individuals drawn to Zen teachings and practice through books. Aitken founder of the Honolulu Diamond Sangha promoted Zen to a wide audience in works such as Taking the Path of Zen and The Mind of Clover. Aitken's twentieth-century American Zen valued social justice and was compatible with work and family life.</p><p>Helen J. Baroni makes use of Aitken's extensive correspondence preserved in an archive at the University of Hawaii to provide a window to view the beliefs and practices of the least-studied-and a difficult to study-segment of the Western Buddhist community Buddhist sympathizers and solo practitioners. The book looks at the concerns of these correspondents which included questions on meditation dealing with isolation as a Buddhist finding teachers and disillusion with teachers and being a Buddhist in prison among a myriad of other matters. The writers' letters reveal much about their notion of Zen and their image of a Zen master. Coverage of Aitken's responses provides insight into the accommodation of solo practitioners and into the development of a particular strain of American Buddhism.</p>