Udumbara Surfs the Storm - A Memoir by Most Venerable Thich Nguyen Sieu

<p><strong>Since 1963 for over thirty-five years Vietnamese Buddhismhas shaken the very roots of all political foundations of the country. </strong>For that reason-and many others-certain prejudiced individuals have sought all sorts of foolish arguments to condemn Vietnamese Buddhism and Buddhistmonastics. They label the all-encompassing actions of a Bodhisattva to transform the world as nothing more than a subsidiary act dismissively calling it 'engaging in politics.'</p><p class=ql-align-justify>Naturally those who have accused the venerable monks of 'engagingin politics' are precisely the sort of people who have never truly understood the meaning of 'engaging' or 'politics'-let alone the profound transcendent and compassionate actions of a Bodhisattva.</p><p>Anyone who wishes to have a sound notion of the all-encompassing action of Vietnamese Buddhism in this twentieth century and the next one either into the infinitefuture or conversely back two thousand years of Vietnamese Buddhism should at least once read this book the work <em>Ưu Đàm Lướt Bão </em>by The Most Venerable Thích Nguyên Siêu. This is a meticulously compiled work replete with historical materials and precise concrete facts. More than that an important point must be made here: to write about the all-encompassing action of Vietnamese Buddhism in the modern era the writer must be a monastic who has lived his entire life under the roof of the Temple in the midst of the storms of the homeland.</p>