The Heart Sutra is the most widely read, chanted, and copied text in East Asian Buddhism. Here Frederik L. Schodt explores his lifelong fascination with the sutra: its mesmerizing mantra, its ancient history, the "emptiness" theory, and the way it is used around the world as a metaphysical tool to overcome chaos and confusion and reach a new understanding of reality--a perfection of wisdom. Schodt's journey takes him to caves in China, American beats declaiming poetry, speculations into the sutra's true origins, and even a robot Avalokitesvara at a Kyoto temple.


My Heart Sutra: A World in 260 Characters, Frederik L. Schodt, Stone Bridge Press, Paperback, 248 pp, $16.95

Frederik L. Schodt is a writer, translator, and conference interpreter based in the San Francisco Bay area. He has written widely on Japanese history, popular culture, and technology. His writings on manga, and his translations of them, helped trigger the current popularity of Japanese comics in the English-speaking world, and in 2000 resulted in his being awarded the Special Category of the Asahi Shimbun's prestigious Osamu Tezuka Culture Award. In the same year, his translation of Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama's 1931 pioneering graphic novel The Four Immigrants Manga, was selected as a finalist in Pen West USA translation award. In 2009, Fred was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, for his work in helping to promote Japan's popular culture overseas. Also, in the same year he was awarded the "Special" category of the Ministry of Foreign Affair's 3rd International Manga Award.

Fred's WEBSITE-- http://www.jai2.com |
TALKS-- http://www.jai2.com/ABE_Talks.htm |
BIBLIOGRAPHY-- http://www.jai2.com/Mybiblio.htm