EBOOK
About
What did your face look like before your parents were born? In “The Face: A Time Code”, bestselling author and Zen Buddhist priest Ruth Ozeki recounts, in moment-to-moment detail, a profound encounter with memory and the mirror. According to ancient Zen tradition, "your face before your parents were born" is your true face. Who are you? What is your true self? What is your identity before or beyond the dualistic distinctions, like father/mother and good/evil, that define us?
With these questions in mind, Ozeki challenges herself to spend three hours gazing into her own reflection, recording her thoughts, and noticing every possible detail. Those solitary hours open up a lifetime's worth of meditations on race, aging, family, death, the body, self-doubt, and, finally, acceptance. In this lyrical short memoir, Ozeki calls on her experience of growing up in the wake of World War II as a half-Japanese, half-Caucasian American, of having a public face as an author, of studying the intricate art of the Japanese Noh mask, of being ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest, and of her own and her parents' aging, to paint a rich and utterly unique portrait of a life as told through a face.
With these questions in mind, Ozeki challenges herself to spend three hours gazing into her own reflection, recording her thoughts, and noticing every possible detail. Those solitary hours open up a lifetime's worth of meditations on race, aging, family, death, the body, self-doubt, and, finally, acceptance. In this lyrical short memoir, Ozeki calls on her experience of growing up in the wake of World War II as a half-Japanese, half-Caucasian American, of having a public face as an author, of studying the intricate art of the Japanese Noh mask, of being ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest, and of her own and her parents' aging, to paint a rich and utterly unique portrait of a life as told through a face.
Related Subjects
Reviews
"Ruth Ozeki, a Zen Buddhist priest, sets herself the task of staring at her face in a mirror for three full, uninterrupted hours; her ruminations ripple out from personal and familial memories to wise and honest meditations on families and aging, race and the body."
Patricia Hagen
"This long essay, like the experiment it describes, is strange in the best sense, plus funny, moving and deeply wise."
Porter Shreve
"The Face, as with the best of literary nonfiction, incorporates elements of memoir and essay, conjecture and meditation, allowing the reader to accompany each author as he or she creates a text that is utterly unique and universally affecting. Each book, on its own, is quirky, funny, sad, and profound; taken together, they have much to tell us about the culture at large, the ties that bind, and t
Dinah Lenney
Extended Details
- SeriesFace