Bad Dog!: A Memoir of Love, Beauty, and Redemption in Dark Places | 
 enlarge | Author: Lin Jensen
Publisher: Wisdom Publications
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $4.01
You Save: $11.94 (75%)
New (28) Used (22) Collectible (1) from $1.55
Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 758374
Media: Paperback
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.8
ISBN: 0861714865
Dewey Decimal Number: 294.3927092
EAN: 9780861714865
ASIN: 0861714865
Publication Date: July 27, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: In stock - Immediate despatch from an efficient and professional leading British bookselling firm.
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Product Description
Today, Lin Jensen is a Zen master. But before that, he had to get through a difficult childhood and a difficult life. Bad Dog! is Jensen's sometimes quirky, sometimes poignant telling of the long path he took to inner peace. In over 40 short, interlocking pieces, Jensen uncovers his personal history, starting with his early life on a struggling farm in the dusty, quiet Midwest. Jensen eventually reaches college where he encounters a new world and a new passion, poetry, before entering into a marriage that is destined to fail. The one constant throughout Jensen's life is the search for meaning, — a search that leads him to finally awaken to his calling in Zen. Always engaging, Jensen's quiet stories subtly reflect on the currents of love, beauty, and redemption that run through all lives. His simple prose rings with insight at just the right moments, making Bad Dog! a book that will appeal to anyone who's ever looked for life's little bright spots.
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| Customer Reviews:
One of the most beautiful books I've read July 30, 2006
Mary Rosendale
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I'm a fan of really good writing as well as Buddhism. I read this book several months ago and always meant to write a review about it. So today I finally got around to it and browsed the reviews written before me to see that all the superlatives had been already taken.
Gut-wrenching, beautiful,powerful.
This book touched me as very few have. It is a must-read regardless of its subject matter because of the quality of the writing alone. I could feel this kid's life. His loneliness, alienation and neediness.
Like many great books it can be read on different levels. As a personal memoir of growing up in a particular time and place with a particular type of upbringing. As a lay Buddhist book; essentially a primer of how to step away from a world of samsara and build for yourself, step by step, act by act, a life of peace, love and compassion.
What a journey he's had. How amazing that he shared it with us.
It's an elegant, lyrical, deceptively "deep" book which really deserves a much wider audience.(Read it and imagine that it's Number One on the N.Y. Times bestseller list and see if you feel just a little more hopeful).
Brilliant. June 9, 2006
Joel T. Patterson (Cambridge, MA USA)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Stark, and beautiful.
Many people, like the author's father, assert that the best response to tough times is to be cold and tough in our actions. But throughout his lifetime, in the shadow of the Great Depression and his cruel father, the author stayed true to his own inner desire for compassion.
And he has lived to tell us about it.
Redemption redux January 15, 2006
LB Curlew (Chico, CA)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
The first story "Bad Dog" evokes the recurring theme of the entire collection: Redemption in a world of sorrow. It spans the author's life through more than fifty years in a mere six pages. An essence of humilty is evident as you try and understand the hardness of his father's will. The adage of he did the best he knew how plays a familiar tune to most of us raised by depression era parents. The resentment melts away with Jensen's tender acts of mercy towards his father nearing the end of his life. A tender act few if any of us would be able to muster up...
It's a recommended read for everyone hoping to understand how to see into the darkness and not be afraid.
Life's lessons are all around us September 21, 2005
FDB (So Cal, USA)
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
Lin Jenson has the grace to reflect on profound moments in his life in a non-judgemental way, regardless of the circumstances. It is refreshing to read the work of a person that has the gift of self reflection and can communicate the experience as well as this Zen teacher has been able to do. One can only hope to be able to learn as much from their own life's experiences.
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