Word: sutra
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...LAUGHING SUTRA...
Salzman made a movie of his book, due out next month, and has now written his first novel, also with a Chinese theme. It would be good to report that he has managed another conjuring act, but that is not quite true. The Laughing Sutra is very promising and often funny. But the author opts for the picaresque, and nowadays it's a tough act to bring off because ordinary headlines make tall tales look tame...
Hsun-ching is a worthy young man who, after his mother is killed, is raised by a patient Buddhist monk. The old monk's only dream is to go to San Francisco and find the Laughing Sutra, which he believes will unlock the secrets of wisdom. Of course he is too frail for such a quest, and of course Hsun-ching undertakes it in his behalf, ignorant though he is of travel bans in China, not to mention restrictions on entering...
...both theories are false, as is every other afterlife ever conceived by the mind of man. Death does not involve angels, or houris, or ace bandages (well, perhaps ace bandages--more on this later). Nor does it have anything to do with trumpets, balm of Gilead, Nirvana, or Kama Sutra. Death is lying on the unyielding floor of the Dunster House dining hall with an itchy nose, worrying about being stepped...
...must destroy." Contrary to Japanese custom, Soka Gakkai also asks its believers to proselytize, and has moved abroad: it claims 200,000 members in the U.S., mainly in California. Soka Gakkai teaches that continual repetition of the phrase Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, derived from the title of the Lotus Sutra, one of the Buddhist scriptures, is the key to success, happiness and the good life. The group has produced a political offshoot, Komeito (Clean Government Party), with the third largest number of members in Japan's legislature. The growth of the new religions has slackened since the late 1960s...