Thank You and Okay!: An American Zen Failure in Japan

David Chadwick, a Texas-raised wanderer, college dropout, bumbling social activist, and hobbyhorse musician, began his study under Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1966. In 1988 Chadwick flew to Japan to begin a four-year period of voluntary exile and remedial Zen education. In Thank You and OK! he recounts his experiences both inside and beyond the monastery walls and offers insightful portraits of the characters he knew in that world-the bickering monks, the patient abbot, the trotting housewives, the ominous insects, the bewildered bureaucrats, and the frustrating English-language students-as they worked inexorably toward initiating him into the mysterious ways of Japan. Whether you're interested in Japan, Buddhism, or exotic travel writing, this book is great fun.

David Chadwick, a Texas raised wanderer, college dropout, bumbling social activist and hobbyhorse musician, began his formal Zen study under Shunryu Suzuki-roshi in 1966 at the age of twenty-one. Many years later, Suzuki's successor, Zentatsu Richard Baker-roshi, shaking his head, said of Chadwick: Years of expensive Zen training gone to waste. In 1988 friends and supporters underwrote Chadwick's journey to Japan so he could begin an open-ended period of voluntary exile and remedial education. In Japan he practiced more Zen, got married, studied Japanese language and culture, taught English and messed around. He returned to America, wrote books, songs, websites, blogs, moved to Bali in 2013 where he lives with fourth wife, Katrinka McKay. He has two sons from the first and third marriages: Kelly born in 1973 and Clay born in 1991. His main work is on the Cuke Project to preserve the legacy of Shunryu Suzuki and those whose paths crossed his. Tons on him can be found at cuke.com with links from the home page to that and much more.

About David Chadwick