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Click here to read an excerpt from Whacking Buddha.
"Does Will Shakespeare have a Buddha nature? Mark Lamonica makes an intriguing case in Whacking Buddha, a fascinating journey into Elizabethan dharma. Delightful, surprising, and smart."
Dinty W. Moore, author of The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment and Sitting Still
"Shakespeare and Buddha -- who knew? But Shakespeare, who gave us "the mind's eye" and Buddha of the third eye have much to say to one another. The dialogue between the Bard and the Buddha is rich, and Mark Lamonica has opened it up for us in a wild disorderly way, for our pleasure and instruction."
Rodger Kamenetz, author of The Jew in the Lotus
"Whacking Buddha challenges our assumptions about Shakespeare and by
extension, Western culture. Mark Lamonica's theory that Shakespeare was the
reincarnation of Buddha, seems at first preposterous, then plausible, and, by the end of
the book, almost inevitable. Like a master illusionist, he turns the Buddha
into Shakespeare and back again before our eyes."
Norrie Epstein, author of The Friendly Shakespeare
"In Whacking Buddha, Mark Lamonica illuminates the wisdom of Buddhism through the verses of Shakespeare. This book is a pleasure to read, it is funny, insightful and irreverant. For me it proved to be deeply informative in the realm of the old English playwrights and the world in which they were bringing subversive and wise messages to the masses through the medium of the stage. I will be recommending this book to both Buddhists and Thespians."
Noah Levine, author of Dharma Punx
"Whacking Buddha is spiritual-literary dynamite."
Jon Winokur, author of Zen to Go
"With wit, insight and information in every chapter Lamonica finds the Buddha in Shakespeare, and gives us some ideas of how it got in there. It's the best thing on nothingness since the Fugs, lively, thought-provoking and learned in spite of it-self."
John Perry
Department of Philosophy
Stanford University
"Whacking Buddha" is a book that will challenge your view of our modern world, and rightly so. As an example, Mark LaMonica makes the astute observation that the world of the ancients was dominated by dreams and visionaries - and contrasts this with how our modern existence is ruled by the media. This book, written with a sense of humor, will take you from that modern existence and put you in touch with a new and exciting point of view. I could never have imagined a connection between Shakespeare and Buddha before reading this book. Now I see each was after that which is essentially human. Aren't we all?"
Edward Mooney Jr., author of The Pearls of the Stone Man
"I find the book a joy to read and love the way the bits of knowledge break the surface like the silver of fish."
Howard Bloom, author of The Lucifer Principle
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is © 1996 - 2005
Mark Lamonica & Patrick McCulley