By Stephen Billias

More than twenty-five years ago, I wrote The American Book of the Dead, a black comedy about World War III.

The main character, Bertie Rupp, suffers from nucleomituphobia, the exaggerated fear of being blown up by nuclear weapons.

A monk tells Bertie: “In the words of the great Yasutani-roshi of Japan, ‘Become one with the Bomb and what is there to fear?’…He also said: ‘Whether you want to or not, you will do so anyway, so embrace it.’”

This past May, Zen Peacemakers International published a piece of mine in their Journal about Yasutani-roshi, the novel and Zen. I included the following poem.

still point. endless time

intersects limitless space

right where you are now

I’m a student, a practitioner of zazen, and a writer. Writing is my way of expressing what I believe. I pray that peacemakers achieve a unification less cataclysmic than becoming one with the bomb.

If you would like to read the complete article, you can check it out at: https://zenpeacemakers.org/2021/05/yasutani-roshi-zen-and-haiku/