Kuan Yin is revered throughout Asia as the personification of compassion. In China it is said that anyone in distress who calls on her with sincerity will be rescued from suffering and harm. John Blofeld provides a compelling portrait of Kuan Yin through colorful anecdotes, personal experiences, and descriptions of Buddhist rituals and legends. He also offers a learned account of the goddess’s history and importance in Chinese thought and religion, along with translations of devotional poems and yogic texts, images from Chinese and Tibetan sacred art, and meditation techniques associated with the bodhisattva of compassion in her many guises....

The only English translation of John Blofeld’s memoirs as a Westerner living in China prior to the Communist Revolution

• Paints an intimate portrait of the grace and refinement of ancient Chinese civilization

• Originally written in Chinese for Chinese readers, revealing a rare glimpse of Blofeld’s private Chinese side and uncensored views

• The last book by the great English sinologist, translator of the I Ching and author of Taoist Mystery and Magic

The reveries and remembrances contained in the travel diaries of John Blofeld cover every aspect of his life in China--from visits to opium dens and sing-song houses to sojourns in the Buddhist monasteries and Taoist hermitages of China’s sacred mountains. Here is a vivid glimpse of “old” China as it existed in elegance and grace for three thousand years before China’s Communist Revolution. Originally written in Chinese for a Chinese audience, Blofeld’s travel diary reveals a rare, uncensored view of pre-communist China to which few westerners have been exposed.
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