Cat's Yawn: The Thirteen Numbers Published from 1940 to 1941

On May 17, 1945, Sokei-an, the first Zen Master to make his home in the Western World, died in New York, aged sixty-three years. As Shigetsu Sasaki, Koji, he came to the United States when he was twenty-four years old and, except for periods of further Zen training under his teacher in Japan, spent twenty years of struggle and study here. In 1926 he went back to Japan for the second and last time. Two years later, in 1928, charged by his teacher to carry Zen to the Occident, he returned to America as the Zen Master Sokei-an and in January, 1930, at 63 West 70th Street, New York, founded the Hermitage of Sokei, the first Zen temple in the Western World. From 1930 through December 6, 1941, the night of his last public talk, Sokei-an lectured in English on Wednesday and Saturday evenings and for several years on Sunday mornings. These lectures, barring a few special series, were commentaries on famous Buddhist and Zen texts which he was translating from the original Chinese, most of them never before translated into any Euro¬ pean language. The manuscripts of all his translations are carefully preserved and the notes of his commentaries taken down by his students are being gradually gathered together. He himself gave little attention to organizing and revising his work. Except for ANANDA AND KASYAPA (New York 1930), stories retold from the Chinese sutras, the thirteen numbers of CAT'S YAWN contain the only work published in English over Sokei-an’s name. For this reason his students and the members of the First Zen Institute of America (formerly The Buddhist Society of America) reissue CAT'S YAWN in facsimile. An appendix containing material intended for numbers never issued has been added. For the convenience of students a Chinese character glossary and a detailed index have been prepared and the pages numbered consecutively.[FOREWORD]