Zen Ghosts
by Jon Muth
Scholastic, 2010
Picture Book
Stillwater the Panda is back to visit his friends and tell a story on Halloween! Is this picture book for all ages really “horror”? Well, if you’re going to be strict about the requirements of the genre, its no Mysteries of Udolpho, but it is a ripping good ghost story. And it was written by Jon Muth, one of my favorite children’s authors, adapted from an actual Zen koan from the early 13th century.
If you aren’t familiar with Stillwater, he is a giant panda that moves into the neighborhood and begins helping children unravel the challenges of life by telling them stories, parables with a decidedly Zen Buddhist approach. He has appeared before in Zen Shorts and Zen Ties, and Muth also has a book called The Three Questions which is another excellent Zen book, but alas, does not have Stillwater.
To American audiences, the most familiar Asian ghost story is probably the one that parallels the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros, (or Beauty and the Beast for our younger mythologians,) called The Crane Wife, where a man is forbidden to learn a secret kept by his True Love, and when he -like Psyche- finally succumbs to temptation and spies on her, the spell is broken and he loses her forever. There is a version of this in the Japanese horror movie Kwaidan (the chapter called Woman of the Snow,) …and just about every other horror medium. It may be a woman with a red ribbon around her neck that must never be removed, or it may be a willow tree that can never be cut down.
The story our Zen Master panda tells is entirely different, the story of Senjo’s Separated Soul. Like most Zen riddles and stories, it doesn’t have a clear cut ending. The story presents an idea for contemplation, but it can also be taken at face value. A woman was with her True Love for years, and yet at the same time had been at home, desperately ill, all the while. How can this be? Was she a ghost all along? Which was the ghost? You can feel the shudder that went down her young lover’s spine.
The Gateless Gate
The Blue Cliff Record
101 Zen Stories
The illustrations are beautiful watercolors. (I’m still looking for a worn library-sale copy so I can tear out the gatefold to hang on my wall!) I could feel the peaceful Halloween spirit conveyed by the book’s autumn colors, and the images remind me of telling ghost stories in the cemetery just before dusk on a chilly day in October.
This can be read to the youngest of children, (though they may be frustrated at the open ending,) perhaps instilling within them both a wonder for the unknown and a love of ghost stories. If not, it can still become a springboard for talking about how we can make different choices when we find ourselves with different people. Either way, none of Muth’s work should be missed.
 
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