Gary Gregory Gach (born November 30, 1947) is an American author, translator, editor, teacher and poet living on

Russian Hill, San Francisco Russian Hill is a neighborhood of San Francisco, California. It is named after one of San Francisco's 44 hills, and one of its original "Seven Hills". Location Russian Hill is directly to the north (and slightly downhill) from Nob Hill, to the ...

. His work has been translated into several languages, and has appeared in several anthologies and numerous periodicals. He serves on the International Advisory Panel of the Buddhist Channel, a

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

news website. He currently hosts Haiku Corner for '' Tricycle: The Buddhist Review''.

Life

Gach was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

Hollywood, Los Angeles Hollywood is a neighborhood in the Central Los Angeles, central region of Los Angeles, California. Its name has come to be a metonymy, shorthand reference for the Cinema of the United States, U.S. film industry and the people associated with i ...

in 1947. He was student body president of John Burroughs Junior High School. He claims to have had a mystic vision at the age of 6.''The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Buddhism'' At 11, he read ''The Way of Zen'' by

Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu ...

, beginning a lifelong interest in Buddhism. He was formally introduced to meditation by

Paul Reps Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity * Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

and later studied

Hasidic Judaism Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Judaism, Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory ...

and

Kabbalah Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...

, and was introduced to ''

shikantaza is Dogen's Japanese language, Japanese translation of the Chinese language, Chinese phrase ''zhǐguǎn dǎzuò'' (只管打坐 / 祇管打坐), "just sitting." The phrase was used by his teacher Rujing, a monk of the Caodong school of Zen Buddh ...

'' by

Dainin Katagiri Jikai , was a Sōtō Zen priest and teacher, and the founding abbot of Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he served from 1972 until his death from cancer in 1990. He is also the founder of Hokyoji Zen Practice Comm ...

Roshi. He has worked as an actor,

stevedore A stevedore (), also called a longshoreman, a docker or a dockworker, is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships, trucks, trains or airplanes. After the shipping container revolution of the 1960s, the number o ...

typographer Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), an ...

legal secretary A legal secretary is a particular category of worker within the legal profession. Background In the practice of law in the United States, a legal secretary is a person who works in the legal profession, typically assisting lawyers. Legal secretar ...

, editor-in-chief, webmaster, and teacher (most frequently of late, Stanford Continuing Studies). Besides Buddhism, he teaches

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or se ...

, and mentors in English composition (most recently for doctoral students at

Sofia University (California) Sofia University is a private for-profit university in Palo Alto, California. It was originally founded as the California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology by Robert Frager and James Fadiman in 1975.Judy, Dwight H. & Schmitt, Robert. "Grad ...

Bibliography

Author

* 1974: ''Preparing the Ground : Poems 1960-1970'' (Heirs, International; San Francisco) * 1996: ''The Pocket Guide to the Internet: No-Sweat Guide to the Information Highway'' (Pocket Books; New York) * 1997: ''Writers.net: Every Writer's Essential Guide to Online Resources and Opportunities'' (Prima Publishing; Rocklin, New York) * 2001–2009: ''Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Buddhism'' (Alpha Books, New York) ; 2nd edition, 2004 - ; 3rd edition, 2009 - . * 2018: ''Pause Breathe Smile – Awakening Mindfulness When Meditation Is Not Enough'' (Sounds True, Colorado)

Translator

* 2005: (Co-translator with

Brother Anthony Brother Anthony (born as Anthony Graham Teague 1942; Korean name An Sonjae (Hangul: 안선재)) is a translator, scholar, and member of the Taizé Community who has become a naturalized Korean citizen, and lives in Seoul. Life Brother Anthony o ...

(

Taizé Community The Taizé Community is an ecumenical Christian monastic fraternity in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy, France. It is composed of more than one hundred brothers, from Catholic and Protestant traditions, who originate from about thirty countrie ...

) and

Kim Young-moo Kim Young-moo (김영무, 1944 – 26 November 2001) was a South Korean poet, literary critic and translator born in Paju Paju () is a city in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. Paju was made a city in 1997; it had previously been a county (''gun' ...

) ''Ten Thousand Lives'' by

Ko Un Ko Un (born 1 August 1933) is a South Korean poet whose works have been translated and published in more than fifteen countries. He had been imprisoned many times due to his role in the campaign for Korean democracy and was later mentioned in K ...

, introduction by

Robert Hass Robert L. Hass (born March 1, 1941) is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He won the 2007 National Book Award and shared the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for the collection ''Time and Materials: Poems 1997 ...

, (

Green Integer Green Integer is an American publishing house of pocket-sized belles-lettres books, based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1997 by Douglas Messerli, whose former publishing house was Sun & Moon, and it is edited by Per Bregne. Gre ...

: Los Angeles) * 2006: (Co-translator with Brother Anthony and Kim Young-moo) ''Flowers of a Moment'', 185 brief poems by Ko Un; ( BOA Editions, Ltd.: Rochester, New York) * 2007: (Co-translator with Brother Anthony Of Taizé and Kim Young-moo) ''Songs for Tomorrow: Poems 1961-2001'' by Ko Un (Green Integer: Los Angeles)

Editor

* 1998: ''What Book!? : Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop'', introduction by

Peter Coyote Peter Coyote (born Robert Peter Cohon; October 10, 1941) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author and narrator of films, theatre, television, and audiobooks. He worked on films such as '' E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' (1982), '' Cr ...

(Parallax Press; Albany, California) (American Book Award)

Awards

Gach is a recipient of an

American Book Award The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...

(from the

Before Columbus Foundation The Before Columbus Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, "dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature". The Foundation makes annual awards for books published in ...

) in 1999 for ''What Book!?'' Shortlisted for Northern California Book Award for Translation, for ''Songs for Tomorrow'' and finalist for ''Flowers of a Moment'' (Lannan Translations Selection).

Nautilus Book Awards The nautilus (, ) is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina. It comprises six living species in t ...

for ''Complete Idiot's Guide to Buddhism'' 3rd ed'n.

References

External links

Author page

Gach's personal home page

''Teachings of the Buddha''
– interview by Marjorie Chiew, ''The Star'' (Malaysia), (December 12, 2010)

at ''Writers Write'' (August 1997)
Buddhist Wisdom for Uncertain Times
Presentation of ''Complete Idiot's Guide to Buddhism'' at Book Passage, Corte Madera.] (Video from FORA.tv)
Materials on file
at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Gach, Gary American Buddhists 20th-century American poets 20th-century American Jews Jewish poets Buddhism in the United States English-language haiku poets Living people Buddhist writers 1947 births 20th-century American translators American male poets American Book Award winners 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American Jews