ABSTRACT
Preparing to write this memorial essay, I have found myself on the lookout for some Buddhist saint or Eastern mystic who somehow escaped the treacly soft sanctimony of holiness. I was looking for gurus with edge, not ego—sages with humor and grit. A friend suggested the siddhas—masterful guys who metabolized huge amounts of arcane knowledge but were not necessarily very obedient, docile pacifists. Muriel Dimen suggested Boddhidharma. I Googled “Boddhidharma” and found myself face-to-face with a martial artist, a sage, a trickster, a questioner.
