Paul Reps; Writings Spread Zen Philosophy in the West

Paul Reps, a spiritualist and writer whose book “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” became a textbook for the 1960s counterculture generation, has died. He was 94.

Reps, also a poet and artist, died July 12 in Los Angeles.

His “picture poems,” a combination of poetry and Japanese-style black ink paintings, were included in many of his books and exhibited in galleries.

Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Reps graduated from Dartmouth in 1918 and worked for a New York bank. He became intrigued with Eastern philosophy by reading the Upanishads, ancient Indian treatises relating man to the universe, and the “Bhagavad-Gita,” a sacred Hindu philosophical dialogue, in the New York Public Library.

Reps sold his belongings, worked his way to India on a freighter and spent several years studying Buddhism in India, Burma, Japan and China. He concentrated on the Zen sect of Buddhism, which advocates seeking enlightenment through meditation and introspection.

Moving to Los Angeles, Reps worked with Zen monk and scholar Nyogen Senzaki to compile three collections of Zen writings, “The Gateless Gate” in 1934, “10 Bulls” in 1935 and “101 Zen Stories” in 1939.

Reps included much of the material in those volumes in his larger work, “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones,” which was published in 1957 and is still in print. Quickly embraced by American youth, the book helped spread the Zen philosophy to the West.

Reps followed that with the books “Zen Telegrams” in 1959, “Unwrinkling Plays” in 1965, “Square Sun, Square Moon” in 1967 and “Gold Fish Signatures” in 1969.

Among his writings was a series of articles for the Los Angeles Times on the psychological meaning of names.

Reps’ most recent book was “Let Good Fortune Jump on You” in 1986.

He is survived by three nieces.