Zen Communist: Breyten Breytenbach's View from Underground (Company Overview) (Report‪)‬

"Not such a contradiction as all that" Around the time that Breyten Breytenbach became active in revolutionary politics, he also immersed himself in Zen Buddhism. Years later, imprisoned for terrorism in Pretoria, he recalled how, after making the vows of a bodhisattva in Paris, "a lock of hair was ceremoniously snipped off" and explained: "It's a cleansing process, a casting off of dead matter, a mental undressing, a way of taking leave of the world and becoming strong by making yourself vulnerable" (Confessions, 197). (1)