Phantom Buddha is a portrait of the experiences of a man not quite made for this conventional world, beginning with his dead-end job in an insurance company for nine long years, which the author describes with a wicked humor. Married, with four children, he meets and falls in love with another woman and leaves his family to be with her, finding the freedom to be himself he so yearns for. But, when he introduces his new love to the zen practice that has long interested him, she becomes totally involved, both in the practice and with the Japanese zen master who uses his position to seduce many of his female students. Forced out of the zen center when he expresses his unhappiness with this situation, he sinks into despair and a hopeless pursuit of his beloved. Written in some parts with broad humor, Cardona-Hine also captures the ephemeral beauty of a new love and the depths of despair at its loss. Based on real events, the author intertwines dreams that he had during these years, dreams which reveal to an even greater extent the emotional intensity of his situation as well as the states of mind that sweep through him. Intensely written and felt, the novel shimmers with an authenticity and passion seldom seen in writing today.