Category: religion
- I Like IkeThe Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer Volume II: A Friend of Kafka to Passions. Library of America. 856 pp. ***** Back in the days when Isaac Bashevis Singer’s stories appeared in the New Yorker, I never missed one. It was a thrill to read the work of a man who wrote so vividly, who seemed ...Read more
- That’s Not the ChoiceReflections on The Friend In Sigrid Nunez’ superb novel The Friend, the narrator is thinking back on a friend who has just died, and mentions that he was a committed atheist. “Between religion and knowledge, he said, a person must choose knowledge.” I almost jumped out of my chair as I read that. That’s not the ...Read more
- What Is Liberation?Great Demon Kings: A Memoir of Poetry, Sex, Art, Death, and Enlightenment by John Giono. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 368 pp. $25.49. **** For the two years I lived in Cambridge—1991-93, while my wife was in Divinity School—I was in bookstore heaven. It seems strange to say nowadays, when bookstores barely exist. There was the Harvard ...Read more
- How He Thought of MeMy First Shrink Every time I ever went to a therapist, I went because I was in physical pain. The first time, because the whole idea was so foreign to me, it took me months to finally pull the trigger. I also felt reluctant because I was afraid of what he’d say. I was afraid he’d ...Read more
- Jane Austen He’s NotPierre, or The Ambiguities by Herman Melville. Library of America pp.1-421. **1/2 It’s a bad sign when you finish the book and breathe a huge sigh of relief. I have enormous admiration for Herman Melville. Of all the 19th century American novelists, his career has the largest span. He began with popular books like Typee and Omoo, ...Read more
- What Healing IsFor My 72nd Birthday The morning my father died we had barely gotten back from the hospital when there was a knock at the door and my mother opened it to Mrs. Shriver, a neighbor from across the street. She was an older woman, with a ruddy, deeply lined face, kept herself busy with outdoor sports, ...Read more
- They Can’t Get StartedShtisel a Netflix series (2 seasons of 12 episodes) by Along Zingman. With Doval’e Glickman, Michael Alom, Neta Riskin, Shira Haas, Zohar Shtrauss. ***** Like everyone else during the pandemic, my wife and I have been searching for streaming series that hold our attention. We’ve been through any number of suggestions—some of which seemed rather desperate—with ...Read more
- Sitting with Louis IIThe Other Side One of the problems with my earlier piece about talking and sitting zazen with my autistic brother in law is that I sound so kind, compassionate, magnanimous, and patient. A true Bodhisattva. Actually, I’m no better than anyone else, but it isn’t too surprising that I sound that way. I wrote the piece, ...Read more
- Sitting with LouisNotes During a Pandemic We came to stay at our Asheville cabin during the pandemic in order to take care of my wife’s brother Louis, who has a house on the same property. He’s 68 years old and autistic, diagnosed just a few years ago. His job was bringing in shopping carts at the local supermarket, ...Read more
- Young Master Surpasses His IdolThe Durrell Miller Letters 1935-80. Edited by Ian S. MacNiven. New Directions. 528 pp. ****1/2 In 1935, 23-year-old Lawrence Durrell wrote Henry Miller a fan letter about his novel Tropic of Cancer, which he had either found discarded in a public lavatory (the story he told) or was lent by a friend. “It strikes me as ...Read more
- Makes the Other One Look GoodRefuge a film by John Halpern. With Martin Scorcese, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ani Tenzin Palmo, Oliver Stone, David Chadwick. **1/2 Zen in the West a film by Daniel Luke Fitch. With Henry Shukman Roshi, Yamada Ryoun Roshi, David Loy Roshi, Reuben Habito Roshi, Venerable Dr. Parravati. Part of BuddhaFest Online. ****1/2. Fifty years ago a ...Read more
- ExeuntClea book four in the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Dutton. 287 pp. ***** It’s hard to know what to say at the end of the Alexandria Quartet, a “word continuum” that has occupied so much time during an intense period. Reading is a vital part of my life, and for however many weeks it’s been, ...Read more
- Or Something Like ThatZen in the West a film by Daniel Luke Fitch. With Henry Shukman Roshi, Yamada Ryoun Roshi, David Loy Roshi, Reuben Habito Roshi, Venerable Dr. Parravati. Part of Tricycle’s BuddhaFest Online. ***1/2. I rarely sign up for anything like BuddhaFest, the yearly event that Tricycle puts on, but this year, since it’s strictly virtual, and they’re ...Read more
- Darley Takes a BreakMountolive volume three of the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Faber. 884 pp. ***** The most startling thing about Mountolive is that all of a sudden we have no narrator. Darley—who told his own story in the first volume, then absorbed corrections from Balthazar in the second—is nowhere in evidence, though he’s mentioned occasionally in passing. ...Read more
- Books of a LifetimeA House for Buddha by Ross Parmenter. Woodstock Press. 529 pp. Sacred Land, Sacred Sex, Rapture of the Deep: Concerning Deep Ecology and Celebrating Life by Dolores LaChapelle. Kivaki Press. 383 pp. The Lyndoniad by William Guy. Xlibris. 444pp. On my second trip to Mexico—I believe the year was 1991—my wife and I had arrived at the Basilica ...Read more
- Facing DesireOpen to Desire: Embracing a Lust for Life. Insights from Buddhism & Psychotherapy by Mark Epstein. Gotham Books. 227 pp. ***1/2 The Durrell-Miller Letters 1935-80. Edited by Ian S. MacNiven. New Directions. 528 pp. $21.89 In Open to Desire, psychiatrist and longtime Buddhist practitioner Mark Epstein takes on the central paradox of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths. ...Read more
- Making Up for Lost TimeJustine book one of the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Faber. 884 pp. $16.99 I’ve always been a book snob and have never read things when everyone else did. I didn’t read The Way of Zen—which changed my life—until my late thirties, though everyone else I knew read it in college. I read my wife’s copy, ...Read more
- Was Jung a Mystic?Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimensions of Carl Jung’s Life and Teachings a new biography by Gary Lachman. Tarcher/Penguin258 pp. $24.95. This is my first biography of Jung, and I’m not at all sure this is the one to start with. Years ago, when my first marriage ended and I was going through a personal crisis, ...Read more
- All Religions Converge One PointThe Universal Christ by Richard Rohr. Convergent. 260 pp. $27.00 ***** For my devotional reading these days, I’ve been reading both The Universal Christ and Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Rohr’s book seemed largely theoretical (though he mentions various practices) and Shunryu Suzuki’s perfectly practical: almost every section is about sitting. Somehow or other I finished both ...Read more
- Emptiness and GraceJesus and Buddha: Practicing Across Traditions. A film by Jon Ankele. With Paul Knitter, Father Robert Kennedy, Chung Hyun Kyung. Available at Amazon Prime. ***** I’m obsessed with the Buddhist-Christian dialogue. That’s partly because I’m married to a Catholic—a highly unconventional one—but also because I was raised in the Christian tradition and never shook it ...Read more
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Unfinished LivesAmerican OriginalLosing ItKeep an Eye on IgorAnd Is He Pissed
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (121)American literature (215)art (113)Buddhism (169)Christianity (125)creative process (246)death and dying (139)meditation (123)movies (160)music (36)race (105)religion (187)sex (170)spirituality (170)the art of narrative (252)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)