Category: religion
- Deluded FoolZazen and Prayer Some years ago my wife and I were renting an apartment in Chapel Hill while our Durham residence underwent an extensive renovation. There were various problems with the apartment—it was small, and had a real problem with moisture in the air, so we had to run de-humidifiers all the time—and we were extremely ...Read more
- Coming Together by Being ApartIn Retreat and On Retreat My Zen teacher Josho Pat Phelan has sat with the group every weekday for years. In fact, though she does many other things—administrate the whole group, and give talks, and lead sesshins, and do dokusan—I’ve always thought of her her primary job as waking up every morning before the crack of ...Read more
- Embraced and Nurtured by this EarthSky Flowers on the Day Before: My Life Guided by Zen Buddhism by Kazumitsu Wako Kato. Self-published. 462 pp. $16.95. **** Kazumitsu Wako Kato preceded Shunryu Suzuki at Soki-ji Temple in San Francisco, and served as his assistant when Suzuki first arrived in 1959. For that reason alone this book will be of interest to Zen ...Read more
- Everything MattersThe Buddha Said Do Nothing? Where Was That? The most recent New Yorker includes the Ian Parker profile of Yuval Harari, author of such bestsellers as Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, all of which take an immensely broad look at history. I haven’t read the books, but my impression is that ...Read more
- What Makes a Religion?The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World by Barbara O’Brien. Shambhala. 316 pp. $19.95. **** I’ve been asking myself what makes a religion ever since I read Karen Armstrong’s marvelous The Lost Art of Scripture. There, in that cataloging of the world’s vast scriptures, Christianity almost ...Read more
- Portrait of the Artist as a Young HasidMy Name Is Asher Lev a novel by Chaim Potok. Anchor Books. 369 pp. $15.95. **** When I was looking through Goodreads trying to decide if I wanted to read another Chaim Potok novel, I came across a reviewer who said—about this book, I believe—“Chaim Potok refuses to write a page turner.” I thought that an ...Read more
- Listening to the OtherThe Chosen a novel by Chaim Potok. Ballantine Books. 299 pp. $7.99. The Promise a novel by Chaim Potok. Anchor Books. 368 pp. $7.48. I sometimes think there is some kind of spirit around—because of these two books, let’s call it a dybbuk—who directs me to this or that book at the appropriate moment of my life. ...Read more
- What Scripture Is ForThe Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts by Karen Armstrong. Knopf. 605 pp. $35.00. ***** The Lost Art of Scripture is a colossal feat of scholarship; I can’t think of one I admire more. Karen Armstrong has studied scriptures from a wide variety of cultures, and summed up the basic messages from the scripture ...Read more
- Is Kensho Necessary?One Blade of Grass: Finding the Old Road of the Heart by Henry Shukman. Counterpoint. 339 pp. $16.95. **** Henry Shukman had an interesting life as a writer even before he began spiritual practice, but this memoir centers on his practice and wouldn’t exist without it. He is British and grew up in Oxford, the child ...Read more
- Repose and Bliss My AssSesshin Strikes Again “The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss. . . . Traps and snares can never reach it.” Fukanzazengi , Eihei Dogen. I am often struck, let’s make that always struck, by the sick feeling of dread I have every year as our winter ...Read more
- Family ReunionThe Irishman a film by Martin Scorsese. With Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Anna Paquin, Ray Romano. ***** Toward the end of The Irishman, the former union boss and mobster Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro) is looking through some photos in a nursing home while a nurse takes his blood pressure. He asks her if she knows ...Read more
- Master and DiscipleThe Gift of Rain a novel by Tan Twan Eng. Weinstein Books. 432 pp. $16.99. **** The Gift of Rain is one of the most affecting novels I’ve read in years; toward the end I was both riveted to and deeply disturbed by what I was reading, so that I could hardly sleep. This is Tan ...Read more
- She’s Trapped But Her Voice Is FreeMilkman a novel by Anna Burns. Graywolf Press. 348 pp. $16.00 ****1/2 Milkman is simultaneously one of the most terrifying and hilarious novels in recent memory. It’s terrifying because it portrays a society where the two sides are locked in such mortal combat that people have become dreadfully paranoid; to express a shred of compassion for ...Read more
- Words For What Is Beyond WordsSecret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions by Jeffrey J. Kripal. University of Chicago Press. 478 pp. Jeffrey J. Kripal is a religious writer like no other I’ve ever read. He grew up as a Catholic in Nebraska, for instance (there are Catholics in Nebraska?) He was devout, actually entered a seminary ...Read more
- We’re the UnderstoryThe Overstory a novel by Richard Powers. Norton. 502 pp. $18.95 The Overstory is nothing if not ambitious. It begins by introducing nine characters in brief vignettes, summing up their lives to a certain point; each of these characters, we have a feeling, could inhabit a novel of their own. The one thing they have in ...Read more
- Old Lady KoansThe Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women. Edited by Florence Caplow and Susan Moon. Wisdom Publications. 455 pp. $18.95 Among my favorite Zen teachings are the Old Lady stories, where some pompous Zen master thinks a great deal of himself and has his bubble burst by a woman who has no apparent status ...Read more
- Good Could Have Been GreatMy Year of Dirt and Water: Journal of a Zen Monk’s Wife in Japan by Tracy Franz. Stone Bridge Press. 306 pp. $16.95. ***1/2 I don’t believe in publishing pages from a journal. I’m all for keeping a journal (Thoreau is one of my heroes); it’s an invaluable practice to sit down every day and review ...Read more
- Sweet SorrowThe Farewell a film by Lulu Wang. With Awkwafina, Shuzshen Zhao, Tzi Ma, Diana Lin. **** I somehow got the feeling from this movie’s trailer—which I’ve seen a number of times—that it was a cute little comedy about pulling the wool over an old lady’s eyes about her cancer diagnosis, just so she wouldn’t be discouraged. ...Read more
- If We Just Knew What Mind IsHow to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan. Penguin Press. 465 pp. How’s that for a sub-title? Why didn’t he just add, the Universe? Except that in some ways that does describe what Michael Pollan’s book is about. It’s also about the ...Read more
- Too Much ThinkingCall It Grace: Finding Meaning in a Fractured World by Serene Jones. Viking. 310 pp. ***1/2 Four Men Shaking: Searching for Sanity with Samuel Beckett, Norman Mailer, and My Perfect Zen Teacher by Lawrence Shainberg. Shambhala. 134 pp. $16.95. ****1/2 “To stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means your mind ...Read more
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You Need to be WritingThe Other SideThe River is Freedom, the Raft ParadiseThe Nothing of GodWe Are Stardust We Are Golden
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (114)American literature (197)art (109)Buddhism (163)Christianity (119)creative process (232)death and dying (128)meditation (118)movies (152)music (36)race (95)religion (180)sex (157)spirituality (167)the art of narrative (238)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)