Category: religion
- Ways to TruthGurdjieff Reconsidered: The Life, the Teachings, the Legacy by Roger Lipsey. Shambhala. 342 pp. $24.95. **** I read this book as a tribute to my friend Levi, who used to talk about Gurdjieff and various of his disciples almost every time we got together. He was introduced to the man by a woman who was breaking ...Read more
- Gateway to EternityOkumura Zen In the first week of this month we hosted Shohaku Okumura for a Genzo-e sesshin, a special retreat where there are two ninety-minute lectures per day, in a classroom setting, and we spend the rest of the time in zazen, except for our hour-long work period. Okumura Roshi lectured this time on Menju, the ...Read more
- Don’t Fight the WaterZazen in the Spirit of Shinjin The Spring 2019 issue of Tricycle includes a marvelous teaching by Kenneth Tanaka entitled “The Seven Phases of a Drowning Sailor.” Apparently the story itself exists in Shin Buddhism, but Tanaka divided it up into seven parts to indicate stages of realization. He had in mind the Ten Oxherding pictures ...Read more
- Why Not?Why Religion? A Personal Story by Elaine Pagels. Ecco. 235 pp. $27.99 ****1/2 Why Religion? is a slender graceful memoir, a rare thing in these social media days when people think their every moment is worth recording. It is directed at the question which the title asks, which meant different things to author Elaine Pagels at ...Read more
- Folly and MadnessAsymmetry a novel by Lisa Halliday. Simon and Schuster. 271 pp. $16.00. ***** Asymmetry is a first novel that reads like the work of an old hand. Lisa Halliday has worked as an editor and agent, and an Internet bio mentions the fact that she published one story, in 2005, but it’s hard to believe she ...Read more
- The Shammes Is a Patzer, but no ShlemielThe Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon. Harper Perennial. 411 pp. $16.99 ***** I must admit that I was slightly discouraged when I discovered that this famous novel by Michael Chabon, which I’ve anticipated reading for years, concerns an imaginary reality in which the Jews were expelled from Israel in 1948, and relocated to a section ...Read more
- Unlikely MasterAmbivalent Zen: A Memoir by Lawrence Shainberg. Pantheon. 318 pp. $24.00. ****1/2 After sesshin this year, I felt an urge to read books about Zen (usually I want to read anything but), not dharma books, but memoirs of Zen experience. First I turned to a book that only a sideways look at Zen, by a man ...Read more
- A Rage to ConnectAt Eternity’s Gate a film by Julian Schnabel. With Willem Dafoe, Rubert Friend, Oscar Isaac, Emmanuelle Seigner. ****1/2 I don’t know how many movies there have been about Vincent Van Gogh, though I myself have seen three or four. I have not seen the 1956 portrayal by Kirk Douglas, and don’t believe I will. Ever since I was a kid ...Read more
- That Sinking FeelingAnother Rohatsu Sesshin Down the Tubes The day before sesshin began—we always start on Friday evening—I told a friend from the Zen Center that I didn’t think I’d be able to have lunch with her on Friday after all. I had too much to do. “Yeah,” she said. “Me too. It’s kind of like you’re preparing ...Read more
- Infinity in a Grain of SandForever a series by Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard. With Maya Rudolph, Fred Armisen, Catherine Keener, Noah Robbins. ***** Forever is one of the most unusual things I’ve ever seen on a screen. It’s composed of eight episodes roughly thirty minutes long, so my wife and I watched it over two nights. The difficulty with writing ...Read more
- Your Body Is the UniverseThe Practice of Pure Awareness: Somatic Meditation for Awakening the Sacred by Reginald Ray. Shambhala. 286 pp. $18.95. ****1/2 It’s said that we read dharma books originally for inspiration, then years later for confirmation of what we’ve learned. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, for instance, I’ve read at least ten times, and it’s been a different book ...Read more
- Seeing Things as OneComing Home: The Experience of Enlightenment in Sacred Traditions by Lex Hixon. Larson Publications. 215 pp. $14.00. ***1/2 Coming Home is simultaneously one of the most inspiring and frustrating books I’ve ever read. Lex Hixon led a short life which he devoted to his conviction that all of the spiritual traditions have a common core. His ...Read more
- #MeToo Meets Déjà VuMaking Enlightened Society Possible (but not Probable) “Why does a dog lick his balls? Because he can.” –old joke. “Men are addicted to ejaculation.” Statement of a man on NPR’s Fresh Air, explaining male sexual behavior. I will sound naïve to say so, but I was utterly shocked by the sex scandal that recently rocked Shambhala International, and ...Read more
- Stumble He DidThe Gods Drink Whiskey: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha by Stephen T. Asma. HarperOne. 256 pp. $14.99 ***1/2 Talk about your feeble excuses for reading a book: I was getting my computer worked on when I noticed this book on a nearby work desk. I picked it up and flipped through ...Read more
- The Other Side of AddictionNow What? Reading Sabbath’s Theater has gotten me started on the subject of addiction again. I’ve read books about sex maniacs before, I’ve even written one, but never have I come across a character like Mickey Sabbath, who masturbates on his mistress’ grave, showed up at her house (when he was alive) with an erection already ...Read more
- Communion of Saints[1]Won’t You Be My Neighbor? a film by Morgan Neville. With Fred Rogers, Joanne Rogers, Joe Negri, Francois Clemmons. ****1/2 Fred Rogers was one weird dude. In all of show business, people on television, people who perform, who work with children, I’ve never seen anyone like him. He had a television show in which, for all ...Read more
- ReligiousWhat Is That? “ is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said.” –Paul, to the Athenians, in the Book of Acts. “If you want to experience the unnameable, you need to be a person who is the unnameable. Since ...Read more
- Trusting the MindThe Buddha’s Ultimate Message Some years ago, a publisher asked me to write a Young Adult biography of the Buddha. It was an obvious assignment in a way; two of my novels had been published as YA’s (though I hadn’t written them that way), and I’d written a fair amount about Buddhism as well. I could ...Read more
- God Is in the BellyHara: The Vital Center of Man by Karlfried Graf Durckheim. Inner Traditions. 202 pp. $14.95. **** Years ago—27 years this fall, it would seem—when I got my first meditation instructions at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, Larry Rosenberg told us we had our choice of where to follow the breathing. Some people follow it at the ...Read more
- Catholic Means UniversalPope Francis: A Man of his Word a film by Wim Winders. **** I was moved and inspired by the new movie about Pope Francis, which opened recently to almost no acclaim whatsoever. The IMDb site has virtually nothing on it, including no quotations, and if any movie ever deserved to have quotations, like maybe every ...Read more
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All Shook UpWhat's in a Song? IIWriting for his LifeWhat’s in a Song?Mixed Feelings
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (127)American literature (226)art (123)Buddhism (171)Christianity (132)creative process (262)death and dying (144)meditation (125)movies (167)music (42)race (110)religion (196)sex (187)spirituality (174)the art of narrative (266)Uncategorized (21)world literature (23)