Category: spirituality
- 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
- 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
- That Little VoiceThoughts During a Pandemic I know by experience that sitting zazen enriches my life. I enjoy sitting with my brother-in-law at noon, as we get his day started, and I sometimes sit also in the late afternoon, after I’ve done yoga, but my favorite time to sit, a habit I’ve had for almost thirty years, is ...Read more
- The Hotel of LifeThoughts During a Pandemic I have two recurring dreams these days, or at least two sites for dreams. One is on a hilly street, maybe cobblestone, where there is an alley with various open-air bars. I tend to choose one of those bars in particular, though I’ve entered others. The other site is a huge luxury ...Read more
- Why Bodhidharma Faced the WallWhat if Turkey Sex Arises? I know it must seem strange to people that, when I meditate in my Asheville cabin, I look out the French doors at the back of my study. Soto Zen practitioners are supposed to stare at a wall. But in this smallish cabin (900 square feet), there isn’t any unoccupied wall ...Read more
- Nowhere to Go, Driving Like HellNotes During a Pandemic I wouldn’t describe Asheville as a sleepy town, but I do think of it as laid back. I’m not sure why tourists have flocked here in recent years—a part of me thinks they just want to drink a lot and goof off (Asheville is the craft brewing capital of the world)—but where ...Read more
- Prophet Without HonorBack to the Basics When I was coming to our Asheville cabin to help look after my wife’s autistic brother, I faced a sudden decision: what spiritual books do I bring (and not too many). My car was already cluttered enough. I decided on the old stand-bys: Shunryu Suzuki, Dainin Katagiri, and Chogyam Trungpa (whom I ...Read more
- The Process of GrowthNotes During a Pandemic Years ago, from my college days until way into my thirties, I was obsessed with a writer named Paul Goodman. He had been a panelist at a symposium when I was a freshman and I found his presence electrifying. All through the sixties he was a famous and extremely successful author, primarily ...Read more
- 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
Recent Evening Mind Posts
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)
Print
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)