A very short preface: This is book review #1. Since I'm now living in a larger city, the public library has much more to offer. I was there a week ago and checked out several books, and in the course of reading I decided that for any book that I enjoyed (any book that I actually finished), I would review it. As if the subject of my first review is a foreshadowing of my goals for this series, I want to state now that I have no goal, no intention. I'm simply going to write these for the experience itself. It may turn out to be a bit like homework, it may help me hone my critiquing skills, it may draw a larger audience to my blog, as my anxiety series did, or it may simply give me something to do while I give most of my creative attention to my novel. I'm fine with all of these, more, and nothing at all.
And at the risk of contradicting myself, I hope you enjoy what follows.
~*~
“Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind” by
Shunryu Suzuki
I was thankful for having the
opportunity to read Shunryu Suzuki's famous book Zen Mind,
Beginner's Mind. It's almost silly to write a book review on it.
It's just 133 pages long, and it is quite repetitive in his simple,
yet effective style. And perhaps because it is simple, it is
difficult for me to explain in words the text itself. It's much
easier explaining what it is not...as is often the case with
Eastern philosophy.
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is not
your typical self-help book, or even your typical
religious/philosophy book. It doesn't explain to you what you need to
do to achieve a goal, but tells the Zen practitioner that he must
have faith that he has already reached the goal—just by practicing.
It is not, as is Alan Watts' book “The
Way of Zen,” an explanation of Zen Buddhism. It gives very little
history, and that is anecdotal. It doesn't explain terminology, and
in fact, Suzuki emphasizes that the philosophy behind Buddhism,
though helpful, is far from the point of actually practicing
Zen. In the end it can be helpful, but is not necessary. The most
important thing is to sit, and to breathe.
It is one of the best books I've
read on the topic of Buddhism. I have in the past shied away from
Buddhism because articles and books I read tend to be very
concept-heavy, and so rather dogmatic. The Buddha himself wrote
nothing of his enlightenment, and what little he gave to his students
would have been given by a notable silence, or a simple analogy. Yet
volumes have been written on the nature and practice of Buddhism in
the last 2,000 years. Suzuki cuts immediately back to the original
idea behind Buddhism, ignoring the “truths” and the logic and the
philosophy in order to emphasize the practice.
The book is repetitive, but this is no
disadvantage to the reader. Suzuki repeats only a few concepts, or
themes, but from different angles of inquiry. He is not explaining a
broad subject which requires many ideas, but a very narrow one, and
if he uses many ideas it is only to help the simplicity of it sink
in. It's clear that his purpose isn't to give an outline of Zen, as
so many others have done, but to give instead a very detailed
exposition of its heart. He very nearly puts the heart of Zen
Buddhism in the reader's hands.
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is not
a book that you will be satisfied reading just once, then put on a
shelf or return to the library. I read it in two sittings and knew by
the time I was done I was missing a great deal of what Suzuki was
saying. I came out of that first reading with only a couple favorite
chapters, words that spoke to me on a deep level. In recent
days I've gone back to cherry pick various chapters, taking the
time to study them, and have found that with fresh eyes passages that
I had initially thought nothing of now seem profound.
There is a wealth of information in Zen
Mind, Beginner's Mind, and because it is presented the way it is,
different people, at different stages of their practice, or of life,
will likely find different chapters enlightening. That is the
advantage of Suzuki's repetition, offering a variety of flavors of
the same fruit. There is even a chapter on repetition, where
he asks the reader not to lose the spirit of repetition. This
theme is a perfect analogy for what Zen actually is.
All
Zen is really is a practice of everyday living. It's a practice of
finding joy in the ordinary and very repetitious (and often mundane)
activities of our lives. It's doing the dishes for the sake of doing
the dishes, with a smile, and with no mind for anything else.
“The most important things in our
practice are our physical posture and our way of breathing. Instead
of having a deep understanding of the teaching, we need a strong
confidence in our teaching, which says originally we have Buddha
nature. Our practice is based on this faith.” - Shunryu Suzuki
Posts
