Reviews for Mind Body Zen: Waking Up to Your Life

The average rating for Mind Body Zen: Waking Up to Your Life based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-07-09 00:00:00 Christopher Peace Here's another contemporary book on Zen that is more world salad than anything of real substance. Amazingly, within the first two pages of the "Preface", written by Kendo Hal Roth, the defensive offense zen rhetoric makes its appearance when Roth writes: "Many follow the intellectual pretense of 'seeing through' the 'rhetoric' of Zen and so snidely -- with those scare quotes -- begins his put down of the work of such scholars as John McRae and Bernard Faure. Before we get to the end of the "Preface" we learn that this book "is a new and original attempt to... fill the need for a critically reflective study of the Zen teachings of Joshu Sasaki Roshi by a disciple who has not lost his critical eye." Unfortunately, no evidence of any "critical eye" is on display! I mean, in his "Introduction" Maitland points out that the genesis if this book is Sasaki Roshi telling him he should write a book about Zen for Americans and Maitland then tells us "Whatever wisdom I have been able to glean from Zen practice I owe to the great generosity and tireless efforts of Roshi". Good thing Maitland is a man so that he never had to put up with the fondling so many of Roshi's female students had to put up with in dokusan. Really, when you have to wade through page after page of writing like this: "... although the intellect is not irrelevant to our quest, the insights articulated here arose from the always-ongoing practice of learning how to see and feel freely without the encumbrances of everyday perception" when all he's talking about it the experience of empathetic connection between a "healer/therapist" and their client! Maitland, as do many contemporary Buddhists, fall into the notion of Buddhist sufficiency -- that is to say, the notion that nothing other than Buddhism is necessary, and that it is here to correct the errors of the great Western philosophical tradition! That such parochialism continues after all we know about Zen history boggles the mind. In a chapter that has a lot of words he talks about the affinities between Zen and Taoism as if it isn't common knowledge that Zen was deeply informed by Taoism from the beginning! In fact, an argument could be made that this influence is the root of some of the deep distortions of Buddha's teaching we find in Zen! But that's neither here nor there... What I find particularly egregious is how he goes on and on about wu wei and how while there is a close approximation of such "effortless effort" in the experience of flow that many athletes and musicians have, he ends by saying that what makes the Zen experience of "dark wisdom" (given the reality of his teacher, "dark" has quite sinister connotations) different is that the experience of flow "did nothing to awaken their compassion and concern for the well-being of others. If they truly knew how to step out of the way and let the Tao speak for itself, they would be incapable of harming others" but, of course because they haven't practiced Zen, there are "many examples of acclaimed artists who are also scoundrels exist...." because they are not "possessed of dark wisdom" that can "manifest wisdom that knows activity of the Tao." Sasaki Roshi lived to the age of 107. He taught in the US for over 50 years. And for all those years he was abusing his power and sexually assaulting many of his female students. And his senior students, including Leonard Cohen, knew and covered for him for all those years! One has to question the efficacy of a practice that enables such a scoundrel.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-11-30 00:00:00 Helen Amos This is another book I just happened upon at Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge. I stood there reading it for a long time, couldn't get it out of my mind, and came back and bought it the next day. Jeffrey Maitland is a student of Joshu Sasaki, the renowned Zen teacher who is now 103 years old and has a devoted following, including Leonard Cohen, but has not written books of his own (there is supposedly one, transcripts of his talks, but it's very hard to find). This is a different tradition of Zen from mine, but as one teacher said, All Buddhism is one stream, and I found this book extremely interesting (though rather crudely written in places). It emphasizes that Zen is primarily a body practice, an idea with which I heartily concur (other people say it's all about the mind, and I don't really disagree. There's a point at which body and mind are the same thing). Maitland is a Rolfer, and he sees Zen as being very physically based. This is a bit of an odd book, but I really enjoyed it, and sat down and read it a second time right through, something I seldom do. It might be a book for advanced students, as people sometimes say. I don't actually consider myself advanced, but I thought it was fascinating.