122 of 126 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Buy it, read it, burn it, live it, July 14, 2002
By Timothy Campbell
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AVEV14GLEQGWN/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp>
(Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
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(REAL NAME)
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=cm_rn_bdg_help?\
ie=UTF8&nodeId=14279681&pop-up=1#RN> This review is from: The
Complete Idiot's Guide to Zen Living (Paperback)
<http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Zen-Living/dp/0028639588/re\
f=cm_cr_pr_orig_subj>
I have been studying Zen off and on for years but was continually
frustrated by the relentless obscurantism. On several occasions I asked
questions on Zen newsgroups and was disappointed when people would
answer my questions with riddles. Also, when I asked a Zen Roshi to
answer some questions (even offering to pay him for his time) I found
myself railroaded into taking his beginner's course a second time! I
began to suspect that there are a lot of people out there who are so
attached to some FORM of Zen that they have lost the ability to
communicate the essentials in a compelling manner. They asked me, in
effect, to "just have faith", perhaps inspired by their reports of
bliss.
Sorry, but I've been there, done that! If you can't explain your
valuable insight without a modicum of understanding of who I am and what
I can grasp, then I'm not interested.
That's why I found "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Zen Living"
(hereinafter TCIGTZL), so very refreshing. While I'm sure that some Zen
purists will scoff, I was happy to have some perplexing questions
answered. For example, I once asked on a Zen newsgroup, "What is the
benefit of Zen? Why should I entrust the next 20 years of my life to
some teacher whose qualifications I'm not able to assess?" In response,
I got a lot of Zentastic blathering. It was as if they were trying to
teach somebody calculus before arithmetic.
TCIGTZL, on the other hand, lays out the benefits quite clearly. I fail
to see the harm in that; the authors carefully explain the "goaless
goal" aspect of Zen, so there should be little danger of readers
striving to attain and cling to those benefits. (If I may draw an
analogy: you can explain the advantages of learning to read without
getting people fixated on the actual process once they acquire the
skill.)
So, at last, a bit of clarity! While Zen has long appealed to me at a
gut level, I was getting to the point where I was asking, "After
hundreds of years, why hasn't Zen improved its method of introducing
itself to neophytes?" Maybe that's not fair -- maybe I wasn't looking in
the right places -- but until I found TCIGTZL I was starting to think
that I'd been wrong about Zen all along.
TCIGTZL does include a lot of material that is perplexing. I expected
that. I also expect to find my future exploration of Zen frustrating.
Now, though, I've read an accessible overview. I won't keep the book --
that would be too "clingy" -- but at least I now have some validation of
my initial (favourable) gut reaction to Zen.
