The Way of Zen

What encourages a person to practice Buddhism? Is it to relieve human suffering? Or is it to become an enlightened human and attain nirvana?

The two outcomes may not really different. Attaining enlightenment frees a person from suffering. Still, it is not unusual to read a book on Buddhism that employs language loaded on one side or the other. This is especially true of two authors that I have been reading this summer. Thich Nhat Hanh writes lyrically on the theme of mindfulness and the relief of suffering. Alan Watts, on the other hand, writes incisively on Zen mind and Zen enlightenment, while almost completely ignoring suffering, compassion, loving kindness, and so on.

Watts’ view of Zen (and Buddhism in general) is intriguing, but it feels lopsided. In The Way of Zen, he rarely quotes from the Buddha’s teachings, but refers repeatedly to Taoist verses and the sayings and doings of Zen masters, particularly when they achieve satori. He also posits (and repeats) a number of analogies and metaphors that suggest what enlightenment might be and how it might arise. (Since he cannot get beyond the metaphorical stage, these metaphors are both suggestive and vaguely frustrating.) Enlightenment, and how an enlightened person views the self and the world, seem to be the only things that interest him. How enlightenment reduces suffering or changes one’s dealings with one’s fellows is hardly mentioned.

This approach makes the book intellectually stimulating, but strangely cold-hearted. Ignoring the emotional, moral, and ethical dimensions of Buddhism limits the book’s appeal for me. I want to bring a “good heart” (compassion, loving kindness, etc.) to my daily affairs and I am more interested in learning how I might do this through Buddhist practice than I am in piercing the secrets of Zen word games. That said, I confess that I enjoyed the book’s description of the historical development of Buddhism, its migration from India through China and Japan, and its emergence in the form of Zen in China and Japan, the metaphors regarding satori and the discussion of koan, and the (short) description of pre-1960 Zen practice in Japan. If these are sound, then this is a worthwhile, if unbalanced, introduction to Zen.

Wonder Boys

What would a “buddy” novel look like if it had to contend with three main characters instead of two? The answer in Wonder Boys is a three-sided shape, the triangle

Hero #1: Grady Tripp, a pot-saturated writer who can’t finish his magnum opus or figure out why his relationships with women always end in failure. Hero #2: Grady’s life-long friend and editor, Terry Crabtree. Put them together for Wordfest, an annual college event honoring writers and let the shenanigans begin. Hero #3: Grady’s student, James Leer. Grady doesn’t actually like James, but he feels sorry for him and they become buddies when Grady thinks he has interrupted James’ suicide attempt. Terry, on the other hand, loves James from the moment he lays eyes (and hands and whatever else) on him and he’s even willing to love his novel too.

Grady’s problems are manifold and diverse, and they could even be interesting, but the author, Michael Chabon, has other toys to play with: a dead author, some dead parents, two-going-on-three dead marriages, a dead dog, a dead snake, a dead woman’s coat, a dead beat’s car, an unplayed tuba, a … I could go on, but you get the idea. And he juggles his toys together so that they fall over each other like the Keystone Cops. Although clearly a humorist, Chabon can’t resist tossing in the occasional over-the-top adjective (spavine?), but any pretense of appearing to be a serious wordsmith is misplaced. Wonder Boys is a comedy that can be enjoyed without keeping a dictionary handy. As for me, I confess I enjoyed the movie version more (cleaner plot). Still, the book contains some memorable lines:

[Fahey] “one day waved a loaded pistol from the lecturn and instructed his pupils to write about Fear.” p. 13

And more tenderly,

“… I felt a sharp pain in my chest at the sudden expansion of the last hopeful muscle in my body.” p. 344

I had been looking forward to reading The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, but I feel I can wait a little longer. I will say this for Mr. Chabon: he has maintains an informative web page (or two).

A Short History of Nearly Everything

What would you like to know about the world around you? A little? A lot? How about (nearly) everything about (nearly) everything? If that is all you are looking for, then you simply must read A Short History of Nearly Everything, but I warn you, if you really want to know something for keeps, don’t let yourself read more than a few pages at a time. Or maybe ever. Otherwise, you will fall into the trap that I fell into, namely, that reading a few pages deeper into the book is the very best way to erase all recollection of past pages read. The chapter on the Ice Ages will make you forget the chapter on the Big Bang. The DNA chapter will destroy all recollection of the Ice Ages, and so on, and so on, until you finally put down the book, many happy pages later, wondering what you have actually learned.

It would be tempting to blame the author, Bill Bryson, for this. After all, if the book had been just a little more boring, I might not have been tempted to read it so quickly. To his credit, he does put a few speed bumps in the way. There is also a lightly repetitious quality to some of the stories: again and again you will discover that famous scientists were cads and (students take note!) many, perhaps most, of the scientists who make great discoveries never receive adequate credit for them, and again and again you will discover that many scientific facts can only be understood by using numbers and these numbers tend to  be incredibly vast or vanishingly small. But this kind of repetition is not really the author’s fault. It is simply the way science is.

And speaking of repetition, it certainly isn’t the author’s fault that I received my copy of A Short History … for my birthday, an event which I dearly love to celebrate, but whose repetitious quality is driving my family to distraction in their quest to find a gift that I will enjoy as well as appreciate. They succeeded beautifully with this gift (they had an idea that I might appreciate it since I had just happily finished The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid a few days earlier), but they might have suspected that, seeing as how A Short History … had been a bestseller about science, I might have already purchased my own (unopened) copy. Oh well.

Keeper of the House

This short enjoyable book is more memorable for the narrator’s dialect than for the simple story it tells. We follow the life of an African-American girl across the 20th century as it unfolds in a “house of prostitution” in South Carolina. The girl is the housekeeper, and while her role at the house evolves, she is never a prostitute herself. She is also never strongly connected with any aspect of the civil rights movement. Geographic isolation, vocational isolation, and lack of education all combine to keep her from making contact with the greatest domestic struggle of her times.

Although the story is simple and bland, it is told in language that is arresting and rich. The Keeper of the House speaks a version of English known as Gullah, but the author, Rebecca T. Godwin, tells us, “I have taken liberties with the Gullah dialect of lowcountry South Carolina, intending to convey the richness, music, and humor of the language while retaining its accessibility for people unfamiliar with its patterns.” Since I have no direct experience with Gullah myself, I will have to take the author at her word. The book is an easy read and perhaps authentic Gullah would have been impenetrable.