Book Review

The word “Zen” has almost become synonymous with the direct activity of contemplation whether it be in archery, motorcycle maintenance, fundraising, writing, eating, or running.  The essential point of Zen is to direct the mind to itself reaching the pure lucidity of mind, itself, in this case the higher Buddha Mind.  Incidentally, this is why early schools of Zen treated Zen as being synonymous with Buddha Mind.

From this we might say that the closer Zen gets to discovering the sheer lucidity of Mind, the more authentic becomes Zen.  On the other side of this, when Zen moves to golfing, as in ZenGolf, there is not much authentic Zen to be found.

It is also true to say that learning to look within and thus to contemplate our psychological world in order to master it, is also Zen.  To be more precise, it is beginner’s Zen which can involve the years beginning with late adolescence to middle age.  But it is Zen nevertheless which is perhaps one of its most exciting aspects in which we make a firm commitment to the spiritual path (marga) and stick to it in this life and in the next.

A few books on the market illustrate this kind of Zen.  Offhand I can think of John Blofeld’s book, The Autobiography of a Western Buddhist or even Alan Watt’s book, In My Own Way.  I assume there are others.  Their usefulness for the beginner cannot be underestimated insofar as such works are autobigraphical.  

The recent book by Jaimal Yogis entitled Saltwater Buddha fits this category.  Raised for a while in the great San Joaquin Valley Jaimal, a junior in high school, decides to leave home taking a one-way flight to Hawaii.  He leaves his parents a note which says he will be “somewhere in the world” but plans to call them when he gets there.  

Of course Jaimal’s journey has all the obvious marks of a ‘rite of passage’ without the formal rites.  On such a journey, the immature self (the sixteen year old), is not really the mature Jaimal found at the end of the book.  It is only by the loss of the adlosecent self that is entangled with his parents’ introjects that Jaimal begins to find the authentic Jaimal.  

Jaimal begins to accomplish this task by learning how to surf—but not on his terms but according to the ocean’s; the spiritual beauty of Hawaii; and the chance mentors he is fortunate enough to meet who help him cut away his immature self.

At this point, I should say that we learn in the book that Jaimal did formally study Zen which was of great benefit to him.  But such training means almost nothing if a person lacks the intuitive maturity to appreciate the real depth of Zen (and it is quite deep).  Achieving such maturity is greatly encumbered by the immature self which acts as a detour that leads us away from our true self, the Buddha-nature.  This immature self doesn’t want to surrender its attitude or its perspective.  But in Jaimal’s case he seemed eager to shed it, so that the more he did, the more mature he became—ready to look even deeper into his being than before.

Such adversity is not always bad if one uses Buddhism as their guide.  I dare say that so many young people might have spiritually benefited more in their rite of passage by reading, say, Blofeld’s The Zen Teachings of Huang-Po or as Jaimal did, spend some time in a Zen monastery.  The discipline, alone, is useful, but perhaps more useful is to constantly be forced to look within and shed the immature self.  

Saltwater Buddha is well crafted and engaging.  I would recommend this book for young people who are in their own particular rite of passage and for the young at heart.

Comments

[Uku]

Great review, well done!

[Capt.Knuckle&Flapjack]

Capt. Knuckle thinks your cheese has slipped off its cracker.

Youre finally giving support to pop-zen pseudo-metaphysical "be here now" rubbish.

What next? A glowing recommendation for Shunryu Suzukis books?

I going to go wax my maui nix board now, and catch some zen-waves, and 'be in da' moment'