Customer Reviews

Afterzen: Experiences of a Zen Student Out on His Ear

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read Janwillem Van de Wetering's two earlier books on zen years ago, and after seeing David Chadwick's comments on Afterzen, I was itching to read it, and have just finished doing so. What a feast for zen students! Van de Wetering says things that some of us who have been practicing zen for decades have been muttering between our breaths for years but rarely saying outright. I laughed out loud through many of the chapters and was sobered by some of the others. The author muses on his life as a zen student and introduces us to as many gurus, senseis, and rimpoches as one life can encompass, thrusting us headfirst into koans along the way. By the time his story ends, we've been through hell, purgatory, and various heavens. I can't think of a healthier testimony to the fact that zen is alive and well in the West than Afterzen. Those who don't like what Janwillem has to say about zen are entitled to their opinions. I am grateful for the book, and to the author. If you've ever taken seriously the question Who am I and what the hell am I doing here? and sincerely looked for an answer in Eastern or Western skies, don't miss reading this book. It gets all the stars I've got.

This is an honest post-script to the author's path through Zen. Jawillem van der Wetering's first and second books brought me to Zen; his third re-inspired me to get back on the cushion.

If you are "into Zen", take a pass on this book. If you are looking to be a better person, reduce stress, lower your blood pressure, or become one with the Universe, take a pass.

This is Zen and Zen is reality, and reality is hard, messy, discomforting, and stays in your face even when you turn away. Furthermore, reality is value-neutral, and, surprising to many, so is Zen. Zen masters in Japan supported their government's wartime policies, masters in America slept with their students, and van der Wetering's second, American, master was a moody S.O.B. instead of a smiley-faced spiritual mentor.

Van der Wetering put himself on the line between ordinary life in the default mode of perception into which we grow, and the exact same life informed by the progressive destruction of assumptions, opinions, and perspective through zazen and the intense interpersonal instruction of a Zen master. He put in the hours on the cushion, tested himself sitting before his master, and, finally, spared nothing in reporting back from the front.

He chronicles his disappointment; throughout the book he shares his sense of an important, yet unfulfilled, part of his life's mission and, after it all, withholds overt judgment of himself and his erstwhile master. (If judgment there is, I missed it.)

In short, read, and re-read, this book, and its predecessors, to disabuse yourself of any sense that your path to inner peace and tranquility lies through Zen. Then, if you're still "into Zen", put the books away and go find a master who makes you sweat.

Van De Wetering's previous books on Zen "The Empty Mirror" and "A Glimpse of Nothingness" weren't advocating Zen as a "solution" or a "path" for anynone, rather they described his personal search for meaning and his personal struggle with the practice.
While at the end of "A Gimpse of Nothingness" I had the impression that for him Zen turned out to be his "path" in the search for meaning, "Afterzen" - written several years later - describes a very different situation.

Apparently his Zen community has fallen apart, he as given up on any formal practice (at least within another community) and he is very critical, polemic and cynical about Zen, about his former teachers and about spiritual teachers in general, with the only exception being the Roshi in the Japanese Zen monastary he stayed in several years earlier (described in the book "The Empty Mirror"), whom he stills holds in high regard.

The book also describes encounters with fellow (former) Zen students, speaks about koans and gives some "solutions" to them. All in all it feels like Van De Wetering is creating a balance sheet of the assets and liabilities of his Zen experience. Yet he obviously isn't detached about it and his cynical and polemic - at times even self-righteous - style might turn some people off.

A Zen master once said "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha". Perhaps in a similar approach by giving up on Zen as a "solution" and a "path", Van De Wetering is in fact follow its intention and teaching the most, even though he's still trying to come to terms with it.

In his previous books, *The Empty Mirror* and *A Glimpse of Nothingness*, Van de Wetering shows us his earnest, serious phase when he seeks out and learns from a Zen master in Kyoto, Japan and later on in Maine, USA. In *Afterzen*, Van de Wetering weaves a delightful tapestry of post-zen stories that show the lighter side of life after involvement with dysfunctional spiritual teachers and centers.

Van de Wetering shares his encounters with two types of inappropriate spiritual teachers: (a) the outright, (usually male) rash teachers who drink and womanize and (b) the grim, unyielding and dogmatic teachers who feel they are somehow on a mission. In Maine, Van de Wetering seems to have worked closely with the grim and dogmatic kind. In *A Glimpse of Nothingness* he gives one such teacher the pseudonym of "Peter." In *Afterzen* it seems that he refers to the same person as "Sensei," simply meaning "teacher," a name used in most American Zen centers.

Some of Van de Wetering's encounters of his earlier phase are retold in a critical, yet humorous vein in his lighter, "afterzen" phase. The reason Van de Wetering didn't question the behavior of his earlier teachers in his previous books--both the teachers he worked with and the ones he met in passing--is that he simply couldn't. Western Zen students tend to take themselves and their teachers way too seriously. Respect turns into idealization and idealization turns into belief in the lineage myths of supposedly enlightened teachers. In this phase, it is all too easy to silence inner doubts about unwise or uncompassionate behavior in teachers.

That spiritual teachers are human, all too human, is a hard lesson to learn in the western Zen environment. Most Zen teachers do not encourage down-to-earth, horizontal relationships with their students. It likely took many a tumble and several years of experience in a dysfunctional center for Van de Wetering to see through the Zen hype, and to come out laughing in the end. Highly recommended reading for anyone who has ever left a spiritual practice center, or who is contemplating intense involvement with one.

the liners would have you believe that janwillem tells us the answers to koans. what he does do as always, is show his true self. i asked my 13 year old daughter for the answers to the first 2 koans - she immediately gave the 'correct' answers. this book does not answer koans. this book shows where buddha nature leads. the answers are the true questions... john boland

Van de Wetering is a humorous and prolific author, admired by many, and easy to read; and his subject -- a westerner wrestling with Zen and its koans -- is intriguing. Even his eventual disillusionment can be instructive. Some would say his rejection of Zen and of meaning is the highest attainment of Zen; he would probably call this foolishness. Van de Wetering began with a nihilism arising out of World War II trauma and came to Zen looking to have it confirmed. He doesn't acknowledge much his own contributions to his bad experience with Zen, but comes to us with stories of other disillusioned students and of the failings and foibles, scandals and tragedies of Zen masters and other religious leaders, wanting perhaps us to confirm his disenchantment. But for me at least the self-justifying telling of these sad tales eventually undermines the humor, and the book becomes more distasteful than enjoyable or enlightening.

This direct and simple statement of a life in Buddhist practice, indeed of a life fully lived, is a precious jewel. There is no stink of Zen here. Hurrah for that! Not surprisingly, van de Wetering once again offers an engaging narrative of inquiry and freedom, vividly expressed. Take a look.

Van der Wetering, the first guy to write about studying Zen in Japan (that I can think of), then, in America, brings him and us and what's-it-all-about (not let-me-tell-you-where-it's-at) together again. Good stories with the ups and downs reveal his own path with his own wry wit. Check him out

Earlier, when I was really into Zen, I did not like this book. But Buddhism says, that the world is disliiusionment, and disillusionment also applys to Buddhism, especially Western Buddhism. AfterZen descrtibes such an disillusioning, and unfortunately he has a point.

Th book should get 4 stars, but I could not reedit that...

If you're looking for a romanticized reminiscence that makes you want to run to a Zen monastery and find 'peace', don't read this book (or any of Janwillem's Zen books). If you want a funny, insightful, excellently written book about Zen journeying that includes both the joys and angst, the glistening stars and the fallen ones, the wisdom and the scandal, definitely read this book. It is also oddly inspiring and has led me to a more focused practice of Zen. But not Zen as dabbling or looking for 'an experience.' Rather Zen as a practice (as in practicing the piano) which can be rewarding, but is in the end about 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.