Customer Reviews

Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life

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"Let the teaching flow out from your own breast
to cover the sky and the earth."
- Yantou

"When you unpack all your motives and other people's motives and get to the bottom of things, you find love. I know that this is a shocking thing to say but I will try to show how it is true." - BMtR

The single most satisfying aspect of this book is the sharing of personal experience. The author relates his "Stumbling into Koans" as well as sharing the experiences of others who have encountered koan practice. Many of the traditional koans are themselves dialogues or interchanges.

Each of the fourteen chapters stands alone as the presentation of a koan with commentary. Each chapter is entitled, for example "ON AVOIDING BAD ART" or "LIFE WITH AND WITHOUT YOUR CHERISHED BELIEFS" or "THE HEAVEN THAT'S ALREADY HERE". Each koan has a section "Working with the Koan", with one or more personal stories from the author or another person. The honest sharing of life experience makes the book intriguing.

"Koans might be imagined as vials of ancient light. There is one strange thing about meeting ancestors in this way: when they reach down across night and the years to give you their light, you might find that what you have been given is your own light, something that belongs to you." - BMtR

On the other hand, one can lose one's precious maps that over and over lead one into the familiar den of misery. Tarrant strongly advises to discard the old, familiar roadmap to Misery, AND don't replace it with anything. Not knowing is preferred to being CERTAIN and suffering. Life is allowed to be itself, not scrunched into little ugly molds.

Try it. You'll like it!

Okay, Mountain Tasting runs a close second, but this book gets me through hard times. It is great to read aloud to a friend or spouse. It is the only book I now recommend to those dealing with life-threatening illnesses.

The koans work me and transform my suffering into something like acceptance.

My only complaint is that it has not yet come out in paperback.

This book is more than a book about Koans. It is a complete presentation of The Matter itself. John Tarrant goes directly to the heart of the matter and directly to OUR hearts. One can't help but take up koans as one reads the book. Koans are about our life, not about some chinese buddhists who lived 1000 years or more ago. John show the way to freedom, demonstrates the way to freedom and the kicker is, it's already here if you can see it and use it. What a gift. Nine bows.

There is no end to the making of books; Amazon exists for that, and it's great to learn how to, say, repair a window.

But in the "wisdom" category, 99% of books merely engage the old chattering mind, and you just end up with new noise. Nothin' wrong with that, but somehow, Tarrant does something different when he writes, and I come away smiling deep, breathing freer, paying closer attention to my wife, my tasks, the wind battering the tree limb against my window. I shake my head again and again at how much I'd been missing. Sometimes, this shift persists for hours.

Hey, reader: you've earned a brief reprieve from worry and other secret babble. Don't miss this one; it may take you home to the core.

And I, after reading way too many books, don't know how he does it.

I am a member of Pacific Zen Institute (PZI) and John Tarrant is my primary teacher. That being said, I offer a little different perspective than what you may read in other responses to his book, "Bring Me the Rhinoceros."

We at PZI have one-on-one interviews with John during any given month as well as at retreats. This is the context in which most people view koan work. But the word koan literally means "public notice". John has reconnected our community to the ways of old Chinese masters by bringing public discussion back into koan studies. He does this by conducting koan seminars throughout the year where we will meditate with a koan, then share our experience with the group.

What John has done with "Bring Me the Rhinoceros" is to offer every reader the opportunity to join in a grand public koan discussion. John writes how these koans have affected him; he writes about other people and their koan experiences; but it doesn't end here.

Sometimes I read one chapter just before going to sleep. Other times I read a chapter just before my morning meditation period. How have you experienced these koans? Join us, then, in this grand discussion.

HAND ME THE RHINOCEROS is a brilliant little book on Koan practice in Zen. Koans are little riddles ("What is the sound of one hand clapping?") the contemplation of which can cause an enlightenment experience.

Tarrant illustrates a number of Koans with a series of chatty personal tales. There's nothing of the esoteric in Tarrant's writing. These obscure epigrams are attacked in a straight-ahead manner that both illuminates the nature of Koan study and (less importantly) provides some guidance to the answer.

Whether the reader is an experienced Zen student used to working with Koans or the rankest newcomer to the cushion doesn't matter. BRING ME THE RHINOCEROS will bring you to a clearer understanding of the Great Matter.

Other than this, there are very few books available to entertain those who are already awakened. There is little for the mind here so the book will be greatly misunderstood by most people. It is written from Being so every word is unconditional love. It is packed with gems and "truth" sufficient to make me aware of patterns used by masters to awaken others.

I've always admired Zen's single focus of awakening people. The writings demonstrate the deep intelligence (not cleverness) of koans and how they can stress the mind from three dimensional thinking into four dimensional paradoxical experiencing. The process may take a year or more so don't expect results from reading this book.

The only other book I know of that gives such a wonderful experiential example of awakening is Byron Katie's "A Thousand Names for Joy". If you have already surrendered to reality, this is a book you'll love.

Profound, insightful, beautiful, and written with the skill of a poet. If enlightenment can be found in a book, this is the book.

Put simply, this is one of the best books on spiritual practice - and on living a good life - that I have ever read. If you're the least bit interested in such matters, you'll enjoy the rhinoceros. I had never felt much interest in koans before, but John Tarrant enabled me to see them in a new light. His is the warm, humorous, and deeply wise side of zen.

i love this book. it has crawled into my heart. tender, loving stories of real life and finding peace in the very midst of all life is. john tarrant writes with grace and beauty and humor. thank you!!!