Customer Reviews

Everyday Zen: Love & Work

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is one of my favorite books on Zen. Charlotte Joko Beck was the founder and resident Zen teacher of the Zen Center of San Diego, and "Everyday Zen" is a collection of her talks. Joko speaks about Zen in an ordinary, conversational, down-to-earth way--as opposed to the paradoxical, poetic, non-logical style often found in Zen--and she explicitly relates Zen to everyday life. For Joko, Zen is about being OK with everything, an OK-ness that does not imply fatalism, passivity, or an absence of feelings. She says: "For something to be OK, it doesn't mean that I don't scream or cry or protest or hate it. . . . What _is_ the enlightened state? When there is no longer any separation between myself and the circumstances of my life, whatever they may be, that is it."

While this book is a good one for newcomers to Zen--and for old-timers too--it does not include nitty-gritty beginning instruction in Zen meditation, so for that you'll need to look elsewhere. (I'd recommend the book "The Three Pillars of Zen," the video "The Secret Is There Are No Secrets," or a Zen center.)

This is not the best Zen book for everyone. When you're in a swamp of existential angst, desperately wanting to know that peace and joy can be found within this fleeting life so full of suffering--exactly the issues Zen addresses--Joko's "everyday" approach can be exasperating and can seem not to address those issues, and you might prefer "The Three Pillars of Zen" or "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind." I appreciate Joko's wariness of leading us astray with images of "enlightenment," which is so easily misunderstood as a thing we can achieve that will make our lives perfect at last, but sometimes I want more reminders than Joko offers that our life can be utterly transformed (while still being the same old, imperfect life).

Joko Beck's thesis is a simple one: That life, just as it is at any moment, is all that it can be and therefore is perfect. Pointing again and again to the troubles we cause ourselves by living life not in the moment, but out of a confused fog of fantasies and "what ifs," Beck challenges us to divest ourselves of our mental defense mechanisms and dare to be OK with life as it is. Yet she is a compassionate teacher, intimately familiar with human weaknesses and struggles, and she extends one hand of comfort even as the other hand pulls the rug out from under our feet. Perhaps the only shortcoming of this book is that it is much more clear about the "deconstructive" aspect of Zen practice than about exploring the ultimate manifestations and benefits of enlightenment. Knowing her aversion to "holding out cookies," however, this absence is understandable.

I've read quite a few books over the past few months in my search to "understand Zen" (yes, I *know* that's a contradiction in terms!). But "Everyday Zen" is really the first that helped me see how Zen can operate in the midst of my modern American life -- outside of a monastic environment, dealing with business and family and the other assorted miseries of the late 20th century. Her style is forthright and no-nonsense; excuse the sexism, but it's almost as if you had a plain-spoken old aunt who simply told you the truth about the birds and the bees when everyone else was hemming and hawing and quoting Robert Browning. I recommend this book HIGHLY to anyone new to Zen who struggles, as I do, with how to place it into a modern context

I purchased this book back in 1992, got half-way through it, couldn't understand it, and put it down to read other things and go on with my life of everyday living, thinking, worrying, etc. that we all do in our lives. Not until a crisis of sorts came up in my life did I pick it up again. This time, it all made sense. Living life in the present moment, right here, now. Working at being less judgemental. Not looking for 'happiness' and instead finding joy in everyday life. I know it sounds like a lot of BS, but something changed after the second reading of this book, and now mundane aspects of my job are just me doing my work. I haven't changed religions, haven't joined a cult, haven't even attended a 'zendo' or 'sesshin.' But something has changed since reading this book. It could be the thing that changes your life, too. I know I've got a long way to go, but what a start! The companion second book by Joko is also highly recommended.

I remember buying "Everyday Zen" in 1990 because of Robert Aitken's recommendation on the back cover. Still, I was pretty overloaded with Zen books; this one collected dust for a few months. When I finally did open it I was amazed; this was the first time I had encountered the radical suggestion: OUR LIFE IS OUR PRACTICE!!! It was a real eye opener. I reread it three or four time in a row. My teachers in Rochester were pretty unimpressed; they thought that Joko was for people "who weren't ready for Zen." (One of them really did say that!) I thought otherwise; her work addressed the disconnect between a practice created for those in monasteries and the "self-centered dream" of our lives. It baffled me that people would be having "openings" in the Zendo and then treat their family like dirt after a retreat. She taught that working with our family "issues" was not something separate than our practice on the cushions in the meditation hall. No duality.

I ended up working with Joko for about five years. She was (and is) every bit as remarkable in real life as she was in her book. There isn't a lot of drama in this practice. Our life becomes less of a soap opera and becomes more mundane. From that ordinariness emerge joy, compassion, love and all of the other aspects of our true nature. You might have fewer of the kind of lightening bolts of a traditional practice. Instead, you will have a grounded life which brings peace rather than pain into this world.

I find the title of this book to be a bit misleading - it implies a sort of general applicability characteristic of perhaps the large majority of books on "zen" and "Buddhism" which have overwhelmed the market in recent years. Love and work, who wouldn't want to resolve these two koans. Joko Beck, in this book, gives us much more than a series of little chickensoup feel-good stories about love and work. In what is essentially a compilation of her talks for sesshin students, she tries to goad us into what really cannot be expressed, cannot be talked about - into the awareness of the moment. This book therefore cannot be *read*, it has to be *felt* with that mixture of gratitude, abandon, sensitivity and faith that one works on during the sesshin. One therefore cannot use it to "learn" something about zen. As a tool for zen practice, however, i have found it over the years to be invaluable. i come to this book again and again for inspiration and support - i 'd rank it, together with S. Suzuki's Beginner's Mind as the best book on zen practice available to us today. What (arguably) makes it even more valuable to us are its syncretic elements: Everyday Zen is written by a Westerner who sees her life from a perspective of an American, yet it also possesses the sensitivity to the workings of one's mind, the ferocity needed to face the mind's endless evasive maneouvers and a dedication to cultivation of awareness that matches that of any Japanese zen master, indeed, that of any spiritual master anywhere. In short, if you want to practice zen as opposed to "studying" it, this is a book for you.

Dear readers, if you were drawn to this book as I was then you must also seek insight and a better quality of life. I have many books on Zen and books related to self-inquiry in general. Everything ranging from Thomas Cleary's translated classics to Allan Watts, D.T. Suzuki, Krishnamurti, to the mammoth book, Zen and the Brain. Not one of them spoke to me as intimately as this book did. This is wisdom for the people of our age. In some of the passages within this book, I found myself thinking "of course!! that makes so much sense!!" In summmarizing the book, its primary message is to just "live your life and do not seek the truth anywhere else." I especially admire Joko Beck's groundedness. She is not an egomaniac guru who puts herself upon a pedestal and challenges the words of other teachers. Her attitude is something like "Nothing to gain, nothing to lose. If you want to hear a little about the insight that I have then listen, if not, continue on to the next book. It's up to you." So if you have been searching as I have then please consider reading this book before spending another dollar on any Zen self-help book. I promise you that you will not be able to turn away from the priceless wisdom that are within these pages.

Good book by a real practitioner. It lightly touches every significant aspect of life. Very easy read. It also explains what Zen practice is and what isn't. There are too many books on as quazi-buddhism, unnecessarily complicating Zen with self-invented garbage. Zen is simply about being.

It is written in simple language and may be read by anyone. Everyone is a beginner in Zen, anyway.

Most importantly, the author does not present her writings as the absolute truth. Zen is about questioning, and Beck repeats it over and over again.

If anything, the book requires an open mind. As it is said, "On a withered tree, a flower blooms".

This book has changed my life. Suffering deconstructed effectively. No riddles, no koans. Incisive, tough, human, compassionate. It works.

Also recommended: "Thoughts without a Thinker" by Mark Epstein, not as simple, but explains the link between Zen and therapy

Back in the early 80's I read a few very scholarly volumes about Zen. They were great at giving a total novice some idea of the formation and history of Zen. They were full of very strict admonishments, you must live very austere existence, live off almost nothing, and be almost perfect before you even begin.

Twenty years on and I am interested again in Zen. This book is such a contrast to those early volumes. It teaches you that none of us are perfect, and each of us needs to move at a suitable pace for where we are now. It might be helpful if before reading this book you have some theoretical knowledge of how Zen came to be and what it's about, but I don't feel that is essential. If you are like me you will have decided you want to know about Zen or wish to begin practicing and you will find someone (a teacher) to help start you on the path, and they will recommend this book to you.

The writer seems to know EXACTLY how I'm feeling and writes in a style that speaks to the inner me, rather than talking to all the perfect people I envisaged would be the only ones to take up Zen practice...i.e. she de-esoteric-orises the subject. She also sounds like she must have experienced the doubts, the hopes, and all the other up's and downs that we all go through.

Highly recommended.