Customer Reviews

A Glimpse of Nothingness: Experiences in an American Zen Community

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I picked this book up in a college town's bookstore while visiting my sister. Sometimes I will just pick up a handful of books in the Eastern Philosophy section, and see what I get when I take off my blindfold. On the car ride home I was unsure while glancing over it if I was going to like this one or not. The back speaks of "...Zen sages who were alcoholics, the two natured personality of Zen Masters who enjoy sex and cowboy movies..."-I personally found this description of the contents after having read it, frankly completely off base.

This book is about a Zen student's adventures from Japan, back to Amsterdam, to the United States-where this book takes place for the most part. It could be any Zen community really, it shows what it is like working with others in a very accurate manner. He writes with a direct simplicity-he is not wordy, just says it how it was. Now did I agree with everything he had to say about Zen? Not at all, but the important thing is I was asked a lot of questions while reading this book. And that's what any good book can do above all else, is ask questions-rather than saying, "here, agree with me."

A passage of his book that provided myself with a lot of insight goes as follows,

"A Chinese allegory tells how a monk sets off on a long pilgrimage to find the Buddha. He spends years and years on his quest and finally he comes to the country where the Buddha lives.

He crosses a river, it is a wide river, and he looks about him while the boatman rows him across. There is a corpse floating on the water and it is coming closer.

The monk looks. The corpse is so close he can touch it. He recognizes the corpse, it is his own.

The monk loses all self control and wails.

There he floats, dead.

Nothing remains.

Anything he has ever been, ever learned, ever owned, floats past him, still and without life, moved by the slow current of the wide river.

It is the first moment of his liberation."

This book is brilliant in all places, it shows some struggle with inner questioning. A wrestling with the author's own cleverness. It almost feels like a diary. One that just so happened to have been written while having a stay with a Zen community. I believe you will come to appreciate this book a lot.

Once again Jan Willem van de Wetering in his humourous style exposes his experiences to the world without embarrassment or shyness. Ten years after his experience as a young man in the Zen monastery in Japan under the old master, even though he had separated from "Peter", the old masters heir to be, on bad terms, he meets him again in Holland and Peter visits him at his home. He decides to continue where he left off with his koan still smoldering inside. He spends some time at Peter's Zen community, or commarde as others called it, and solved his koan as well as others. We learn more of Peter and especially of the fascinating set of characters who are also seeking, such as Edgar or Rupert the erstwhile psychologist. As before, he struggles with the required discipline but this time it's not as hard, he has gained from his stay in Japan; as the old master said at the end of the first book "you are now a little awake, so awake you will never be able to fall asleep again".

The training is everywhere.

this book shows that the most sacred is found in wherever you are, and it is never necessary to point it out. Its just there smiling from the shadows, waiting for you to share in the joke. The character of Peter is very interesting and represents an 'ideal' which I try to live up to, not in the sense of mirroring his personality or surroundings, but merely reflecting the core that is all our nature. It is not so much the narrator's specific journey is important, as none of ours are except to us individually, but of the feeling generated from knowing though flawed we are all just sleepy children not yet aware of the extend of our shared majesty.

Just finished this great book. Two days pass, and I want to know more about this man. I tell my girlfriend to google him. As she was searching I started to ponder how old this guy must be. After all, he did write it in the 70's. I guess 70. Turns out he is 77. She continues to search on Wikipedia and says, "this can't be right, he just died two days ago." I was amazed. As I was finishing the last chapter, intriguingly named "Corpse" he was dying or had already passed. I hope he found the liberation he was looking for. Great read for someone interested in Zen, Buddhism or anyone on a search for the truth.

After reading enough books on Buddhism, Tao and Zen to thoroughly drive me nuts at times, it was nice to read a book about an almost average guy trying to live the way in an almost average world while continuing his practice one day at a time. It was a nice read with a bit of humor along with a lot of subtle, thought provoking ideas without the romanticizing of the Zen life. Life for me isn't about shaving my head, begging with a bowl and escaping the world into a monetary. It was nice to read a book from the other side of Zen, a modern view with the renegade style of some of the lesser glorified Zen masters. A good insightful read, it left me wanting more as opposed to being left bored by endless ritual descriptions and sutra quotes.

The author resumes his search for the meaning of life in an American Zen commune. Less fumbling compared to his experience in "The Empty Mirror". One could almost sese the author has gained some insight. What this insight is, is not quite clear ~ as it should be. The master will pour you tea, but where is your cup?!

I very much enjoyed this book. It is based on the real experiences of the author when he stayed at a Zen community in America. He did an excellent job making it come alive on the page. You feel you got a real idea from a gifted story teller of what actually spending time in a community like this would be like. This account is a valuable contribution to literature on Eastern thought, Buddhism, etc. Walking the path is what Zen is about and this book gives those that are curious a glimpse of what this can entail for spiritual seekers. I read this book years ago and have not forgotten it.

The pursuit of the unanswered koan continues in the zen experiences of van de Wetering. The book recounts linking up with his Zen mentor/nemesis "Peter" after a hiatus of 10 years. The author decides to leave Holland and join Peter at his zen community in New England so that the koan may be realized.

As in "The Empty Mirror" (see review), van de Wetering pursues the unlocking of his koan given him by the old master in Kyoto. And he eventually comes to an understanding:

"But when you find the koan's answer, as cryptic as the koan itself, the interpretation is still yours to find out. You may even go along a way which the master doesn't approve of, and he may terminate your training. But your insight will still be right and properly acknowledged".

After his insight, the author returns to his Amsterdam routines, changed and yet not changed. With humor and honesty, one man has chronicled his struggles on the path to enlightenment for us - the first step in liberation.

Highly recommended, as this is a seriously humorous book.

Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts

This is the tale of Van De Wetering's experiences at a Zen community run by the teacher he met in Japan, "Peter," a central character in The Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery. As in the first book, VDW chronicles the experiences with good humor and engaging prose. And as before, VDW approaches the subject with a mixture of dedication and wariness. There are no profound lessons or memorable breakthroughs. The promise of enlightenment remains elusive. The quest, however, is enough to keep VDW coming back.

After reading this book, I did some quick research. The character "Peter" is in reality a former Zen teacher named Walter Nowick, a founder of the Moonspring Hermitage near Surry, Maine. The community was flourishing by the mid-1970's, but by the mid-1980's there are hints of trouble. Nowick ultimately stopped teaching, devoted his time to music, and reached a settlement with his former students allowing their use of the Moonspring land for what is now called the Morgan Bay Zendo. VDW's final book in the Zen trilogy, Afterzen: Experiences of a Zen Student Out on His Ear, deals obliquely with the collapse of the Zen community and his estrangement from Nowick (now referred to as Sensei).

For "A Glimpse of Nothingness" VDW consolidated a series of trips to Maine to create a single narrative. So the impression that we're reading an account of an extended stay at the community is inaccurate. That doesn't render the individual stories untrue, but it does mean that VDW's experiences took place between long stays at his home in Holland, and that relationships chronicled in the book developed over time rather than in one intense period. I understand the literary merits of collapsing the trips into one visit, but I question how VDW's ulimate attitude was influenced (if at all) by the difference between episodic stays and one lengthy stay.

If nothing else, this book is an enjoyable way to spend time with a man who comes off as thoughtful, self-effacing, and articulate, with wry sense of himself and the world.