The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul, and the Spiritual Life [Hardcover]

John Tarrant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 19, 1998

In this landmark guide to the spiritual journey, respected Zen teacher and Jungian psychotherapist John Tarrant brings together ancient Eastern traditions and the Western view of the soul to offer a new understanding and a vivid description of the depths and heights of our inner landscape. The Light Inside the Dark shows us how we can look into our darkest experiences and find the sources of joy there. In leading us on the journey of the interior life--the part of us that lies below the everyday life of work, family, and the physical world--Tarrant distinguishes between soul and spirit and shows how we can overcome the dichotomies of inner and outer, light and dark. To attain the deepest spirituality, he explains, no emotion need be denied: pleasure, anguish, desire, and contentment all form a part of the soul's great quest.

Using real-life stories as well as the teachings of Zen Buddhist masters and the ancient Greeks to illuminate his discoveries, Tarrant shows us how to live fully through difficulty and discover deep happiness in all aspects of daily life.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Try smiling at the morning birds while in the grip of profound grief. The effort of just turning up the corners of your lips is enough to send you back to the oblivion of sleep. Escape, John Tarrant tells us, is not the answer; neither is just getting over it. In a lyrical fusion of Jungian psychology and Zen Buddhism, Zen teacher Tarrant narrates the human descent into darkness and, through meditative living, the subsequent ascent to the light. Like a nonfiction version of Dante's Divine Comedy, Tarrant acts as our guide on a journey through myths and stories, crushing experience, and heroic drama, into the maws of despair and out again into the light of compassionate living. Coming face to face with our interior troubles is the catalyst, Tarrant says, for liberating ourselves into the moment. But Tarrant is no glib optimist. The ascent can be as treacherous as the fall and demands constant attention. Second to none in modern Zen literature, Tarrant will bring you smiling into the light, even if it takes a trip through hell to do it. --Brian Bruya

From Publishers Weekly

To accept Tarrant's invitation to search for "the light inside the dark" is to become swept up in a torrent of evocative and lyrical images which move seamlessly from the mythology of ancient Greece through the humorous asceticism of Zen masters to the passionate pain of modern psychotherapeutic patients. Tarrant, director of a Zen training group called the California Diamond Sangha, shows us how, through the Zen path, our souls can find insight and relief. Like Zen koans, Tarrant's stories of Zen students and his psychotherapy patients draw attention to questions we barely sense in ourselves. Tarrant's Haiku-like style relies on the juxtaposition of opposites, like light and dark, drawn from our day-to-day fears and joys, our nightly terrors and morning doubts, and the rich cultural myths of Eastern and Western religions. Tarrant's book is at once an intimate story of one man's struggle for meaning and a guide to the joys of the spiritual journey.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1st edition (August 19, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060172193
• ISBN-13: 978-0060172190
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #387,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary book for spiritual seekers, January 4, 2000

By 

shamanics student (Apex, NC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul, and the Spiritual Life (Hardcover)

Tarrant's book is a masterwork. For those experiencing loss, depression, despair, or just plain frustration by the uncertainty, confusion or slowness of their spiritual search, Tarrant's book is sure to bring hope and new understanding. He is sure to remind you, as he did me, that the experience of living life, whatever happens, is the reason we are here. THIS IS WHERE THE ACTION IS. While we may be pulled upward to the Creator, we've also got things to learn here and passing through the dark is the great teacher of how to find Spirit and evolve. Learning to control your attention is the key. But this book will do more than make you UNDERSTAND that; it will make you FEEL it right down to your toenails! Tarrant speaks from his heart here! His prose sparkles like poetry and fine, aged wine. In his foreward, Tarrant reports dreaming that this book was a large fish. If you read it, his big fish will swallow you whole, like Jonah, and you will come out a different man or woman.

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zen Enlightenment COMBINED with Jungian Wholeness, September 4, 1999

By 

B. Hynum "Max Qual" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul, and the Spiritual Life (Hardcover)

It doesn't get much better than this. i read a paragraph or 2 a day -- that's all i needed to get a wonderful hit of Zen/Jung. Took months. If you could articulately elaborate as a Zen master on Jung's quote "Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light but making the darkness conscious;" and as a Jungian analyst on Kornfield's quote "Enlightenment is intimacy with all things," it would sound like Tarrant (imho). Reading this book moved my thorough practice to an entirely different level. Caveat: i don't consider it a beginner's book; _A Gradual Awakening_ or _Seeking the Heart of Wisdom_ would be better starters. Then after 5 years of practice, _The Light Inside the Darkness_ would probably act as a rap on the shoulder with bamboo or Rinzai shout. i think the discipline of the practice needs attention first (a la _Breath by Breath_ by Larry Rosenberg (discipline w/ a sense of humor) or _The Heart of Buddhist Meditation_ by Nyanaponika Thera (detailed, serious read), later comes the poetry.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Map of the Dark Road, December 31, 2002

By 

Frank MacEowen - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul, and the Spiritual Life (Paperback)

The modern world has marginalized and anesthetized the deep, dark, inward turning process of the Dark Night of the Soul. John Tarrant revitalizes the descent into the underworld as the sacred journey that it is. Top notch writing.