Customer Reviews

Lotus in the Fire

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I am at 15 year old homschooled girl in Maryland. I have been researching buddhism for the past few months. I stumbled across this book in the library while doing a research project. I havent stoped reading it since. This book touched me in a religious and emotional way. My entire family is suffering from a number of illnesses and operations of our family memebers. This book gave me a better idea of what it is like for my relatives in this rough time. Plus i learned alot about Zen Buddhism and a little bit of medical info. I sudjested this book to everyone in my house so that they too can be more accepting of our families diffuculites.

In "Lotus in the Fire," Jim Bedard tells the story of his battle with leukemia with the lightness, simplicity and humor of a gifted storyteller and with the depth and insight gained from long years of Zen practice. Running through this book are questions we all live with: How do we face difficult or painful times? When do we accept the situation at hand and make the best of it or when do we put our full effort into changing it? How do we use a dillemma or an illness as a tool to enable us to grow in strength, wisdom and compassion, and even to give love and wisdom to others? "Lotus in the Fire" follows Bedard's journey through illness in an open and unselfconscious manner.He meets his trials with flexibility, knowing only that he does not know what is going to happen the next day, the next moment. Returning again and again to his Zen practice, Bedard finds energy when he has no energy left and an ability to ride through disappoinments with trust. Bedard expresses gratitude for his life and family and friends throughout the book. In "Lotus in the Fire," the reader walks with Bedard through the experience of having cancer. He holds nothing back, gives his all throughout the journey and throughout the book. A sense of responsiblility and of giving full effort with awareness, love and humor shines through this book. It is a tale told with grace and wit, and with the easy lilt of an author who finds joy in this world.

How each of us faces our individual life challenges varies for we are as individual as our ventures. This is the story of one man's unanticipated journey into and through an unexpected illness, namely leukemia and the hidden treasures of his experience. The rollercoaster of mental, emotional, physical and spiritual change called for his attention all at once.

The indignations of procedures and reactions are vividly recalled. He tells of the everyday back and forth torment of his inner dialogue from his human state of suffering, feelings, thoughts and sensations, etc. to the divine acceptance of taking refuge in his Zen practices. The reader is riveted with attention as he weaves back and forth ackowledging the human suffering and then expanding to other realms of existence where he gained new insights from the perspective of the ill and the divine.

His continuing responsibilities and concerns about his family along with their daily adjustments and his brother's ultimate gift in the form of a bone marrow transplant are part of this engaging story. Their watch at his bedside and his mother's strong faith became anchors of strength along with the stoic presence of his father and other siblings.

His illness becomes his spiritual practice while he continues to touch lives from his hospital bed. Encounters with the terminally ill and their families and his extending of unconditional love to them by example is evident as they are allowed glimpses into the life of a devoted buddhist practitioner. He sets up his own altar in his hospital room as his spiritual practices sustain him. He engages the bodhisattvic vows which culminate in his gradual transition from the hell realms back into the world transformed in the midst of his critical illness.

The love of Zensei and the author's dharma brothers and sisters is a continuing thread and power felt throughout his sojourn. We see how the networking around the world at Zen centres helped culminate in aiding the ignition of healing along with the power of prayer from his family and many friends. In the end we see his dream of discipleship to Sensei Sunyana Graef become a well merited realization. But this is just the beginning.

The author tells us that he use to give short talks at Zen retreats regarding the matter of birth and death and not to waste a moment. He now finds words to be one thing and experience another. Life takes on new meaning as he births new awareness with each moment seeing the continual dying into life in our earthly existence. Simple pleasures like a blue sky and the everyday beauty that surrounds us take on new meaning and dimension.

The reader will find in his hands an immeasureable gift of the heart. As we enter the Age of Enlightenment millions are awakening to the Knowledge and Wisdom we have gathered by living our truth. This is one man's story and testimony that continues into the "afterward" and yet another dimension. Highly recommended.

The existentialist Gabriel Marcel (he called himself rather a "Christian Socratic") wrote, "One thing is plain to me. Having is always the way in which I give suffering a hold upon me." For Jim Bedard, the special dimension of his "having" had long been his unusual physical vitality, honed by years of exercise, good diet and yoga. Thus Bedard was perhaps uniquely set up for suffering when, within a week of cutting logs and splitting wood at a wilderness cabin, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Where Marcel ponders "our 'absolute having' of our bodies," Bedard recounts the intrusions of intensive medical care: "It was their body: they tended to its needs, bathed it, fed it, inserted tubes, removed tubes and took blood from its arms....I had surrendered my most prized possession to a team of experts...." Marcel, from his western philosophical standpoint, affirms that "being can assert its transcendency over having." Bedard, grounded in his long-standing practice of Zen, proves it to be true. The "transcendency of being," on which both men might agree, is realized through Bedard's refusal to set himself apart from his circumstances and his deep sense of connectedness with all beings. His is a practice of no-having. He repeatedly asks, "Who is aware of this fear? Who am I really?" In crisis after crisis, it sees him through. This is a compelling account of great personal courage. Bedard does not spare the details, and the characters of the writer and his family, friends and Zen teacher stand out clearly in these pages. The reader comes away unable to forget Bedard's willingness to consider illness as a spiritual practice, and to accept his own impermanence. "Even if I am cured of leukemia, I will be coming back to this bed," he tells his wife the first time he leaves his hospital room. "This bed beckons us all."

One of the poems quoted in this book, which begins the Ninth Chapter, goes in part as follows: "All night long / I cannot sleep. / Rising and sitting, / I think a thousand thoughts... / Only by observing / the state where there is no birth / can I remove these teardrops / from the wet sleeves of my robe." These eight simple lines form the essence of the message of this book, based upon the 1995 experiences of a Canadian Zen practitioner, Jim Bedard, who was diagonosed with acute myeloide leukemia (AML) and given ten days to live. It is the story of how he used his Zen practice to bring himself into full contact with the inevitability of his own death while at the same time having to deal with painful medical treatments which included a bone marrow transplant and life taxing chemotherapy.

While the experiences written about in this book explain how this one man used his exposure and grounding in the spiritual practice of Zen Buddhism to help him get through his unthinkable physical ordeal, the alert reader will notice that spiritual practice, whatever it may by, can not only help us transcend such trials in our lives, but also help us to understand and experience our practice in a deeper and more profound way such that it becomes a life transforming event in itself.

What Jim Bedard's experience of fighting AML taught him and what he struggled to understand were the very truths he had worked with in Zen, only this time in a life-threatening, three dimensional way. At one point he admits that, "Each of us had to do the work of awakening to our true Mind by ourselves; no one was going to do it for us."

He was in essence put up against a solid wall, his own mortality, and asked to look inside himself for the key to his release. The possibility of death has a way of focusing the mind that no other circumstance in life can match. And Jim Bedard succeeded. He found his strength in the source of his survival, and lived to tell the tale so that others might also find that same strength within themselves. You don't have to be a Buddhist or know anything in particular about Zen to enjoy and learn something from this book. Its lessons transcend specific religion. Though if you are Buddhist it should definitely enhance your practice.

There are many moments of insight provided in this account, which seems to move along at a fairly brisk pace despite it morbid subject matter. One of the more telling moments came little more than two weeks into Jim's ordeal when he writes, "With serious illness one is quickly stripped naked for all to see. The different masks we hide behind dissolve. All I identified with as my self was breaking up and dispersing. I was experiencing the truth of the Buddha's teaching of impermanence firsthand....I had no guarantee of a future, my past identity had been eradicated, and the present was demanding one hundred percent of my attention." These experiences Jim writes about of facing a terminal illness are universal in their nature and accessible by anyone who is human.

As he struggled with the distracting aspects of his illness, Jim, in his intense examination of his own mind in search of mental relief from the physical strain, inevitably came upon an epiphany. "The leukemia was there, I felt, to heal another, much deeper sickness that I would never have recognized without its help: the sickness of pain-producing behavior and habit patterns stemming from seeds that were planted lifetimes ago. The reason for this illness was not a mystery to me. Like all Buddhists, I clearly understood the answer to the question, What did I do to deserve this? It was obvious: my own karma brought me to this point."

Having come to this insight was only the beginning of his journey in overcoming the illness that was wracking his once fine body. From this point he was put into the position, as he put it, of having to walk a tightrope between life and certain death. It wasn't an easy walk, and it was this walk that the remainder of the book describes in great detail. For anyone who is going through such an experience or for those who are in a position to support another who is, this book will be a comfort and source of inspiration.

The book endeavors to provide answers to the tough questions that come to the mind of the sufferer in such a situation, while at the same time showing one way in which such hardships in life can be successfully faced and overcome. For Jim Bedard his saving grace can be summed up in one section where he writes, "For me each time fear would raise its head, I would face it straight on and ask myself again and again, 'Who is aware of this fear? Who am I really?' It was this constant looking into Mind that was my saving grace. The penetrating and liberating practice of introspection allowed me refuge from the maelstrom around me." Such introspection is at the heart of the way of all true religious practice.

This is the most moving book I have read in some time. It sums up what courage and faith are all about. The personal flavor of the writing made it impossible for me to put down once I started it. While it is written from a Zen Buddhist perspective, it doesn't matter what your faith is. Anyone can relate to this story. I read it shortly before my mother died and it gave me the courage to face the ordeal of her passing away. For that I am eternally grateful to Mr. Bedard. Thank you for such a wonderful, uplifitng story in this day and age.

I was injured in a car accident almost two years ago. Nine months later I spontaneously came to Zen. As I learned more about Zen, I was troubled by the constant question, "Why me?" about my physical pains. Then I read this book. My questions, although not completely answered, were directed in an enormously positive way and my spiritual practice has grown. For anyone in chronic pain, whether from illness or injury, this book presents an illuminating and compassionate message of hope and recovery.

This book is a gift: it reveals how a person may grow in wisdom, as well as inspire others, in the way they meet with the intense physical and mental challenges of a serious illness. Jim Bedard provides us with a compelling, sincere, account of his spiritual effort and practice while undergoing treatment. This book illuminates the healing potential of spiritual practice and inspires us deeply.

1. It gives actual practice of actual Buddhism under extreme stress, showing how, why, and when to do it.
2. It opens the heart to compassion by reading it. Hard would he be of heart who doesn't weep reading this.
3. It opens the mind to the supernatural realm of the bodhisattvas, an arena traditionally populated for Westerners by angels, and an extraordinary experience of reality in and of itself.
4. It teaches the 4 Noble Truths through example and story, showing suffering and the way free of it without needing to teach.
5. It teaches chanting, which has been a tremendous support for Buddhists through the ages, and gives the simplest, easiest, most direct and practical for application translations of the Prajna Paramita and the basic Vows of Buddhism.

All in all, a remarkable experience of a book. I've read it twice and each time come away transformed. I practice the chants I first learnt in this book daily. It is a fine piece of work.

One of the best books I've read in my entire lifetime. For a man who've never written a book before, Mr. Bedard was given a blessing in order to make this book happen.

The book is so easy to read for anyone. I just don't understand other Buddhist books that confuse me about the way. Jim Bedard doesn't teach step by step details about Zen Buddhism, but instead explain what happen in his life in details and what he did in order to stay strong just to stay alive with the practice of Zen Buddhism. Bless Jim Bedard for surviving such a fatal disease and sharing it with us all. Positive thinking definitely increases positive healing.