Thank You and Okay: An American Zen Failure in Japan [Paperback]

David Chadwick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1994

David Chadwick, an American student of Zen, living in the Bay area and working as maitre'd at the famous restaurant in the Green Gulch Zen Centre, decided to move to Japan to continue his training. Each of the vignettes or episodes of this book contributes to an account of his encounters with Japan, both inside and beyond the monastery walls. Gradually, the reader gets to know the various characters in his new world - the bickering monks, the neighbouring housewives, the ominous insects, the helpful bureaucrats, the patient abbot, the infuriating English-language students - as they work inexorably towards the initiation of the hero into the mysteries.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hats off to newcomer Chadwick for his engaging account of a nearly four-year stay in a rural Buddhist temple and subsequent adventures in Japan. A stickler for detail, he jots down minutiae as he tries to make sense out of the mix of tradition and change--such as the ancient temple altar where 500-year-old scrolls sit next to a large matchbox bearing a picture of a grinning, winking Japanese man and the English advertising slogan "THANK YOU AND OK!" Chadwick, who studied Zen for more than 20 years to little avail before heading to Japan, tends to lean over backward to stare at his belly button, but his writer's skill is evident in everything from skin crawling descriptions of mukade (dreaded scorpion-like insects) to a benevolent look at takuhatsu , formal monks' begging. Several chapters are rib-tickling Abbott and Costello-type routines with Chadwick as straight man. None is finer than Chadwick's day at the Driver's License Test Building--a remarkable commentary on human endurance, the unflagging courtesy of bureaucrats in the face of "what cannot be helped," and sheer lunacy as when the bureaucrat asks about the written test he had taken in California " 'And what language was the test administered in, Japanese or English?' " The book is long and the confusing interweaving of Chadwick's stay at the temple Hogoji with accounts of life in the Japanese 'burbs is unnecessary. But whenever the reader begins to think about putting the book down, the writing picks up and one is hooked again.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Of the many books concerning a Westerner's perplexing yet revealing exploits in Japan, i.e., Oliver Statler's Japanese Pilgrimage (Morrow, 1983) and David Mura's Turning Japanese (Atlantic Monthly, 1991), Chadwick's book is not particularly better or worse. It tells of the author's four years in Japan and his attempts to further his studies in Zen Buddhism, a field in which he had been deemed a failure by previous teachers. The author's experiences are written down with good humor and keen observations, and the book moves all over the cultural map of Japan. This book is not a serious examination of Zen Buddhist practices nor a major study of East-West relations but a rollicking, anecdotal mishmash of incidents about the foibles of monks, abbots, "housewives," and fellow students of the author's. Read with this understanding, this book is good entertainment. Recommended for public libraries.
Glenn Masuchika, Chaminade Univ. Lib., Honolulu
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (August 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140194576
• ISBN-13: 978-0140194579
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,433,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Zen Success Story, February 15, 2001

By 

"edelbisnovati" (Rocky Mountain Wilderness, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thank You and Okay: An American Zen Failure in Japan (Paperback)

Every zennie at some point or other nourishes the idea of travelling to Japan to sit in a temple with other monks. The tendency is to have romantic notions of Zen in Japan, from reading various books where practice there seems more pure. (Why have the Japanese Zen people come to the West?) So naturally, we are curious about other people's experiences in Zen in Japan. Jan Willem Van De Wettering wrote a number of books about his Zen experiences, and those who read to the end of these books can detect a distinctly cynical tone, where the groundwork for this cynicism is laid in Japan.

"Thank you and ok" is written by someone with a lot more maturity and Zen insight than Van De Wettering. Chadwick had been sitting for his entire adult life before he followed his teacher to Japan; Van De Wettering went to Japan on the suggestion of a University professor. What others might consider bad experiences, or inconsistencies with Zen practice (such as Chadwick's friend Norman who is full of hate for another monk), roll off Chadwick like rainwater. It is precisely this maturity that makes this book such an interesting read.

Chadwick spends a lot of time in Japan resisting speaking on the topics that everyone expects him to talk about, such as what he likes about Japan. Yet, much of this book is devoted to just such an undertaking. What is so wonderful about this book, however, is that, for the most part, it presents anecdotes describing precisely what happened and only what happened. This leaves the readers to draw their own conclusions about these differences, or what there is to like about Japan.

It is so refreshing not to have to read some jaded American's judgmental attitudes and opinions about the Japanese. Although, Japanese people often identify strongly with their "unique" culture, many Japanese like any other people, when you get to know them, are what we would call in the U.S., "characters." You get a good sense of that in this book. This book breaks down a lot of cultural myths, and teaches people not to generalize about millions of people at a time.

But, as simple as it might seem, there is some genuine insight into Zen, which the casual reader might miss. The title "Thank you and ok" conveys the essence of Zen, as the book explains in more detail. A more earth-shattering insight comes from the final chapters of his stay in Japan. Chadwick is open-minded enough to change Zen schools and study with a master who works with riddles, after having spent his previous life just sitting. One of these riddles is whether a dog has the buddha nature (are animals capable of enlightenment?), and while we expect the answer to this to be "yes" (in Budhism all sentient beings have the buddha nature), a zen master said "mu" which literally means no. As an answer to this question though, "mu" points to the buddha nature itself, which is beyond yes and no. Chadwick's practice consisted of asking this question in Japanese and Chadwick replying "mu." The answer was known; it was the manner of delivery that counted. As Zenkei Shibayama might say: "you yourself have to BE directly `mu'." The final advice given to him by his master was to continue to say "mu" with everything he did; work directly at it, be just it. This advice has deep implications.

A brief note about the organization of this book. As others have noted, the chronology of the book skips back and forth between times and places. If this bothers you, you can read about his experience as a monk first, and then read about his experience as a lay person since the chapters are clearly marked next to the chapter number as to time and place. If you decide to read this book a second time, and I recommend it, try reading it straight through and you will see how the organization of the book makes sense.

This book is a real page turner and utterly engrossing. I give it five stars, as it is one of the very best books of its kind.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the foreigner-encounters-Japan books, hands down., June 3, 1998

By 

Antonia Saxon ([e-mail]) (Trumansburg, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thank You and Okay: An American Zen Failure in Japan (Paperback)

There are perhaps fifty books about Westerners living in Japan, and perhaps fifty more about the West's encounter with Zen. Chadwick's book is by far the most appealing of these. His refusal to type-cast the Japanese he meets, his beautiful and disarming candor, and his unpredictable reactions to new experiences make this a wonderful book even for a reader who's never been to Japan, or one who has no particular interest in Zen. Everybody I've recommended it to has loved it.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Do it yourself enlightenment, July 17, 2008

By 

Daiho - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Thank You and Ok!: An American Zen Failure in Japan (Paperback)

American Zen practitioner David Chadwick went to Japan in 1988, lived in a monastery for six weeks, taught English for two years, then went home and wrote a book. His description of monastic life is a fascinating account of a world about which little is written in English, the rest of his life less so. Chronicles of language teachers in Japan fill the cut-out bins of discount book sellers.

There have been some small changes in the twenty years since Chadwick trained at Shogoji, a Soto Zen temple in Kumamoto prefecture (which the author makes a thin attempt to veil by changing the name to Hogoji). A sodo (a dedicated mediation hall) and shuryo (study hall) have been added, and cooking is now done with gas instead of wood. But otherwise life on the mountain remains much the same. There is still no electricity, the kitchen is dangerously dark, poisonous centipedes are hunted with murderous intent, and practice remains remarkably sterile.

One of Chadwick's Zen mates, an American monk with a decade of Japanese Zen experience, confides that "the purpose of training in Japanese Zen temples isn't to help you along the path to enlightenment - it is to cultivate you into a refined and obedient Japanese priest for Japanese temples." Having attended the 2008 training at Shogoji, this reviewer can verify that the purpose of the training remains precisely the same. (See my blog, FullThangka, for more on that experience.)

Chadwick's memory of an incident at the San Francisco Zen center is particularly revealing of the decline in Zen training. A gathering of senior American priests requested Katagiri-sensei, an important player in the introduction of Japanese Zen to the United States, teach them how to do dokusan, the practice of private interviews with students. Katagiri-sensei said he couldn't help them. That he had never been taught himself. That his teachers never taught dharma. They would have to figure it out for themselves, as he had.

There's certainly something to be said for being the source of your own enlightenment. The Buddha said as much in his parting message. But where, then, is the need for temples and priests?

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