Customer Reviews

Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment

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Richard Bernstein's ULTIMATE JOURNEY is a splendid account of his recreation of the extraordinary pilgrimage of a legendary seventh century Buddhist monk named Hsuan Tsang, arguably the greatest traveler in history. Retracing the monk's steps through western China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and finally to India, Bernstein traverses seemingly impassable deserts, crosses formidable mountain passes, and meets a whole cast of colorful characters along his route. With the eye of a practiced journalist, Bernstein shares with the reader the experience of visiting out-of-the-way ancient ruins, traveling on primitive trains and sleeping in flyblown cheap hotels, producing in so doing a hugely entertaining read. What makes ULTIMATE JOURNEY truly outstanding is the manner in which Bernstein contrasts his own experience with that of his seventh century hero. Because Bernstein speaks Chinese and possesses an impressive familiarity with Chinese culture and history, he is able to bring the legendary Hsuan Tsang vividly to life, transforming even the more abstruse corners of the monk's Buddhist beliefs into page-turning reading Carefully researched and elegantly written, ULTIMATE JOURNEY is a work that can be favorably compared with such classics of travel literature as Paul Theroux's THE GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR and Peter Matthiessen's THE SNOW LEOPARD. It deserves a place on the shelf alongside such splendidly-written evocations of the Chinese past as Jonathan Spence's THE DEATH OF WOMAN WANG and THE DREAM PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI. For anyone who loves loves Chinese history, cares deeply about the triumphs of the human spirit and loves a good old-fashioned page-turning read, ULTIMATE JOURNEY is a trip not to be missed.

Writing books is harder than reviewing them. Richard Bernstein is a book reviewer for the New York Times, and with "Ultimate Journey," he tries to write a book about a journey he took in Asia retracing the steps of Xuanzang (Hsuan Tsang). A Chinese Buddhist monk who was one of the world's greatest explorers, Xuanzang travelled over 16 years in the 7th century A.D. from China through Central Asia to India and back to China to bring back numerous Buddhist scriptures. Bernstein, a China "scholar" in his graduate student days and former New York Times correspondent in China, tried to recreate that journey in 1999. However, the book is a major disappointment, as it is MORE about Bernstein's own Manhattan-aging-yuppie-midlife crisis than about Buddhism, Xuanzang or Asian travels. To start with, he mixes transliteration systems (pinyin and Wades-Giles, and even Grousset's unorthodox system, i.e., Hiouan-Tsang), going back and forth among all three with no consistency. He is careless about spelling, using Urumqi and Urumchi alternatively, and careless with people's names and places. The whole book, although chronological, is disjointed, as it digresses about his childhood, his current life in Manhattan, his love life (or lack of), spiritual and philosophical musings, and other assorted subjects. One comes away with very little understanding of Xuanzang's life or what was the importance of his travels. It works better as a travelogue, but ultimately all those digressions about Bernstein's life, rather than the places he's visiting, make this a very unsatisfying and annoying read.

For more on the life of Xuanzang, Sally Hovey Wriggins' "Xuanzang: A Buddhist Pilgrim on the Silk Road" is a far superior book.

Bernstein's entire preparation for India seems to have been a glance at a Lonely Planet and a chat with Tavleen Singh. He makes no further serious attempt to find anyone who can help him understand today's India or the India Hsuan Tsang saw over 1,300 years ago. As a result, he has undermined his credibility with cliches, want of understanding, and dyslexia with Indian names.The misspellings are ubiquitous, from Srinigar to Potiala and from Gorokhpur to Indori, from the superfast Sabhathi Express to Delhi's historic Red Ford. At one point, he takes a photograph of a Mr Yado (Yadav), carefully writes down his address and, later, posts it to Merjaphur (Mirzapur). He wonders if it ever arrived. So do I.It's sad that in 2001, someone of Bernstein's standing is still writing that Kolkata's 'most famous image is a black hole', and that it 'summons up images of medieval plagues and suffering'. He must also have been using an old guide book, as he opines that the only place to stay, apart from the Grand and the Tollygunge Club, is Sudder Street. Varanasi, which for his compatriot, the scholar Diana Eck, was 'The City of Light' is for him merely 'a city of the dead'. He doesn't talk to Veerbhadra Mishra, the mahant of the Sankatmochan temple, about his struggle to keep the river clean. Even Clinton was impressed by Mishra, but Bernstein knows that no religious leader is interested in keeping the Ganga clean as he's consulted Tavleen Singh. He dismisses the late Kashi Naresh, who devoutly maintained the centuries-old Ram Lila at Ramnagar, as a 'has-been maharaja'. Perhaps he was wise in refusing an interview for fear of being misquoted.Hinduism is beyond Bernstein's ken-he is a self-confessed 'secular non-Buddhist sceptic'. He hasn't realised that it is more than simply 'a religion of worldly renunciation'. One of the greatest acts of renunciation that Hsuan Tsang witnessed was when King Harsha Vardhana gave away his worldly goods at a ceremony he performed every five years at Prayag. This is one of many incidents not mentioned in the book. Neither, if you go by the book's map, did Hsuan Tsang go anywhere near Allahabad. Bernstein is interested in Buddhism but that interest is intellectual. Thankfully, he learns through the course of his journey that Buddhism, like Hinduism, is a religion of experience. He is blessed with a light touch and an ability to laugh at himself. But it would have helped him if he had understood that while China is 'an extraordinary universe, a domain of everything', India is one too.

This is a disheartening book. On paper, it seems an exciting project. A modern retracing of the footsteps of the Chinese monk Hsuan Tsang. Excursions into Central Asian locations such as Tashkent and Samarkand whose very names are redolent of romance and exotica. Unfortunately, the results strike me as the product of a rather listless exercise. The author, in the grips of a mid-life bout with melancholia and increasingly prone to travel fatigue, seems out of sorts with his original project. Yes, he completed his trip but you get the strong sense that it was conducted with gritted teeth.

Bernstein is a good writer and a good journalist. I very much enjoyed his prior book on France ("Fragile Glory") as well as his thoughtful book reviews and topical surveys of current trends in modern thought in the New York Times. In the present instance, however, he seems to have run out of gas.

What do you hope to get out of this book? A better understanding of Buddhism perhaps? Sorry, but you would do just as well reading a few good survey articles on Buddhism in an encyclopedia or even some old Alan Watts books. Bernstein offers little more than a desultory ramble through the literature. He is, by temperament and "tribal connections," unwilling to explore the experiential element of one of the world's great religious traditions. It's not so much the skeptical and secular outlook that I find off-putting. (Indeed, I tend to share this perspective.) Rather, it is the over-intellectualized cognitive distancing. Appropriate, perhaps, for a grad school seminar, but way off the mark in attempting to apprehend and elucidate a monk's quest for ultimate enlightenment.

Well then. How about insightful reporting of life and socio-political developments in modern day Central Asia. Nope. Not really on the agenda for this trip. This distinguished journalist is clearly on sabbatical. No sniffing about for news and political intrigues here.

O.K. How about vivid accounts of the people met and situations encountered. Yes, there is some of this. But, on the whole, even this narrative is not particularly engaging. The author just doesn't seem all that interested. For he is in the troughs of lingering depression. China, the ex-Soviet Republics, Pakistan, and India are merely colorful backdrops -- scaffolds for his ruminations on what direction he should adopt in his personal life. Interesting in its own way, I suppose, but hardly meriting the investment of either your dollars or your time.

_The ultimate Journey_
retracing the path of an ancient buddhist monk who crosses asia in search of enlightment

by richard bernstein

I bought the book in HongKong several summers ago, as i waited for my Chinese visa, knowing this would be the last new English bookstore for awhile.
It was a good choice, well written, interesting and really to the point. For it is a combination of travelogue and spiritual adventure in trying to retrace the path of Hsuan Tsang .
Mixed up are the author's thoughts about the reading about Hsuan Tsang and his journey, the physical places that both visit as Bernstein follows the ancient monk's path, and social commentary not just on the places and people but reflects a lifetime of a newspaperman's experiences in this part of the world. What could be a very disjointed and fragmented 'stream of consciousness' travelogue turns out to be a rather organized investigation into not just the author's current travels but the relationship of the monks journey and what happened in the intervening years from the mid 7th C. Well written as the author is a successful and introspective newspaper writer, thoughtful as this is really a work from the heart for him, and for me very much to the point as i had the book with me in Xian as the Big Goose pagoda.
Because of the dearth of english reading material that summer travelling, i think i read it twice, once straight through and at least once more a page or chapter at a time as i was starving for anything to read, even something i had already finished. I was not disappointed, for his writing and insights are deep and bear close reading. but most of all it was worth the weight in my already overloaded pack, a true recommendation from the heart and shoulders. enjoy.

The Ultimate Journey by Richard Bernstein was recommended to me by a friend who is a Buddhist scholar. Because of his strong recommendation, I read the book before I read the book's reviews in Amazon.com. I am fortunate to have read the book first, because reviews might have caused me to overlook an otherwise excellent book.

The value of a book is determined by what transpires between the author and the reader based on a complex intellectual, cultural and personal synchrony. For me, this is the perfect book. In my opinion, a good book satisfactorily answers three questions: Is the writing literate? Am I entertained? Have I learned anything?

Bernstein's book is not only literate, the writing is superb. He is a respected journalist, a book critic for the New York Times and an author of books. In my view, he and his editor have done a marvelous job in presenting a complex physical and contemplative journey that weave in and out of the present and the past, and encompass immense historical, cultural and spiritual domains.

Am I entertained? Tremendously! I appreciate his subtle humor and irony,even his dissatisfaction with his life and the frustration he experienced as he travels through China and central Asia. Anyone who really knows China would appreciate his humorous treatment of the bureaucracy, the peculiar and sometimes comic mindset and behavior of the people ( as seen from the Western viewpoint), and the overcrowding, dusty, monotonus cities. As a Chinese person, I don't think he is being arrogant or condescending. He was telling the truth and he hasn't told the worst.

Have I learned anything? An enormous amount! Born and raised in China, the first novel I read in 4th grade was "Journey to the West." It was about a Tang dynasty monk who went on a long journey to the "Western Heaven" in search of the sutra. The monk was accompanied by his three desciples: a monkey and a pig in human forms and Frior Sand. The pig was greedy, the monkey cunning and they have supernatural power that had protected the monk from demons and wild beasts on the way. The book was an all time classic,loved by children through the ages, but it was a mythological novel. Now in my golden years, I am thrilled to learn the truth about the Tang monk Hsuan Tsang, his incredible 16-year journey to India, the landscape, the history and the politics, then and now.

I am delighted to learn about the modern-day pilgrim Richard Bernstein, his childhood, his ethnic and religious background, how he started his career, his inner thoughts and feelings. It sounds like a fairy tale that a Jewish boy from a chicken farm in Connecticut and a girl from a State farm in Helongjian undertake a joint adventure retracing the steps of a 7th century Chinese monk!

Frankly I am puzzled by the criticism,obviously from younger readers,that the book was fueled by Bernstein's mid-life crisis and that he traveled by jet planes and puddle-jumped from one nice hotel to the next. True, had he undertaken the journey while in his twenties, he would have been physically more adventurous, he might have climbed the icy mountains, crossed the scorching desert on camel back just as the Tang monk had done.But then we have to wait 16 years to read his chronicle assuming he survived. Had he undertaken this journey as a young man, I am not sure he would have had nearly as much wisdom and insight as he does in his fifties.

Last, but not the least, is the love story. Again I can relate to his loneliness as an unmarried person, and his ambivelence about commitment. Lukily for Bernstein, he found love in the nick of time. I hope he and Zongmei have beautiful, dark-eyed children and live happily ever after.

H. Mei Liu, M.D. author of GRANDFATHER'S MICROSCOPE

In 629 AD, a Buddhist monk named Hsuan Tsang, unnerved by his homeland's centuries of political and religious struggles, left China to search for and reinterpret the original texts of Buddhism. Sixteen long years later, journeying through Samarkand, Pakistan and finally to India, he returned in triumph with the True Teachings of the Buddha, and wrote an epic which is considered one of China's greatest literary masterpieces.

Bernstein, a book critic for the New York Times and former Beijing bureau chief for Time magazine, recreates Hsuan Tsang's long and sinuous route. Middle-aged, unmarried, feeling a spiritual loneliness most of us who follow a "non-practicing" faith in the West could relate to, he sets out with the conviction that his journey can bring back the youthful vitality and hope he had felt while in India nearly 30 years ago.

Ultimate Journey holds a great balance of travelogue, Chinese history and Buddhist teachings, all with great precision, pace and excitement. Though Bernstein does not know much about Buddhism, he does know Chinese, and vividly recreates Hsuan Tsang's world and the troubles plaguing him. He faced many of the same perils as Hsuan Tsang, and juxtaposes these experiences throughout the book. Hostile Mongol regimes are replaced with hostile Islamic regimes, mountain ranges are just as inaccessible, language and cultural barriers remain, and border crossings are just as real and difficult as those of 1400 years ago.

The book is a great interpretation of East Asia as seen through a Westerner's eyes. He is at times elitist, ignorant of local customs, and often whines about middle age and lost youth, which I got tired of reading after a while. But then, who at times hasn't mourned their lost youth or felt some ping of spiritual void while sitting in a cubicle with a cold cup of coffee and a looming deadline for a client's project? He is honest, spilling his fears and dreams, and pining for his girlfriend, the Chinese dancer Zhongmei Li .

While Hsuan Tsang's journey ended with his triumphant return on an elephant and cartloads of Buddhist texts, Bernstein ends with a few mediocre tourist sites in China and Zhongmei back in his arms. Not a world-shattering event, but I think he finally found what he was looking for.

As Bernstein quotes in the book, "No ship ever takes you away from yourself." And just as Conrad's journeys in the Congo were deeper than just a boat ride, Bernstein's travels through China, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan and India are not only a travelogue, but a personal journey at age 50. Most American school children are familiar with Marco Polo, who traveled from Europe to Asia. Some Jewish children are familiar with Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish explorer. But nearly none are familiar with Hsuan Tsang, a Monk who lived in 603-664, who was the greatest land traveler in history. Nearly all Asian children know of his esteemed adventures. Hsuan Tsang wrote "The Great Tang Chronicles of The Western World", based on his over fifteen years and 10,000 miles of journeys, journeys made by foot, horse, camel, and elephant. While Marco Polo sought riches, Monk Hsuan Tsang sought the source of reality and Buddhist Wisdom (although his emperor sought details to help craft military and political policies). Fast forward over 1,300 years. The author, raised on a chicken farm, is a book critic for The New York Times. He is a former Harvard Chinese History student, was a Peace Corps volunteer (in China), and was Time Magazine's Beijing bureau chief. When he turned fifty years of age, Bernstein, unmarried (half a man as the Talmud wrote) and antsy, moody and difficult to please, decided to fulfill some promises that he made to himself. These included sailing to Tahiti, reading Proust, writing a novel, making furniture, and, oh, yes, following the 5,000 mile route of Hsuan Tsang from China to Southern India. And so, Bernstein gets some time off from The Times, packs a bag, flies to Hong Kong and Xian China, and embarks on Hsuan Tsang's trek (although his Chinese American girlfriend does join this commitment-phobe for part of the trip). A great read for 2001.

[Jewish readers will especially want to read Chapter 16, in which Bernstein, arriving in West Bengal on a Friday afternoon, seeks out the Calcutta synagogue he had noted on an earlier visit in 1970. Seeking to satiate a desire for tribal attachment, he finds the Sephardic services at the Canning Street shul (no longer on Synagogue Street), and is the tenth man for the Shabbat minyan]

Poor Hsuan Tsang, whose 10,000 mile 17 year journey beginning in 629 A.D. is the subject of this book, just cannot compete with the ego of the writer Richard Bernstein, whose name is emblazoned on the cover with nary a mention of the monk. This sets the tone of the book which is as much as about Bernstein as about Tsang. This is a shame because this has the makings of a great read were it not for the author's ego. Few westerners have the opportunity to travel in this part of the world. The famous caves of Ellora, parts of which existed during Hsuan Tsang's time, are barely mentioned with no description at all whereas 19th Century Jewish diaspora receives 2 pages. I doubt the general reader has much interest in learning about the author's high school days in Connecticutt or his personal thoughts on why we are on earth. Mr. Bernstein, a book critic for the New York Times, does write well and many parts of the travelogue are fascinating. The maps at the beginning of each chapter are helpful. There are surprisingly no photographs. Too bad he did not pack a camera rather than his personal baggage.

OK. I admit to being unduly influenced by what I read in the NY Times Book Review. That's what hooked me on reading Ultimate Journey. I must also confess that I'm not done with the book yet, but I'm sufficiently disappointed to pen a review based on what I've read because I might not finish it. Bernstein doesn't seem that interested in what this trek meant for Buddhism. He tells us early on he doesn't feel any spiritual connection to Buddhism, and he spends far too much time telling us about his Chinese girlfriend, his feelings about his own Jewish heritage, and his own paranoia about getting thrown out of China because he bashed the Chinese in his previous book. His writing is also so loose and "diary-like" that it looks like his editor let him off far too easily on re-write. It's not what I was looking for, and I think the Times reviewer would have done better for its readers by telling them this is essentially an exotic travelogue, but one lacking the wit of Michael Palin or the lush descriptions of Paul Theroux or James Michener.