Untrain Your Parrot: And Other No-nonsense Instructions on the Path of Zen [Paperback]

Elizabeth Hamilton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 2007

This book offers exercises, instructions, jokes, stories, pithy quotes, and—most of all—encouragement to anyone interested in exploring Zen but who may find traditional presentations severe or intimidating. Hamilton writes with an easygoing, friendly style that invites readers of all backgrounds to sit down and give meditation a try. But don’t be fooled by her puns and checklists—this is serious Zen.

Drawing on three decades of experience as a Zen practitioner and teacher, Hamilton explains how to meditate and how to maintain an ongoing practice. From there, in her clear, lighthearted, and humorous style, she moves right to the heart of Zen, showing us how we could move beyond our concepts, expectations, and emotional reactivity to touch the reality of our lived experience with openness and simplicity, thereby finding freedom.

Untrain Your Parrot includes simple instructions to clarify and elucidate the basics:

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how to establish a beginning meditation practice
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how to develop physical, mental, and emotional awareness
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how to experience "open" awareness—observing one's practice while allowing for a sense of spaciousness with whatever occurs


For more information on the author, Elizabeth Hamilton, go to www.zencentersandiego.org.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This debut book by San Diego Zen teacher Hamilton boasts a quirky, appropriately Zen-ish title and a foreword from, surprisingly, the late civil rights activist Rosa Parks, with whom the author worked during Parks's later life. It offers plenty of meditation exercises with easy-to-follow directions. It thoroughly translates what can be the culturally foreign characteristics of Japanese Zen into contemporary American parlance and life situations. All these things commend the book to a beginner, but it's too often unclear and could have used more work. The diction is occasionally foggy (both tinged with some degree of narcissistic attachment to a truncated self). Attempts to simplify aspire to easy-to-remember lists, but these come out idiosyncratically obscure (BBSTSBB is a palindrome composed of the first letters of seven words that beckon our awareness). It is interesting that the center of a person's chest includes the acupuncture point Conception Vessel 17, but there is such a thing as too much information, particularly for beginners. Hamilton is very likely a good Zen teacher, funny and imaginative, but that doesn't automatically translate onto the page. (Aug. 14)
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Review

"Serious Zen taught in a friendly and accessible manner with special exercises, jokes, and more; from a San Diego-based teacher of Zen with 30 years' experience."—Library Journal

"A superb teacher who has peppered meditations with stories, colorful anecdotes, exercises, and imaginative phrases. . . . Hamilton helps us examine in fresh ways the warps of the conditioned mind, and provides many practices that you will want to try as you attempt to live a life of wholeheartedness."—Spirituality & Health

"Delightful humor and deep wisdom in the key of Zen. Elizabeth Hamilton has been there, done that, and tells the truth, so her teaching is gentle, grounded, and emotionally intelligent. She makes meditation practice real and accessible, rather than a romantic idealization."—Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Wherever You Go, There You Are

"The title tips us off that we're in for a witty read, rich with metaphor. But Untrain Your Parrot turns out to also be a brilliant reconceptualization of Zen practice as a comprehensive, do-able program for psycho-spiritual growth. The clarity of Hamilton's pedagogy makes this an uncommonly serviceable workbook for the inner (and outer!) life."—Zoketsu Norman Fischer, author of Taking Our Places

"Elizabeth Hamilton is an intrepid spiritual practitioner, meeting sorrows and hardships with a spirit that continues to open to love. With humor and unrelenting use of skillful means, Elizabeth provides sound guidance in everyday language for everyday folks who dare to live awake."—Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao, abbot of the Zen Center of Los Angeles

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala; 1 edition (August 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590303636
• ISBN-13: 978-1590303634
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 7.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #764,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A Teacher's Teacher", October 25, 2007

By 

Linda Dydyk "Dawson College" (Montreal, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Untrain Your Parrot: And Other No-nonsense Instructions on the Path of Zen (Paperback)

As a teacher, I immediately recognized the sound pedagogy in Elizabeth Hamilton's <Untrain Your Parrot>. It comes as no surprise to discover, during the course of reading the book, that Hamilton has been a college professor in the field of music. She applies her teaching skills to her writing on Zen. Her years of experience teaching and living Zen make for a truly wonderful handbook that one can consult again and again. The exercises in the book are applicable to everyone. I particularly like the suggestions for journal writing, which are inspiring. Finally, there is also Hamilton's sense of humor. When did we forget that Zen humor has a unique place in history, recognition of the Absurd some 1200 years before the West? Thanks to Hamilton, we may enjoy a revival of laughter as part of Zen practice.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Zen healing primer -- the broad view, October 16, 2007

By 

John A. Sarkett "author -- "Extraordinary... (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Untrain Your Parrot: And Other No-nonsense Instructions on the Path of Zen (Paperback)

We know how important our self-talk is from the story of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, one of the 201 stories we tell in "Extraordinary Comebacks: 201 Inspiring Stories of Courage, Triumph, and Success". After the "failure" of his First Symphony, severely depressed, he stopped composing for three years. Eventually his psychiatrist turned to re-programming his patient's self-talk, prescribing this mantra: "You will begin your concerto. You will work with great facility. It will be excellent." The composer repeated it to himself, over and over. It worked. The result: his Piano Concerto No. 2, one of his greatest works, a comeback concerto, if you will.

Should you need similar counsel, author Elizabeth Hamilton (btw a classical musician herself) may serve as a similar sage and enlightened companion. There are nuggets of diamonds strewn throughout this wide-ranging Zen commentary, one or more will resonate, some may change your life. Particularly interesting: her discussions of "zen ego," yielding or not yielding to anxiety and quotes from notables in fields from American writers to hiphop to physics to Zen masters new and old and everything in between. The chapter titled "Untrain Your Parrot" took up just 10 pages, and could have been developed even further, but takes a bit of a back seat to Hamilton's broader survey of Zen perspectives. Worthwhile volume, and worth re-reading and coming back to.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars look elsewhere, November 6, 2009

By 

J. P. Murphy - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Untrain Your Parrot: And Other No-nonsense Instructions on the Path of Zen (Paperback)

I have read a few books on Zen. But I read very few books Zen-as-self-help. There is very little that I like about this book. It is a collection of tools, meditations, journal exercises, worksheets, to do lists, and categories that the author hope are useful. Norman Fischer calls this book a doable program for psychospiritual growth and the book claims to have a no-nonsense approach. But I wonder how anyone could use the palindrome BBSTSBB which is supposed to beckon our awareness to open. Before buying this book, read the chapter on the WIPITS categories.

Personally I have very little patience with Zen as self-help. Sure, I suppose you could use and practice to somehow wrestle your thoughts into some sort of submission. But I think that would be a terrible waste of time. Zen practice is about tasting freedom, not making gradual improvement to your life. It's not about getting a bit happier or not thinking, it's about discovering how to appreciate your life without being fooled. The best Zen books are honest, inspiring insightful, and authoritative. They do not shy away from the fact that life is suffering.

Just as I did not find the book to be useful, I did not find it to be particularly inspiring either. Finally I did not find it to be very authoritative. It did quote other sources, but quoting M. Strauss ed. Familiar Medical Quotations, 1968 did not really impress me. There's so many wonderful books on Zen practice. I would suggest a reader should look anywhere else.