Customer Reviews

Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains: Dharma Talks on Zen Meditation

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Book Review: Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains, Dharma Talks on Zen Meditation by Reb Anderson

Have you ever wondered why so many Westerners are getting involved with the many facets of Buddhism? Have you ever wondered what's so different about it? Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains is a book that answers these questions in an easy to understand simplistic way. Through stories and his personal experiences, Reb Anderson gives us an opportunity to look at our journey with fresh eyes and different awarenesses. Warm Smiles is filled with deep appreciation for daily intentional living and being in each moment as it arrives.

Don't try to read this book like a novel; there's just too much there to ponder and you'll miss a great deal if you do. I believe you'll read it through once, perhaps twice then keep it handy for day to day use. One thing I do with inspirational books is to keep them next to my favorite chair and periodically just open to any page and read whatever is there. Often, if there's something troubling my mind or I'm attempting to sort out an issue, I'll just open to a page in a book of this type. As I read that page, I'll usually relax a bit, pay great attention to what I opened to and discover that all is solved and answers are given. This is a look into a mirror, take your time, allow it to resonate deep inside your Being, meditate with the pages of this book.

I want to thank Reb for giving me an opportunity to see that Buddhism creates no conflict with anything in my daily personal life or belief systems. I was particularly drawn to Chapter Eight, "Life Is Not Killed." What a delicious way of viewing life. I recommend you check it out for yourself; it truly creates "warm smiles."

Jyoti Hansa, Vermont

I would like to start off by saying that you must read this book. Anyone who practices meditation will find this book rewarding--both seasoned practitioners and newcomers to the Buddhist path. The author has a special gift for relating the insights of traditional Zen teaching stories in a refreshingly contemporary manner. I felt like I was actually at the retreats as I read the stories. As mentioned elsewhere; Anderson, who teaches in the tradition of the great Zen master Suzuki Roshi, shows himself to be a worthy inheritor of this lineage and a powerful teacher in his own right.

Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains was a page-turner for me. I especially enjoyed the way the teachings were offered with a personal tone, and in fact I found that the "ordinariness" of the incidents from Mr. Anderson's life melded perfectly with the ancient teachings of Zen. This book is an inspiration; I look forward to reading it again and again.

Having done retreats with the author, I thoroughly enjoyed having these printed words to read or re read at my own pace. Reb is a teacher and master with few peers; his command of the dharma and penetrating insights never fail to amaze this listener. This text may not be for someone completely new to the practice. We're all beginners, but if you've sat for a while and done a sesshin or two, this is a terrific book.

Reb Anderson's presentation of Zen Buddhist teachings is illuminating and fascinating reading. Anyone who practices meditation will find this book rewarding--both seasoned practitioners and newcomers to the Buddhist path. The author has a special gift for relating the insights of traditional Zen teaching stories in a refreshingly contemporary manner. Above all, this book inspires the reader to "sit upright," to practice meditation and to discover deep silence in everyday life. Anderson, who teaches in the tradition of the great Zen master Suzuki Roshi, shows himself to be a worthy inheritor of this lineage and a powerful teacher in his own right. I strongly recommend this book, which I consider a must-read, an original and essential contribution to American Buddhist literature.

There comes a point in some people's lives when they get a sense of their place in the universe. Sometimes it comes mystically, intuitively. Sometimes it comes from an accumulation of scientific data. In either case, it might well be mistaken. But we're building a picture here.

Reb Anderson presents an intuitive view of the universe, largely based on Buddhist tradition. He talks about what sitting (zazen) really is. He talks about the value of studying the paradoxical koans. He does, in fact, bring a broad and ancient tradition into the present. This is always a perplexing perspective, since Buddha himself pointed out that the essential realization would have to come outside of dogma or scripture. Still, if it were'nt for accumulated knowledge, what new would be possible?

For a just-the-facts ma'am approach to both views, you could, maybe should, read this book in conjunction with the recent The Elegant Universe-a popularization of String Theory that threatens at spots to get rather difficult-and you would truly have the Theory of Everything. From physics to zazen, we're looking for a way to adapt, to fit. The more we look, the more we see. It is a large, large universe. Reb Anderson shows us how to deal with it in terms of Zen; he is gentle, insightful, radical, and brilliant.

How do you come back from view of the universe that actually couldn't care less to some sort of ethical system? Why would you need or want to? I think Reb Anderson comes close to making this clear. I think he appreciates how vast the energy is and what kind of liberation is involved. (I don't really think it matters that he is a westerner with a life of Zen behind him.) As a starting point a reader might consider Anderson's statement: "I put quite a bit of effort into order, and I try to put almost no effort into control."

I want to caution that this book is not exactly easy. It requires a little deep reading and thinking and it's not a beginner's book. It's a real help however to ordinary people like myself who live in the suburbs and try to practice Buddhism. Even though the author seems to have been a monk most of his life. The reason it is a help is that it presents an American background and understanding to the teachings of Suzuki Roshi (Zen Mind Beginner's Mind) which are often sort of alien and incomprehensible in the original. The book is also very warm like the smiles. To get some more insight into the title, you might want to check out Gary Snyder's Cold Mountain Poems, or the Burton Watson translation of Cold Mountain (Chinese Zen Poet Han Shan).