A Zen Romance: One Woman's Adventures in a Monastery [Hardcover]

Deborah Boliver Boehm (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1996

A Zen Romance is a madcap memoir by an American woman who went to Japan in the late 1960s and - much to her own surprise - lost her heart to Zen. When the author first went to Japan to study the language, she was relatively unaffected by the Zen fervor then gripping young people across the United States. She was even known to announce, only half-jokingly, that she was going to Japan to "get away from Zen." But as it happened, the small room she rented in Kyoto was actually on the grounds of an ancient monastery. Over the course of months of conversation and meals with the monks, her wry sense of humor and unfailing generosity endeared her to them. Meanwhile, their practical, down-to-earth values made the religion a lot more appealing and accessible than she'd expected. Soon she was completely captivated by the wit and paradoxes of Zen, and even became the first foreigner allowed to take part in that temple's O-Zesshin, a week of intensive manual labor and meditation. However, just to complicate things a bit, one of the men there happened to look quite striking with his shaved head and subdued kimono. And before long she had caught his eye as well...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Deborah Boehm struck out for Kyoto as an exchange student in the 1960s, she often told many of her friends who practiced the "dull and pretentious" ways of Zen Buddhism that she hoped to "get away from Zen." Upon her arrival in Japan, however, she found herself living in a room on the grounds of an ancient Zen monastery. While she at first expresses mild disappointment at finding herself among Zen monks, she is soon won over to their ways, and they to hers, through participation in regular study and communal meals with the monks. Boehm so endears herself to the monks that she is invited to be the first foreigner to participate in the O-Zesshin, a week of intensive meditation. Yet, Boehm is taken with more than the monk's religious ways; she is also attracted sexually to one of the monks, and the book opens with one of her erotic dreams about this teacher. While the asceticism of Zen generally excludes the passion of sex, Boehm transforms her erotic desire into a passionate prose that glorifies the spiritual dimensions of Zen Buddhism. Boehm's memoir is a rich combination of the eroticism of the Thousand and One Nights and the spiritual revelation of a Zen koan.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

During the pseudospiritual sixties, Boehm escaped to Japan as an exchange student to "get away from Zen," only to find herself living next door to a Buddhist monastery. Her memoir is, in part, an insider's delightful view of an American observing monks observing an American. The account is an amalgam of humor and realism set in tautly poetic style as Boehm is assimilated into every Japanese genre from art to Zen. She tries temple dancing, inadvertently dresses like a courtesan, and returns from a week-long zazen (retreat to meditate) to find her three kittens accidentally baked on an incubating heat tray. During her adventures, Boehm finds time to fall for the irresistibly handsome Yukio, whose mother threatens to disown the future veterinarian if he continues to woo this American. Boehm returned to the U.S. with the knowledge that enlightenment usually strikes outside the meditation hall through living, thinking, and making mistakes. She had tried to fit a "rational Occidental mind" into an "intuitive Oriental discipline" and retains admiration and gratitude for the experience. Patricia Hassler

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha International (JPN); First Edition edition (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 4770020325
• ISBN-13: 978-4770020321
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,348,522 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sushi for the Soul, November 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: A Zen Romance: One Woman's Adventures in a Monastery (Paperback)

Far from being a self-aggrandizing memoir, a travelogue or a spiritual manual, this book reads like a rich, delicious novel. Sandra Boliver Boehm writes with a sense of humor about her college-age self, and with meticulous and sensual detail about her experiences in Japan in the 1970's. Her descriptions of the food she ate are enough to make a reader crave sushi every night. This is a phenominal coming-of-age tale, and a must for any intelligent young woman with a lust for adventure.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wanted to give it SIX!, August 29, 2000

By 

Christopher N. Murphy "A reader in Santa Fe" (Santa Fe, New Mexico USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Zen Romance: One Woman's Adventures in a Monastery (Hardcover)

Some of the most exquisite writing I've ever encountered. This delightful memoir is quizzical, poignant, sparkling, honest and brilliant. It conveys the feel of a youthful search for spiritual adventure while unconsciously brimming with maturity and a rare kind of courage, both earthy and lofty. I'm eager for more, much more, from this exceptionally witty, literate and lyrical voice.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A vivid recounting of a young American woman's time in Kyoto, May 30, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Bellevue, Washington, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Zen Romance: One Woman's Adventures in a Monastery (Paperback)

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I have strong ambivalencies about the time I spent living in Japan, but reading this book evoked such strong, nostalgic images of all that is right and true about Japanese culture that I was ready to hop the next plane. I only wish that I had had her apparently excellent Japanese language skills, the more romantic locale of Kyoto over the more industrial Kobe where I lived, and the better luck with Japanese men!