Customer Reviews

Zen and the Art of Well Being

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I was thoroughly pleased to find Zen and the art of well-being surprisingly fresh. How many times does one purchase a book on the topic and find the pages littered with useless information or worse yet, filled with to-do's and not to-do's. Eric Chaline's brevity and insight into his own experiences, I believe, are easy to understand and relate to. I felt this book allowed me to ponder the ideas instead of studying the text,and I highly reccomend this to anyone begining their research into Zen.

/Zen and the Art of Well Being/ is more interested in well-being than lots of blathering about Zen. A lot of what is presented in this book is not really Zen or Buddhist at all, with the author preferring to cover a variety of subjects on wellness - both physical and spiritual. Most of the material *is* inspired by Eastern technique and philosophy though.

A diverse range of topics are covered, in 'lite' detail: tai chi, physical and emotional self-tests, qi gong (chi kung), meditation, the "Alexander Technique" for back pain problems, and so forth. Each of these topics is interspersed amongst the eightfold path of Buddhism, but in a lot of cases the exercises and techniques detailed have little or nothing to do with the part of the path being highlighted.

If you are looking for a general handbook on how to improve various aspects of your life, /Zen and the Art of Well Being/ is indeed a good starting point. It offers a gentle introduction to discovering where you are and where you can go, in terms of body, mind, and spirit. You won't become a Zen master from reading this book, but you will learn how to relax and get more out of your life. In the end, that's probably a lot more useful than becoming a Zen master anyway.

The author's flowery prose really came down to three things you need to do to achieve "well being".

1. Eat right
2. Exercise regularly
3. Get enough sleep

I was really hoping the author had some truly fresh ideas on achieving that inner peace we are all striving for in our too-fast paced lives. Unfortunately, all I got was something I learned from my parents and Sesame Street.