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Heather's Reviews > Everyday Zen: Love & Work
Everyday Zen: Love & Work
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This is my favorite Zen/Buddhism book to date. I read it in the middle of a crisis in my life, and it might have saved my marriage, because it spoke straight to me. About how life doesn't "work for you," about how people resist their lives and live in their dreams and fantasies, about how we expect things from other people and our lives and suffer when we are disappointed.
Joko speaks with such a feeling for the problems of real life that she could be any age, at any stage of practice (except that she's actually been practicing Zen so long that she must be old---I think she's now deceased). She talks about how we must do what needs doing...preparing food for other people, raising children, going to work, etc. How those things are the stuff of nirvana and fulfillment before our eyes, but we refuse to see.
She talks about love: people expect relationships to "work" for them, to serve them and reflect their glory, and how we run away from relationships that don't stroke our egos and let us off easy.
She talks about people dying; how they realize before they die that life is really not going to turn out the way they expect it...suddenly they are at peace, finally having released their expectations, cravings, disappointments, and anger.
She talks a lot about anger---how we can learn to embrace all our human feelings with a "big mind," feeling angry without creating new negative realities out of angry speech and action.
And so on. A wealth of wisdom and hope for someone who suddenly feels the pinch of life and knows there is no one to save her. Maybe the book will be dryer for someone who is not in a crisis, or who is not ready to hear the lessons in it. Yet I think it is still a much better book for beginners than Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind or other, more traditional philosophical zen books.
Joko speaks with such a feeling for the problems of real life that she could be any age, at any stage of practice (except that she's actually been practicing Zen so long that she must be old---I think she's now deceased). She talks about how we must do what needs doing...preparing food for other people, raising children, going to work, etc. How those things are the stuff of nirvana and fulfillment before our eyes, but we refuse to see.
She talks about love: people expect relationships to "work" for them, to serve them and reflect their glory, and how we run away from relationships that don't stroke our egos and let us off easy.
She talks about people dying; how they realize before they die that life is really not going to turn out the way they expect it...suddenly they are at peace, finally having released their expectations, cravings, disappointments, and anger.
She talks a lot about anger---how we can learn to embrace all our human feelings with a "big mind," feeling angry without creating new negative realities out of angry speech and action.
And so on. A wealth of wisdom and hope for someone who suddenly feels the pinch of life and knows there is no one to save her. Maybe the book will be dryer for someone who is not in a crisis, or who is not ready to hear the lessons in it. Yet I think it is still a much better book for beginners than Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind or other, more traditional philosophical zen books.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
April 10, 2009
–
Finished Reading
December 31, 2009
– Shelved
" . . . life doesn't 'work FOR you,' . . .people resist their lives and live in their dreams [only to be disappointed when the dreams don't match the actual grind of everyday real life]."
The grind of the everyday IS LIFE. It is the "nirvana . . . before our eyes, but we refuse to see." You are a very wise and very mature young woman to have figured this out . . . life is in the here and the now. Enjoy it, fix it when needed, process it. Deal with it. This life is the only one there is. The life you dream of, the one you hope for, pfffft -- it simply ain't there -- it ain't the life THAT IS, right here and right now. And, what an arrogance and a blindness we must have to expect the reality of the here and the now to match our perfect little dreams of what the here and the now should be. Wake up, people -- nothing turns out the way you THINK IT SHOULD. And that is the beauty (the Zen?) of living.
I have never read ANY book about Zen, but I have read your writing ABOUT Zen. And you, young lady, make sense to me. I am getting this book. Thank you.