The Essence of Zen: Dharma Talks Given in Europe and America

Rating:
Summary: Discovering the Real Self. A no-nonsense approach to Zen.
Review: For those beginners in Zen and any other spiritual practice for that matter this book will encourage you to give up the "Zen sickness" of talking about Zen and thinking it to be something special. Harada Roshi skilfully, yet effortlessly in the true spirit of wu wei (non-doing which is utterly devoid of any personal aggranzizement)compassionately grinds away our illusions about Zen or any spiritual path. He illustates this with some traditional Zen anecdotes that seem to jump out of the esoteric frame we may have held them in and stare us in the face with their simplicity and obviousness. Sekkei Harada is indeed a master who time and again will remind us that our Buddha nature ( our salvation in Christian terms)is always apparent, was never born and thus cannot die. I visited Hosshin-ji myself this year and I can only verify that what had begun to dawn upon me about the simplicity of "My True Self" was` made even clearer in the course of the week I spent there. Both an excellent introduction and, for those believing they may be "advanced" an excellent exploration into the awareness that "the first step is the last step." The translator, Daigaku Rumme (Daigaku means mountain since he is like a mountain) did a first class job of translation.

Rating:
Summary: Discovering the Real Self. A no-nonsense approach to Zen.
Review: For those beginners in Zen and any other spiritual practice for that matter this book will encourage you to give up the "Zen sickness" of talking about Zen and thinking it to be something special. Harada Roshi skilfully, yet effortlessly in the true spirit of wu wei (non-doing which is utterly devoid of any personal aggranzizement)compassionately grinds away our illusions about Zen or any spiritual path. He illustates this with some traditional Zen anecdotes that seem to jump out of the esoteric frame we may have held them in and stare us in the face with their simplicity and obviousness. Sekkei Harada is indeed a master who time and again will remind us that our Buddha nature ( our salvation in Christian terms)is always apparent, was never born and thus cannot die. I visited Hosshin-ji myself this year and I can only verify that what had begun to dawn upon me about the simplicity of "My True Self" was` made even clearer in the course of the week I spent there. Both an excellent introduction and, for those believing they may be "advanced" an excellent exploration into the awareness that "the first step is the last step." The translator, Daigaku Rumme (Daigaku means mountain since he is like a mountain) did a first class job of translation.

Rating:
Summary: Nice Work
Review: Japanese Zen masters located in Japan rarely become familiar to the Western tongue. At the same time, few if any of them make that a plan of action anyhow. The point of teaching Zen is, in a word, the practice of servitude to all beings. Sekkei Harada is easy to relate to for people who have come to love the works of folks like Seung Sahn, Maezumi, and so on. This Zen master believes Zen is the eradication of the self that is narcissistic while searching for one's true self. You know, the themes here aren't really new or exciting, but similarly they aren't inaccurate or boring. For example, Sekkei Harada urges practitioners to cut through oppositional thinking in order to attain a more balanced and clearly defined life. So that's what I mean when I say it's not new or revolutionary. This work is like adding a slightly different perspective to something like a diamond; sure, we saw this diamond before we held it from this particular perspective, but now the understanding of it has become just that much more clear. We will never have inspected it in it's sum whole, for it's the inspections themselves that make up that entirety anyway. So while I'll admit maybe I'm becoming Suzuki's forlorn "expert" on Zen, this book isn't really very unique and probably won't stand out in your mind as one of those truly life changing works. Even still, it will certainly provide us all with a more ripened vision of our procured little diamond.

If you are a newcomer to Zen and find this book in your hands, it will be like that diamond dropping right into your hand for the first time. It will offer much more than it did to this Zen scrooge who could use a lesson or two from you...