Two Arrows Meeting in Mid-Air: The Zen Koan (Tuttle Library of Enlightenment)

Rating:
Summary: Lame....
Review: I will give it one star because it has value as an example of how koans can be misused and wrongly understood...

Rating:
Summary: Read and Judge For Yourself
Review: Sometimes, one finds Amazon reader reviews to be faithful and useful...

...other times, you just shake your head and wonder what book they actually read.

There is a review about this book that (in arrogant tones) claims that "Two Arrows" is a perversion of koan study, providing "answers" to koans. Yet, Loori spells it out clearly in his book that the "answer" to a koan is a state of mind, and that no one can give you the answer to a koan -- it's all about self-discovery. Clearly, the other reviewer commented on this book without reading it first.I wonder why someone would do such a thing?

Although many people dismiss koans as impenetrable nonsense, we should consider this for a moment. The koan system has been used for hundreds of years in Buddhist monasteries throughout the East as a method of spiritual introspection. Like all forms of zazen meditation, it is meant to short-circuit intellectual interpretations, which ultimately fail to satisfy, and arrive at the living, breathing, heart-beating core of our lives.

So why have all those Zen students bothered with koans for all those centuries if the method is ineffective? Are the Asians stupid? Inexplicably dedicated to nonsense? Or maybe the Zen teachers know something most folks don't?

It's worth thinking over.

This book is written by a rare individual who was willing to intensively investigate his own nature. If you want to know how the koan system is used to uproot the delusions and selfishness of human life, you won't find a better book.

Rating:
Summary: Poor binding
Review: This book is poorly made. The binding split in the middle half of the book, which made several pages surrounding the split very loose and eventually seperate from the binding completely. All of this after I very lightly skimmed through the middle parts of the book. The physical shelf life of this book is not to be trusted.