Rating: 
Summary: Ultimate Journey???
Review: "Ultimate Journey" is surely a false advertise. This book is not in any way an in-depth exploration of Hsuan Tsang the person nor that of his quest. It is neither about gaining better understanding of buddhism and its history, nor is it about comparitive history of China, Central Asia, India, and Pakistan and the people who live there. It is not a pilgrimage of someone who put much personal efforts in tracing the footsteps of some personal hero to try to learn some of the lessons learned by that individual. Rather, it is about a bored middle-aged man who sat on trains, cars, stayed in comfortable hotels, who endure little hardship and traveled with unwavering preconception of self-superiority and much condescension toward people of other cultures and faiths. What he learned and information given are like those of other tourists' descriptions of how bad these places were, and the people poor, uneducated and ripped off. There were no efforts made to try to understand why different cultures, people and places took different turns in history paths which lead to present conditions. Bernstein came to depend on the good wills of the locals; yet speak with little gratitude and always with the same tone of condescension - everyone is his sidekick (i.e. an individual he call "Brave King"), funny looking and behave funnily. Needless to say, Bernstein came away from the trip with little or no experience of personal transformation.But to say that one won't come away with any useful info is overstating; reader will learn about the general path that Hsuan Tsang took, the name of presence cities which correspond to old places. But there were so much egotistic & prejudice ramblings to sieve through.
Rating: 
Summary: Three journeys in one.
Review: "'Form is emptiness and emptiness is form' we can imagine HsuanTsang chanting to himself as he was wandering, small and alone, underthe yellowing sky" (p. 69), Richard Bernstein writes. HisULTIMATE JOURNEY is actually about three journeys. It is about theseventh-century pilgrimage of Hsuang Tsang, a Chinese Buddhist monk,"over icy mountains and through scorched deserts" (p. 6), onhorseback, camel-back, elephant-back and on foot (p. 5), in search for"the ultimate truth, the truth beyond truth" that willenable him to become a bodhisattva, an enlightened being (p. 243). Itis about Bernstein's middle-aged attempt escape his "quarrel withbourgeois life" (p. 7), and "to make some kind ofconnection" (p. 86) with the ancient monk by travelling to Chinato retrace Hsuan Tsang's 10,000-mile journey from China to India. Itis also about Bernstein's own search for meaning in his life as anunmarried, Jewish, New York Times' book critic.This is not yourtypical religious travelogue. For one thing, Bernstein is not anespecially religious person, and admits he is "skeptical"(p. 244) of Buddhism. However, in retracing the footsteps of HsuanTsang to Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha (p. 204), to Sarnath,where the Buddha delivered his first teachings (p. 219), and to theBodhi Tree in Bodhgaya, where the Buddha found enlightenment (p. 234),Berenstein develops a reverence for Buddhism--which he considers"an intellectual religion" (p. 33)--"as a manner ofsifting the glitter from the substance, as a means of overcoming theshallowness of the self and of reaching for the tranquil power of themind" (p. 33). Still, Bernstein finds no answers in Buddhism.Travelling "The Road of Great Events," however, he seems todiscover the goal of man is to know himself (p. 273).This is afascinating book, and a 352-page JOURNEY worth travelling. In thesame genre--and if you missed it last year, I also recommend GeorgeCrane's, BONES OF THE MASTER (2000).G. Merritt
Rating: 
Summary: Not a travelogue, but an enjoyable pen-Ultimate journey
Review: As Bernstein quotes in the book, "No ship ever takes you away from yourself." And just as Conrad's journeys in the Congo were deeper than just a boat ride, Bernstein's travels through China, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan and India are not only a travelogue, but a personal journey at age 50. Most American school children are familiar with Marco Polo, who traveled from Europe to Asia. Some Jewish children are familiar with Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish explorer. But nearly none are familiar with Hsuan Tsang, a Monk who lived in 603-664, who was the greatest land traveler in history. Nearly all Asian children know of his esteemed adventures. Hsuan Tsang wrote "The Great Tang Chronicles of The Western World", based on his over fifteen years and 10,000 miles of journeys, journeys made by foot, horse, camel, and elephant. While Marco Polo sought riches, Monk Hsuan Tsang sought the source of reality and Buddhist Wisdom (although his emperor sought details to help craft military and political policies). Fast forward over 1,300 years. The author, raised on a chicken farm, is a book critic for The New York Times. He is a former Harvard Chinese History student, was a Peace Corps volunteer (in China), and was Time Magazine's Beijing bureau chief. When he turned fifty years of age, Bernstein, unmarried (half a man as the Talmud wrote) and antsy, moody and difficult to please, decided to fulfill some promises that he made to himself. These included sailing to Tahiti, reading Proust, writing a novel, making furniture, and, oh, yes, following the 5,000 mile route of Hsuan Tsang from China to Southern India. And so, Bernstein gets some time off from The Times, packs a bag, flies to Hong Kong and Xian China, and embarks on Hsuan Tsang's trek (although his Chinese American girlfriend does join this commitment-phobe for part of the trip). A great read for 2001. [Jewish readers will especially want to read Chapter 16, in which Bernstein, arriving in West Bengal on a Friday afternoon, seeks out the Calcutta synagogue he had noted on an earlier visit in 1970. Seeking to satiate a desire for tribal attachment, he finds the Sephardic services at the Canning Street shul (no longer on Synagogue Street), and is the tenth man for the Shabbat minyan]
Rating:
Summary: Clueless in Buddha Country
Review: Bernstein's entire preparation for India seems to have been a glance at a Lonely Planet and a chat with Tavleen Singh. He makes no further serious attempt to find anyone who can help him understand today's India or the India Hsuan Tsang saw over 1,300 years ago. As a result, he has undermined his credibility with cliches, want of understanding, and dyslexia with Indian names.The misspellings are ubiquitous, from Srinigar to Potiala and from Gorokhpur to Indori, from the superfast Sabhathi Express to Delhi's historic Red Ford. At one point, he takes a photograph of a Mr Yado (Yadav), carefully writes down his address and, later, posts it to Merjaphur (Mirzapur). He wonders if it ever arrived. So do I.It's sad that in 2001, someone of Bernstein's standing is still writing that Kolkata's 'most famous image is a black hole', and that it 'summons up images of medieval plagues and suffering'. He must also have been using an old guide book, as he opines that the only place to stay, apart from the Grand and the Tollygunge Club, is Sudder Street. Varanasi, which for his compatriot, the scholar Diana Eck, was 'The City of Light' is for him merely 'a city of the dead'. He doesn't talk to Veerbhadra Mishra, the mahant of the Sankatmochan temple, about his struggle to keep the river clean. Even Clinton was impressed by Mishra, but Bernstein knows that no religious leader is interested in keeping the Ganga clean as he's consulted Tavleen Singh. He dismisses the late Kashi Naresh, who devoutly maintained the centuries-old Ram Lila at Ramnagar, as a 'has-been maharaja'. Perhaps he was wise in refusing an interview for fear of being misquoted.Hinduism is beyond Bernstein's ken-he is a self-confessed 'secular non-Buddhist sceptic'. He hasn't realised that it is more than simply 'a religion of worldly renunciation'. One of the greatest acts of renunciation that Hsuan Tsang witnessed was when King Harsha Vardhana gave away his worldly goods at a ceremony he performed every five years at Prayag. This is one of many incidents not mentioned in the book. Neither, if you go by the book's map, did Hsuan Tsang go anywhere near Allahabad. Bernstein is interested in Buddhism but that interest is intellectual. Thankfully, he learns through the course of his journey that Buddhism, like Hinduism, is a religion of experience. He is blessed with a light touch and an ability to laugh at himself. But it would have helped him if he had understood that while China is 'an extraordinary universe, a domain of everything', India is one too.
Rating:
Summary: Another winner from Richard Bernstein
Review: Following the tradition of his other well written books on China: From the Center of the Earth and The Coming Conflict with China (coauthor Ross H. Munro), Richard Bernstein wrote about how he retraces the foot steps of an ancient journey and turned it into his own Ultimate Journey. It is a fascinating read about the places, religion, people and, like Soul Mountain, a journey to find what seemed to some as not to be in existance--the inner peace and satisfaction.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Book
Review: I am amazed by a previous reviewer commenting the book contains too much Buddha. I couldn't disagree more, though the book was a great travelogue. I personally purchased it, originally, because I thought it would be a work ABOUT Buddhism in some fashion or another. Instead, I was equally pleased to find it was more a book of travelling Asia than one about Buddhism. Bernstein's observations of Buddhism are interesting considering he is Jewish, and pretty much a non practicing one at that. Though the sites he visits are ancient, the people he meets are quite modern. It is a great account on what travel in China is and was like in the past few decades, not to mention parts of Russia. This book is purely entertainment, and won't give you what your looking for in the line of Buddhism. It will however, take you to meet new people and places. Off to discover new lands in the way only books can convey. Even a lovely documentary cannot provide the insight that the written word gives us. Thanks for the outstanding book Richard Bernstein. One I am sure to read again in the future. Enjoy:)
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Summary: Middle-Life crisis meets Buddhism
Review: In 629 AD, a Buddhist monk named Hsuan Tsang, unnerved by his homeland's centuries of political and religious struggles, left China to search for and reinterpret the original texts of Buddhism. Sixteen long years later, journeying through Samarkand, Pakistan and finally to India, he returned in triumph with the True Teachings of the Buddha, and wrote an epic which is considered one of China's greatest literary masterpieces. Bernstein, a book critic for the New York Times and former Beijing bureau chief for Time magazine, recreates Hsuan Tsang's long and sinuous route. Middle-aged, unmarried, feeling a spiritual loneliness most of us who follow a "non-practicing" faith in the West could relate to, he sets out with the conviction that his journey can bring back the youthful vitality and hope he had felt while in India nearly 30 years ago. Ultimate Journey holds a great balance of travelogue, Chinese history and Buddhist teachings, all with great precision, pace and excitement. Though Bernstein does not know much about Buddhism, he does know Chinese, and vividly recreates Hsuan Tsang's world and the troubles plaguing him. He faced many of the same perils as Hsuan Tsang, and juxtaposes these experiences throughout the book. Hostile Mongol regimes are replaced with hostile Islamic regimes, mountain ranges are just as inaccessible, language and cultural barriers remain, and border crossings are just as real and difficult as those of 1400 years ago. The book is a great interpretation of East Asia as seen through a Westerner's eyes. He is at times elitist, ignorant of local customs, and often whines about middle age and lost youth, which I got tired of reading after a while. But then, who at times hasn't mourned their lost youth or felt some ping of spiritual void while sitting in a cubicle with a cold cup of coffee and a looming deadline for a client's project? He is honest, spilling his fears and dreams, and pining for his girlfriend, the Chinese dancer Zhongmei Li . While Hsuan Tsang's journey ended with his triumphant return on an elephant and cartloads of Buddhist texts, Bernstein ends with a few mediocre tourist sites in China and Zhongmei back in his arms. Not a world-shattering event, but I think he finally found what he was looking for.
Rating: 
Summary: Great look at Silk Road and Tang History, Too much Buddha
Review: In my opinion some of the best books ever written are trave narratives about trips to Asia. Pico Iyer's the Lady and Monk about Japan, Simon Winchester's look at China on the Yangtze, am's bike ride through Vietnam, and Mark Salzman's two year stay in China in Iron and Silk. I was hoping the two recent additions to this field would be added to the list: Rivertown and the Ultimate Journey. Rivertown was a well written fast read that did capture todays China. Unfortunately, i felt the book and story ultimately lacked a story or even an ultimate point. Ultimate Journey at times is a much better book when it is a travel narrative. Where I lost interest in the book was the very deep discussions of Buddhism. But I can not fault the author for that because technically this book is shelved in the religion section and not the travel section. Bernstein's provides a great history of Hsuan Tsang and his journey to India and back to find Sutras. I also enjoyed his feelings towards his future wife. but again, too many times i got lost into discussions on Buddhism. A very good book, but no Iron and Silk!
Rating:
Summary: Great look at Silk Road and Tang History, Too much Buddha
Review: In my opinion some of the best books ever written are trave narratives about trips to Asia. Pico Iyer's the Lady and Monk about Japan, Simon Winchester's look at China on the Yangtze, am's bike ride through Vietnam, and Mark Salzman's two year stay in China in Iron and Silk. I was hoping the two recent additions to this field would be added to the list: Rivertown and the Ultimate Journey. Rivertown was a well written fast read that did capture todays China. Unfortunately, i felt the book and story ultimately lacked a story or even an ultimate point. Ultimate Journey at times is a much better book when it is a travel narrative. Where I lost interest in the book was the very deep discussions of Buddhism. But I can not fault the author for that because technically this book is shelved in the religion section and not the travel section. Bernstein's provides a great history of Hsuan Tsang and his journey to India and back to find Sutras. I also enjoyed his feelings towards his future wife. but again, too many times i got lost into discussions on Buddhism. A very good book, but no Iron and Silk!
Rating:
Summary: More on Aurel Stein would have added to the authenticity
Review: It is unfortunate that the author did not have the opportunity to visit Bamiyan in Afghanistan. As you know, Sir Aurel Stein is buried in Kabul. I found Wilfrid Blunt's THE GOLDEN ROAD TO SAMARKAND to be more informative as it included the travels of many Europeans and Asians that ventured into Central Asia. I had the opportunity to visit Herat, Qandahar and Kabul in 1972 when I was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Iran, 70-72. I travelled overland, crossing the frontier at Islam Qala. Qandahar represented the western most city of Ashokan influence. To the West was the Zoroastrian realm of influence. How did Zoroastrianism and Buddhism interact?
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