Julian Daizan Skinner – Practical Zen: Meditation and Beyond

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Book Review, Julian Daizan Skinner, Meditation, Practical Zen, Zen Buddhism

A helpful, de-mystifying and practical approach

I was delighted to receive this as a digital ARC from Singing Dragon. The fact that this book is published by them, almost guaranteed its excellence for me. Some publishers of books which fall into a loose ‘New Age’ category can be a little goofy, sensationalist and flaky for my tastes. Singing Dragon specialise in good writers in the field, knowledgeable in their various disciplines, excellent communicators

And so it is here.

Julian Daizan Skinner writes clearly about a subject which can be a challenging one for those of us unversed in the traditions and concepts of Zen Buddhism. You don’t need to have spent years on a spiritual path in order to understand what he explains. This author offers guidance for beginners in a meditation practice, without being so full of difficult and detailed instruction that the would-be meditator gets a headache from trying to remember too many bullet points.

we don’t need to particularly change ourselves into something else. We don’t have to go on painful courses of practice or force ourselves in any way. This is about acknowledging the truth of who we are , who we were and who we will always be

The author finds simple language, useful images to explain some complex concepts, and to offer routes by which the meditator may be able to glimmeringly grasp something as a signpost. It does not feel like something simplified and reduced to unlovely bare bones of ‘do this, do that’ either. More like being shown an open door to a room full of boundless fascination. You can stand outside the room, and look in, or you can choose to enter and really explore at depth, and journey onwards. Perhaps through further rooms whose doors are as yet unknown.

This book is inviting, simple, guiding the reader to explore this particular meditation practice in a built on way : an 8 week process of 25 minute sittings per day, plus a 5 minute journal keeping of what arises. There is also plenty of additional support offered, via the zenways website. This includes details of sitting groups, intensive 1 and 3 days meditation retreats, yoga trainings.

Even better, the book gives a password protected entry to the on site material – information and the guided meditations laid out in the text are available as audio downloads, and also a video of one of the meditations which involves specific movements to energise belly and legs linked with the breathing. This is useful for those who might prefer a guided session.

There is also plenty for those who might want to explore the subject more deeply – many cited texts, discourses on the philosophy and history of different approaches to Zen, so though this is, in essence, a practical guide, it offers more.

What really ‘got’ me about this excellent book, even more than its clarity in communication, is the kindness and compassion it radiated

Practical Zen: Meditation and Beyond Amazon UK
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Elisabeth Tova Bailey – The Sound of A Wild Snail Eating

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Autobiography, Book Review, Elisabeth Tova Bailey, Meditation, Science and nature, The Natural World, The Sound of A Wild Snail Eating

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Elisabeth Tova Bailey’s long meditation on, of all things, a snail, is a beautiful thing. A modest, unostentatious and tender account of one year confined to a sick bed, at times close to dying, kept alive in hope and spirit by connection with a snail. Life slowed down to simplicity and snail time as living at human speed becomes impossible.

Victim of a lethal mystery virus – possibly Lyme disease, possibly also ME, possibly tick-borne encephalitis, Tova Bailey has written an account of one year of her history of debilitating illness. Observing a snail brought to her on a violet plant by a friend provides deep immersion into what it means to be human by contrast with what it means to be snail. Tova Bailey explores with interest the lives of snails – but this is much more than a fascinating introduction to gastropods. Its a beautiful illustration of Blake’s ‘Auguries of Innocence’ quote above – anything, no matter how humble, can open into wonder and provide ‘thoughts that do lie too deep for tears’

Oh, and if you think ‘well I’m not the least interested in snails, horrid creatures’ prepare to be seduced into seeing a snail from a changed perspective, gently shown the blinkered quality of your previous snail view by this delightful snailscape!

Another writer with a brilliant ability to show the natural world in a deeply reflective, transcendent manner is Sharman Apt Russell Anatomy Of A Rose: The Secret Life of Flowers and An Obsession With Butterflies: Our Long Love Affair with a Singular Insect

Admittedly Tova Bailey’s subject is rather more unusual – many of us love roses and butterflies, and both of them have acquired mythological and mystical connections – but Snails??? Prepare to be enchanted.

Snail (of course!) Wikimedia Commons

I was reminded of just how much I had been moved, enchanted and come into being present, by the reading of this reflective, modest book, by another blogger’s post about it – here is a ping back to that review

I originally received the book as an ARC from the Amazon Vine Programme, UK

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating Amazon UK
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating Amazon USA

Tim Parks – Teach Us To Sit Still: A Sceptic’s Search for Health and Healing

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Autobiography, Book Review, Health and wellbeing, Meditation, Teach Us To Sit Still, Tim Parks

The body bares (and bears) its soul

This is a difficult book to categorise. It has a much much wider market than those who suffer from ‘problems with the waterworks’, BPH, irritable bladder etc. It is a fascinating and deeply reflective account of the meaning of illness and wellness. Parks, an acknowledged atheist and sceptic about all things remotely New Age or alternative in the health field, developed an increasingly disruptive and painful urogenital condition. Exhaustive tests yielded little information, other than to show an absence of anything ‘sinister’. Conventional pharmacological management proving largely ineffective for him, the standard option was for surgery. Something which he had ‘a gut instinct’ was wrong for him. Parks’ exhaustive research on his condition and the surgical procedure via the internet showed the procedure offered could not be guaranteed to be successful, or indeed problem free.

Author Parks began to look at other options, specifically to consider not just ‘the condition’ but himself as experiencing the condition. Discovering a book which discussed his condition as a muscular/neurological reaction to hyperpresent tension – an attribute of his own nature – almost against his intellect he began to explore embodiment, grappling with his own inability to be present in the here and now of his body, rather than the constant backwards and forwards cerebral activity of the mind. His desire to understand his own story and narrative, what his body was saying, led him, initially sceptically and unwillingly, to a gifted Shiatsu practitioner, and, later to a deeper experience of meditation. The initial debilitating nature of his condition had been much helped by the specific techniques of `paradoxical relaxation’ described in the book, but the alleviation of pain and nocturia were no longer seen as the end of the journey.

Parks’ ability to be open to challenge his own perceived notions of reality, and to accept experience completely outside his belief systems is rather wonderful.

I particularly appreciate the fact that he doesn’t fall into the convert’s trap of saying `THIS is the way’, exhorting everyone to follow suit. This was HIS way, his story, his meaning.

There is also much which is fascinating about the possible effect of various illnesses on both the choice of subject matter and the modes of expression used by other writers and artists with chronic conditions

There is so much within this book, not least, an understory about language and translation. As well as writing novels, he also teaches Italian/English translation skills to students in Italy. There is a parallel here to `what is lost in translation’ between the experience (any experience) and the description of it. Our species’ amazing faculty for language and complex expression both illuminates and obfuscates our experiences, at one and the same moment. Language itself defines and therefore limits what it describes. His analysis of various texts and what will be `lost in translation’ from a too literal juxtaposition of one language into another, missing the inner meaning of a thing, is directly mirrored in his attempt to describe `the ineffable’, the felt sense of the present which arises when the mind is stilled from its endless narrative. As he notes, in the moment the narrating mind tries to verbalise the experience, we are no longer WITHIN what we are experiencing.

Another book which incorporates the autobiography of illness is Hilary Mantel’s equally wonderful Giving up the Ghost: A memoir

Teach Us To Sit Still: A Sceptic’s Search for Health and Healing Amazon UK
Teach Us To Sit Still: A Sceptic’s Search for Health and Healing Amazon USA

Michael Mayne – Learning to Dance

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Book Review, Christianity, Learning to Dance, Meditation, Michael Mayne, Reflection, The Natural World

A book of wonders and delight

Michael Mayne was at one time Head of Religious Programmes for BBC Radio, and Dean of Westminster. By this book, he was clearly wise, erudite, deeply compassionate, thoughtful, creative, and intensely and fully human.

It’s extremely hard to categorise this book.

The Dance is many faceted – The Dance of The Cosmos, The Atomic Dance, The Dance of Living and of Dying.

Mayne structures the book around the seasonal and pictorial idea of the Medieval Book of Hours, dividing chapters into months of the year, their activities, and an inner poetic, mystical meaning of those activities.

Each chapter starts with a beautiful paean to the natural world, both Mayne’s own observations of what is happening in nature in that month, and the interspersed writings of poets, philosophers and naturalists, all chosen for their transcendent view.

He then explores a theme, and always, whether it is the ubiquity of Fibonacci numbers in the petals of plants, the creative urge which gives rise to Cezanne’s paintings, Mozart’s music or Shakespeare’s final plays, he draws close to a relationship between the perception of what God means, particularly within the Christian faith, and who indeed we, humans, are.

His thinking is subtle, profound, and holds paradox and the discomfort of no easy answers. Never platitudinous, deep and beautiful writing, with a graceful and light touch, this is a book to reflect on and return to.

What is the book about? – in Mayne’s words, somewhere in November, in a chapter called The Dance Of Faith, and a little flavour of his writing:

And perhaps we are most human, most what we are called to be, when we have one foot on the shore of that we know, and one foot in the mysterious, unknown ocean. This is where the poet and the painter stand, together with the best scientists and the wisest theologians: exploring, probing, digging deeper; and sometimes breaking through to a fresh realisation of truth. Art, science and theology meet and flower at the boundary of the known and the hidden

He provides movements towards answers, not prescriptions, dogmas or implacable certainties. The book is a beautiful exploration for the reader, into true mystery, true wonder, and embraces pain as well as joy.

Boucicaut Book of Hours. Wikimedia Commons

In one of Amazon’s annoying listing blips, in the UK the author of the foreword is given as the author of the book. I don’t expect Mayne, who comes across as a man of some humility, cursed and stamped too much.
Learning to Dance Amazon UK
Learning to Dance Amazon USA

 

Sara Maitland – A Book of Silence

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A Book of Silence, Book Review, Meditation, Philosophy, Reflection, Religion and Spirituality, Sara Maitland, The Natural World

Many words about silence – almost an oxymoron

This is a wonderful and thought provoking book. Maitland explores silence both from her personal experience, and from the garnered writings, sayings and teachings of others who have either sought silence, or had silence thrust upon them.

Inevitably, many of the chosen experiences of silence come from those who sought silence and or solitude (as she points out, the two are not necessarily the same) as the route towards an experience of the Divine. Maitland recognises that certain groups of people, while not seeking a closer union with divinity, may encounter experience of profound silence and contemplation – for example, explorers in inhospitable climes. She finds a common felt sense of silence across written accounts of these various experiences, although inevitably it seems that those who consciously search for the experience in spiritual surrender may travel further into the silence.

I was also fascinated by her drawing out the difference between the ‘eremitical tradition’ – hermits seeking surrender to Divinity and the tradition of solitude as ‘the way of the artist’, which was part of the Romantic tradition, and has influenced much modern thinking about individual artistic creation. She contrasts the surrender of the ego, the losing of boundary, the merging with all, that is the spiritual way, and the solitary act of artistic creativity which is the fuller realisation of ‘Self’ – if you like, the clearest realisation of the individual.

I would have liked a little more exploration of the journey towards inner silence – that quietening of the mind’s chatter – even if one is in a noiseless environment, and solitary, the full mind can often feel like a crowd of irritating noisy chattering fools! (well, mine can!) She touches more briefly on this, in the final chapter. it is perhaps a more difficult subject to write about anyway, since how can the wordless space be described? To describe it with words is to lose it.
Image: Deviant Art.com
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Clark Strand – Meditation without gurus

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Book Review, Clark Strand, Meditation, Meditation without Gurus

Written by a man with his feet on the ground

This book is a little gem. Very easily and understandably written, and, as can often be the case when the padding and the packaging, the complex whistles, bows and fol de rols are removed – the simplicity at the heart of practice is profound.

Clark Strand must be a profound and experienced meditator of many years standing – it is, I assume his real experience that enables him to convey the rightness and essence of ‘being present’ in such an egalitarian, empowering and modest way.

The book has short chapters, which are intensely practical, and cover most of what a new (or indeed an experienced) meditator might wish to know.

The following is typical of his welcoming approach:

 

In his observation of the simplicity and truthfulness of the meditator’s experience of his/her own practice, he reminds the reader: “there is nothing you will read herein (in his book) that was not implicit in your first experience of meditation. Even knowing nothing. Even not knowing what to do.”

He reminds us of the naturalness of meditation, and that being able to be fully present is something which is already ours – he points out many circumstances in daily life when we are ‘present’, and that meditation is not ‘the goal’; it is a way to be present:

“The secret of meditation lies in understanding that we all have this innate steadiness and calm and we can access it right away, without obsessively monitoring or telling ourselves what to do”

For me, one of the most profound statements is that the way to be truly present, and certainly the way to approach meditation is to come to the practice (of being present) metaphorically naked – free of the robes and badges of our position or standing i.e. ‘I am an expert in….’ ‘I have ….in the bank’; free of the clothes of our belief systems, our philosophies of life, which while helpful will also, by their nature, impose limits; free of all our affectations of persona and projection into the world; free of impediments to free movement, crutches eg addictions, dependencies; free of all we believe we need to stay alive, ‘our last protection against nothingness’. After that, as Strand says: “What is left? And how different is it from anybody else?”

A final quote, from the justifiably glowing accolades on the back jacket of the book, which really does encapsulate Strand’s book perfectly:

“In poetic simplicity, Clark Strand makes meditation as effortless as breathing, as intimate as a heartbeat, as joyous as a child” (quote by Hugh Prather)
Meditation without Gurus Amazon UK
Meditation without Gurus Amazon USA