One Blade Of Grass: Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir

by Henry Shukman

One Blade of Grass tells the story of how meditation practice helped Henry Shukman to recover from the depression, anxiety, and chronic eczema he had had since childhood and to integrate a sudden spiritual awakening into his life. By turns humorous and moving, this beautifully written memoir demystifies Zen training, casting its profound insights in simple, lucid language, and takes the reader on a journey of their own, into the hidden treasures of life that contemplative practice can reveal to any of us.

Genres: Nonfiction, Spirituality, Buddhism, Meditation, Philosophy, Memoir, Zen

352 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2019

About the author

Henry Shukman (IG: @henryshukman) is an authorized Zen Master in the Sanbo Zen lineage, and is spiritual director emeritus of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

He is the co-founder and lead meditation teacher for The Way, a meditation app that provides a modern update to the ancient path of meditation training. He also leads meditation courses and retreats.

Henry is an award-winning poet and author, whose memoir One Blade of Grass recounts his own journey through meditation practice. His new book Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening is a manual and map describing the four key zones of meditation practice. Original Love is now available for pre-order, and will be published in early July, 2024.

His struggles and traumatic experiences as a youth, combined with a spontaneous awakening experience at 19, and many years of training under several teachers, paved the way for his developing a well-rounded approach to healing and awakening through meditation.
(copied from Amazon Web page

Reviews

[Cool-Burne Psmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I probably wanted a little too much out of this book. When I assess it from this wanting perspective, I'm disappointed with it. However, if I look at it objectively, it's a solid effort and I think it could help a lot of people.

I first came across Henry Shukman through a podcast episode on Waking Up and a series of guided meditations he authored for the same app. The way he practiced Zen seemed humble, and disconnected from the hierarchical world of Zen I had experienced. His guided meditations were peaceful, and often planted the seeds of some future awakening in me. For the first time, I thought I had found a guide that I could closely follow and base my meditation practice around. Reading this book seemed like a logical next step.

Henry Shukman has lived many lives, including one as a successful freelance travel writer, which shows in his prose. He seamlessly writes in a concise manner that can be in turns poetic, powerful and practical even when dealing with esoteric matters.

"I had a dream: I was up in a declivity on the Welsh moors with a phosphorescent ball floating just over my head. "You can touch it," an old man told me. I reached out and held the ball in my hands, and he said, "That's the moon, you know.""

Or when dealing with deep awakenings, of which he writes wonderfully:

"I could hear the grass growing, a faint high singing sound, like the sibilance of a new snowfall coming down. I remembered the Jewish saying: "No blade of grass but has an angel bending over it, whispering, 'Grow, grow.'" Every blade deserved that. …Every object contained an inner lamp, and now I could see it."

He also lived a life of suffering. His relationship with his father bordered on unfulfilling and actually destructive. He suffered from severe eczema for decades. Of this suffering, he writes honestly, which I found particularly insightful. He does not try to paint a picture of a perfectly awakened man at every phase of life. Nothing appears white-washed. There are plenty of other Zen masters out there that would never admit their suffering publicly. By sparing no details (including a passage of what might be his darkest moment, snorting cocaine with a short-term fling on the beach in Mexico… watching the sunset… feeling absolutely nothing), Shukman shows that enlightenment is available to almost anyone.

Where this book began to lose me, was when I realized that Shukman's Zen was no different from the hierarchical Zen that never resonated with me. He speaks of deeply craving the approval of his Masters and Teachers. In one particularly disillusioning passage, which is made even more so because it follows Shukman's alleged attainment of enlightenment, he rushes about the zendo panicked that he may not see the Master before the end of the retreat to have his enlightenment confirmed. He craves the teacher's approval so deeply it undercuts (in my unawakened mind) the alleged enlightenment he requires his teacher to acknowledge and approve. And this illustrates the root of my concern with Zen, and its lineages, and its hierarchy of teachers. The very system is set up to drive desire in its students. To drive cravings, and needs, and approvals in those who practice it. It is this system that so naturally leads to absurdities like meditation competitions and Zen games. This is not the world I ever intended to enter when I began meditating and I don't intend on entering it now.

So that is where my disappointment comes in. If you live in this world of Zen, or if you understand it better than I, maybe this book will be perfect for you. But, unfortunately, it just didn't lead to any of the many places I hoped it might.

[John Thorndike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shukman’s genius in this book is how he folds the practice of Zen—the seeking, the pain, the revelations—into his own life. It’s true that most Zen stories come with barely a hint about the lives of the monks, or masters, or holy travelers whose pronouncements we hear. We might learn that two monks were crossing a river, or that an old master lived for ten years in a simple hut in the mountains. Then, promptly, they say something enlightened. We might hear that they sat outside a monastery for years, or that they were asked to write something over the portal of a house, but we hardly know these men who speak. We have no hint of their childhoods, their adolescence, their relationship with their parents or siblings.

I’m a modern American reader and used to hearing about people’s inner lives. It’s why I read memoirs and novels, and I think this is why I respond so completely to Shukman’s trials, to his doubts, to his battles with eczema and ambition and the divorce of his parents. For me, this book is precisely what I want to read about Zen. There is much about sitting and koans and lineage and the details of practice, but we also hear of the endless ways in which Zen intertwines with the author’s singular, sometimes painful emotional life, and how, slowly and unpredictably, Zen lifts him into another awareness. I’d be happy to be more enlightened, but first I want to be gripped, and One Blade of Grass is gripping indeed.

[Will Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally a literary treatment of Zen and the awakening experience.
Highly recommended.

[Vilhelm · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book in so many ways. In spite of being an autobiography, it serves very well as an introduction to (Rinzai) Zen. Shukman's ability to communicate the purpose and way of Zen, and koans in particular, is the best I've come across. It's also just a beautiful book, clearly written by a talented writer and poet, that you could enjoy even without too much interest in its spiritual aspects.

A main takeaway for me was his experience with teachers, and how much they meant for his spiritual progress. With Shukmans secular standpoint, I could relate to the benefits better than I've been able to from reading others' accounts. I could also very much relate to his description of a career as something (a weight?) to maintain, which strengthens ones sense of identity.

But what I probably enjoyed most of it was the descriptions of moments of peace, at retreat, in nature, or anywhere after a moment of awakening (he's had a few of those). It worked very efficiently with my own motivation, and often while reading I found myself wanting to just sit.

"My Zen teachers led me right back to here and now. Except to a new kind of here and now, one that didn't belong to me, but rather to which I belonged."

[Robert Flannery · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Let the teaching flow out from your own breast to cover the sky and earth."

- 巖頭全豁 Yantou Quanhuo

from the chapter "Turtle Mountain Wakes Up" in _Bring Me the Rhinosaurus_ by John Tarrant

_One Blade of Grass_ begins and ends in Mountain Cloud Zen Center. Memories of a Life, beginning with Henry getting a puppy at twelve years old, extending on through decades, sketch his Lifepath.
While Henry was traveling and writing in New Mexico, he met Natalie Goldberg, who introduced Zen into his Life. After some acquaintance, she read him Dogen's "Mountains and Rivers Sutra". She said that zen is something you do. Henry was grabbed by the apparent nonsense. He began regular zazen with Robert Winson. During a later sesshin, there was an experience of "no I". The Lifepath leads through several of these as Time does whatever it is that it does. Henry practices with guides in the Sanbo (Three Treasures) lineage. The book is dedicated to four of his teachers.

The writing style is enticing from begining to end. For example, (page 313 line breaks inserted)
"like an archetypal ramp to a citadel,
the highway reaches straight at the blue mountains,
massed with metallic cumuli,
and the whole sky and land are in motion
like a living organism."

The Lifepath leads to Mountain Cloud, a semi-abandoned zendo around Santa Fe. My teacher told me that a teacher is like a pole that keeps the tent from collapsing. With Henry in place and a regular schedule, seekers found! Eventually, Abbott Yamada Ryoun visited for a dedication ceremony.

"Clouds rising out of the mountains,
streams entering the valley without a sound."

- Joshu

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm kind of a light meditator, and I've listened to a few recorded series by Shukman that I thought were excellent. This memoir is his story of going from a light meditator himself to a Zen priest. Shukman is a great writer and he's able to summon up the beauty in everyday things:

For Zen, this life, this word, is the very absolute. Making a cup of tea, fetching milk from the fridge, standing outside on the front step, watching the remains of a storm drift across the dawn sky, and hearing the drip-drip of rainwater into a puddle from a roof are miracles. The miraculous, in the end, if the fact of anything existing at all.

As a longish memoir, though, the book couldn't really sustain its momentum. The parts about Shukman's childhood are great (always the best part of memoirs), but the narrative becomes a string of descriptions of awakening experiences that are probably pretty hard to convey. If nothing else, it shows the level of commitment needed to fully embrace the Zen practice, which is not for the light practitioner.

[David Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry Shukman had an interesting life as a writer even before he began spiritual practice, but this memoir centers on his practice and wouldn’t exist without it. He is British and grew up in Oxford, the child of two well-known professors. The primary problem of his early life was a horrific case of eczema, which plagued him for years. I myself have suffered from a mild case for much of my life, and understand how mystifying it can be.

But Shukman even as an infant had eczema that covered his entire body and was a constant torment; his parents had to cover him with ointment when he was young, and he was reclusive when he got older because he was embarrassed about his appearance. He also felt stifled at school; his parents were known as scholars, so he was supposed to be an excellent student, but wasn’t terribly interested and did his work dutifully. His parents’ divorce was also difficult for him, and seemed to come out of the blue; one day his mother seemed agitated and the next day his father was gone. The man eventually remarried and tried to bring his sons into his new family, but Henry remained resentful of his parents’ breakup throughout his youth.

He found freedom as he got older and began to realize he wanted a career as a writer. He hung out with a bohemian crowd and wrote poetry and stories. After graduating from secondary school he took a gap year and traveled to Argentina, writing and hanging out and working odd jobs. For the first time in his life, his eczema disappeared. I wondered if the deciding factor was something about the South American climate, or just being away from home. He returned to England and the eczema immediately returned.

It was in Argentina that he had his first mystical experience, standing on a hillside and feeling a sudden oneness with everything. This episode wasn’t much different from what others have reported, but Shukman had no context for it and didn’t know what to make of it. A few years later he had a girlfriend who was into Transcendental Meditation, and he began doing that, wondering if meditation might clarify what had happened to him.

Shukman was successful in his early writing career, publishing poetry and stories and getting assignments to do travel writing. At one point he went to New Mexico to do a piece on D.H. Lawrence. The project didn’t work out, but he met writer Natalie Goldberg, who encouraged his writing and introduced him to Zen. Goldberg persuaded him to do his first sesshin, and while he worried that he was being unfaithful to TM, he took to Zen immediately.

His travels took him around the country and he kept running into Zen teachers, some who were quite well known, John Daido Loori, Eido Roshi, Josho Kennett. He was looking for a teacher, but none of those situations seemed quite right. He eventually found a home in the Sanbo Kyoden lineage—which combines Soto Zen with koans—and found teachers who, though not as well-known as others he’d encountered, worked out perfectly, Joan Rieck Roshi and John Gaynor Roshi. He had found his spiritual home.

Kensho—a dramatic experience of opening—is extremely important in that lineage; one could almost say it is necessary. I wonder if people who are prone to such things find their way to that lineage, or if the experience changes those who show up. Shukman describes an initial opening with the koan Mu, and then—in a chapter entitled “Absolute Zero”—describes an ultimate experience, what might be described as the Great Death.

I don’t know what to make of that. Shukman, who had had various enlightenment experiences previous to that, says that his life had nevertheless not been much affected by them; he could easily revert back to depression and self-doubt. I haven’t had such dramatic experiences, but feel that my life has been utterly changed by my 28 years of practice. I believe my wife would agree. Shukman describes the early days of the sesshin in question as rather ordinary, one day when he was trying to settle down, another when it felt as if a battle were going on inside him, two sides wrestling for domination.

But when this final opening came, it was most dramatic. Shukman—who is a lively, interesting writer throughout most of the book—is rendered almost incoherent by the experience.

“. . . a thunderbolt dropped on the crown of my head.

“Everything gone. All the hard work of holding together the world as Henry knew it—gone. No more Henry, no more world. Nothing. No more Zen. Truly, nothing. True nothing. Everything annihilated. Nothing left. Nothing at all.

“Its hard to know what exactly happened, but when I look back on it, there’s simply nothing. Not even awareness of nothing. A gap. But not even a gap. Blackness. But not even that. It’s hard to know what to call it. Death, perhaps. ‘Death’ Seems the aptest term.

“One impossible fact: nothing at all. Not emptiness, which might still suggest space with nothing in it, but nothing. Nothing to see, no one to see, no seeing.”

Hmm.

This experience—not surprisingly—changed Shukman’s life altogether. He only wanted to do altruistic work after that, and began to work with various hospice organizations. He gave up writing altogether; it no longer seemed to have a point (though he did eventually write this 339-page book). The Zen Center in New Mexico where he first did zazen was on its last legs, and Shukman took it over; it seems to be thriving today. A friend of mine who has listened Shukman’s talks says they are a model of clarity. He seems to have found his calling.

I have read Varieties of Religious Experience and understand that, to some extent, we’re just talking about different psychological makeups; some people are prone to such experiences and others aren’t. Whenever I read about them—Brad Warner calls such writing enlightenment porn—I find myself wondering why such things haven’t happened to me (though the Great Death doesn’t sound exactly pleasant, and I’ve had my own kinds of excitement).

Yet the teachers I follow, and whom I trust the most, denigrate the importance of kensho. Kodo Sawaki said somewhere that he’d had many enlightenment experiences, and none of them was worth a damn, and Eihei Dogen—whom the Sanbo Kyoden lineage claims to follow—says in his zazen instructions, “Don’t think good or bad. . . . Have no designs on becoming a Buddha.”

At some point in the past few months I copied a passage into my notebook that David Chadwick wrote about Shunryu Suzuki, who has always been a model of practice for me, of consistency and steadiness. It is this passage that I go back to when I feel unmoored.

“He told us that enlightenment was not a state of mind, was not contained in any experience, and he guided us away from trying to recreate past profound experiences and toward accepting ourselves as we are. He taught a disciplined life of zazen meditation, attention to the details of life, not wanting too much (especially another state of mind) and not getting too worked up.”

I wonder what Sanbo Kyoden teachers would say to that.

www.davidguy.org

[Q]

A top favorite of the year. I already started reading again. A Blade of Grass is a memoir that tells the author’s journey studying Zen Buddhism. Not your typical Zen book. The fact he shared his own experience brought much clarity. He is an excellent writer and very open about his life.

I didn’t rate this boodDk because I don’t want to rate these kind of books any more. It’s surprised me how much I learned from him and enjoyed the book because of his writing, honesty, and clarity. . This review is rather dull but he is’nt. He is from England and moved between that and New Mexico.

I’m sad it’s over. I already started oreading it again.

[Robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found out about this book through an email communication I received from the Waking Up app, Sam Harris' meditation app. I have grown to love the app and enjoy practicing every day using its many guided mediations.

This book made me look at meditation and the entire practice from a different set of eyes and has had such an impact on me. Henry Shukman retells his story in such a beautiful and compelling manner. The greatest triumph of this book was its ability to describe the inexplicable ideas of finding something similar to inner peace through the use of mediation.

I can only say positive things about this book and the greatest take away that I got from it is that we can't do it alone. We need to find people in life that we connect with to help guide us along our journeys.

[Charu Ravichandran · Rating 4 out of 5]

From a very young age, I’m troubled with the questions on life’s meaning and the role I play in/with it. It lead to explore zen stories as a kid, and even as a troubled teenager I often thought of embracing Buddhism to untangle myself from the clutches of the material world. I wasn’t sure what I was seeking exactly, but I always knew that I was seeking something. Reading this book helped me understand that embracing Buddhism or attaining Zen(hood) is not a transformative process in the sense I had understood earlier, but a way of rebuilding oneself to look at life with its fullest. The author too had a long hiatus in his quest for peace, and that helped me see what it takes to give up the sense of oneself and the world built around our ego.

[Adam Rugnetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book for anyone interested in Zen. It is the story of an imperfect man, racked with Eczema and scars from his childhood, who uses meditation to live better. I particularly enjoyed seeing what meditation offers to those who really dedicate to it. He explains what to do and what you can expect as a Zen practitioner. A writer by trade and training Shukman can tell a story, so it is good regardless of your intentions. Recommended to anyone who wants to think more about meditating.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully written memoir, "One Blade of Grass" captures in prose, more articulately than anything I have yet come across, some of the most profound and otherwise ineffable insights into existence, consciousness, and life that experienced nondual practitioners report. Absorbing and immersing as the story of a man and the journey of a seeker, fascinating as an exploration of Eastern philosophy, and truly beautifully written.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is a poet, and it shows in this pleasant, erudite narrative. But I'm no wiser regarding Zen, other than I can check it off the list of things I would like to look into. A good book to wile away the hours of a rainy Pandemic afternoon with.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable read about Henry's discovery of Zen. Very Inspiring!

[Fouad maghamez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best reading of the year. Touched me on a personal level. Thank you Henri Shukman

[Emma Corbett · Rating 4 out of 5]

“My life wasn’t ‘saved’ by Zen, but by my teachers”. This quote really embodied the memoir for me, and can be applied to all things in our life. It’s not the things we do but the people we meet and who show us the way that save us.

[Charles · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had hoped to at least understand what Zen was about, what its practices(sitting zen, koan meditations, etc) consisted of & achieved. In the end I was unable to understand almost anything of what Shukman describes as enlightenment. He obviously was(& maybe still is) a deeply troubled man who suffered for many years from severe generalized chronic eczema which did not respond to various therapies, & compounding this a chronic depressive state(?bipolar in view of the alternance of depression & exalted mind states). Naturally he looked for ways to deal with this & tried a variety of methods including psychotherapy & ultimately what did it for him was the practice of Zen, which he pursued for many years & in which he ultimately became a teacher at a center near Santa Fe, giving up his poetry & writing(novels, travel) for this.

[Jemima · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the grammatical errors very distracting. It made the book feel rushed and not properly taken care of. He should have applied the same care and attention in writing his book as he did cleaning the dirt in his zen monasteries!
Criticism out the way, it was a lovely read. As someone who meditates it’s interesting to read about the life of someone who has done this for decades. How it helped keep his family glued together because it made him less egotistical.
It was very touching.
When he wrote descriptively it was beautiful. It would have been nice if more of his inner poet came out.
Would recommend :)

[Francis Djabri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful, moving, tender, accessible and profound. There’s a lot on offer here that’ll be of interest to anyone interested in spiritual growth - the pages are packed with great wisdom, delivered humbly, that’s always a pleasure to receive. Shukman’s Zen journey wasn’t easy and I found myself nodding my head in recognition at the struggles he encountered in finding good teaching and guidance. Zen is a tricky topic and I wish I’d found a book as rich and accessible as this years ago. I bought the audio book and Shukman tells his own story with quiet emotional intensity that left me teary-eyed at times.

[David Przybylinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be interesting in getting an insight to Zen and how Henry related to it through life and through to where he is today. He has a good deal knowledge about the history and details it through the book.

I really enjoyed reading more into meditation and how the zen factor differs from mindfulness or Trans. I would pick it up and give it a read.

[Jakob · Rating 3 out of 5]

A life journey, wandering from a hectic and self centered life into one more and more tinted by Buddhism and its impacts on the author. I found the starting parts fine, and the author's journey touching at points. It increased my knowledge and interest in Zen, which was its strongest point for me and which made it a worthwhile read.

[Farzana Ahmad · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started off well with a promise of a treat and had some interesting, thought provoking passages but by and large I found it a drag. I struggled to finish it.

[Greg Talbot · Rating 4 out of 5]

A monk asked Yunmen, "When it is not the current function and not the current phenomena, at that time what is it like?"

Men said, "Emptying a single utterance."

-"Yunmen's Emptying Utterance" (Bluff Cliff Record by Pi Yen Lu)


“All of the, with what felt like a seismic holt, the room seemed to blow wide open, the whole scene became an infinitely broad expanse, and it was as if I sucked into that expanse myself and became part of it” (p.4). Boring holes into his experience to reveal the reality as it, Henry Skukman describes his experience from spiritual seeker to Zen meditator.

Skukman’s koan teachings became a big part of my late 2020 practice. His meditations on the
“Waking Up”, gave me an experience to sit with the unanswerable parables such as “one bright pearl” or “what is the hand of one hand clapping”. Skukman brings beginner mind to all parts of his journey, explaining the coterminous experience of trying to live a normal life as a writer, a boyfriend/husband, father, and also having these profound shakings to the void of experience.

Often Skukman let’s us sit with the parable instead of sharing his answer Sometimes it’s the pithy koan parable such as “Before Zen, a Mountain is a Mountain, During Zen, a Mountain is a Not Mountain, After Zen: A Mountain is a Mountain”.

Trusting himself to zen, Skukman revisits the emotional turmoil of his early years that led him to the path. A difficult divorce, a self-righteous father difficult to get close to, the illumination of a father figure Gustavo and his missionary work with the poor in Columbia, and luring pull of the D.H. Lawrence quixotic New Mexico.

From Skukman’s story we explore the universality of looking to connection and find deep existential peace. The koan training is really drew me into his story. Some of it is the obfuscating instruction “dark to the mind, radiant to the heart” (p.207) of the practice, as well as the bare ascetic nature of it (no symbols, no saints, limited instruction).

A desire to live fully with immediacy has stirred my meditations and continued work on body/breathe practices. Late in the book, when Skukman trust deeper to his teachers and self. He recalls a teaching of Zen reality as a hot stove, where all snowflakes melt around it. Intuition and integration become paramount. The words just a poorly veiled casing. Like many on the path, we seek a knowledge, a peace, an understanding, but paradoxing the less we seek the more we seem to find. Stories like this are invaluable, and a reminder that our experience always has the potential to uproot us. With that comes the greater joy of continually coming home to ourselves.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book quite interesting. It is not my usual kind of book, but I was intrigued principally due to some curiosity I have with meditation and with breathing exercises.

The author spends some time relating his difficulties during his early years - the divorce of his parents, his relationship with his father, his eczema. For me, it was a bit long, and could have been covered more concisely.

His successful writing career gave him freedom to travel around the world and live with freedom as he wished. He attended various meditation schools around the world and tells of his spiritual journey at these places. It is quite interesting to read. In particular the efforts by some of the buddhist places he visited were quite amusing as he retold them. British people with weird notions of the Far East, or twisting and anglicizing things.

He introduces these Buddhist notions of Koans 公案 but didn’t really explain what they are and what you do with them to any satisfactory degree. They seem to be some kind of short sentence from which deeper meaning can be derived. During the process of meditation one can mull these things over in your mind and eventually go through some kind of awakening and spiritual transcendence. He is quite flowery in his language in describing this process and I’m not quite sure what he is talking about. I had to refer to Wikipedia or some relevant websites to learn more.

For me, this book was an interesting departure into a relatively unknown world. I would have liked a bit less of the personal stuff surrounding his life, and a bit more in terms of explaining some of the key concepts underlying the book.

[Anton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw, honest, poignant and hugely illuminating on the realities of Zen practice. Truly an enchanting autobiography full of poetic lyricism and vivid descriptions.

The Audible version read by the author is incredible too!

I first encountered Henry Shukman in his podcast interviews with Tim Ferriss and Sam Harris. They are very impressive in their own right:
- https://tim.blog/2021/12/29/zen-maste...
- https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/wa...

I read this book as a deeper dive follow up on Sam Harris' Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. These two work incredibly well in tandem!

Another related read on this topic or rather mindset from my recent bookshelf is The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation.

Very strong recommendation!

If you liked this, you may also enjoy Educated

[Armand Cognetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful story of a journey down the path of Zen, filled with a warmth that Zen normally seems to lack. Loved this book.

One of the (many) things I found interesting was the conception of kensho (~awakening experience) as "anti-trauma".

In kensho, consciousness is plunged into a bath of formless, nameless love. That we afterwards fall short of what we “realize” can be an incentive to train with our teachers until we do find durable peace. At least we know that it might be possible now. Kensho is the inverse of trauma. Here, unlike in trauma, the shock is of love and belonging, not pain and hurt. Researchers in psychology are now finding that a true epiphany can leave a beneficent shadow on the psyche, a positive counterpart to PTSD.

A few words I learned:
dybbuk: Jewish mythology, a malicious possessing spirit believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person
soteriology: doctrine of salvation
sump: a pit or hollow in which liquid collects, especially one in the floor of a mine or basement
fumaroles: openings in the earth's surface that emit steam and volcanic gases, such as sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide, they can occur as holes, cracks, or fissures near active volcanoes
neurasthenic: an ill-defined medical condition characterized by lassitude, fatigue, headache, and irritability, associated chiefly with emotional disturbance

[M Spiering · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zen is often depicted as one of the most mysterious and austere meditation practices. Henry Shukman single-handedly not only removes the (sometimes misleading) mystery and austerity, but also reveals a deeper mystery, which is that of the mind and the reality it encompasses.

He provides a touching first-hand account of his path to meditation (prompted by his suffering from a debilitating skin condition) and of his experience of kensho, a state in which everything briefly disappears, revealing the world (and the self) being a construction of the mind. It's one of the clearest accounts of this phenomenon and of "awakening" I've yet come across.

Ordinarily, Zen practitioners aren't typically allowed/encouraged to speak about their practice and phenomenological experiences (though, even the Zen poet, scholar, and Soto school founder Dogen does so to some extent). But being a very skilled writer (and poet), Shukman relates his experiences in a way that's both very respectful of the tradition and provided with the compassionate intent to help others to walk a path toward greater freedom, contentment, and compassion.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Zen tradition and meditation in general.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read highlighting one person's Zen journey. Everyone's spiritual road is personal and thereby part mystery. "Zen deals with whatever a person brings," writes the author. He brings much to the table as a very accomplished author and degreed scholar. Therefore, his intellect, dedication, and gravitas likely attracted the top echelon of Zen luminaries alive today to guide his growth. So what about us average folk? What might we expect and how does one discern a healthy Zen orientation and community? I've read elsewhere, for example, that the rigid hierarchical Zen system may lead to abuse or alienation for "novitiates". Of course, one book can't serve all purposes.... Undoubtedly meditating for zillions of hours alters one's brain and heart for the better but the author doesn't seem to explain just how cogitating on those puzzling koans would benefit you more than, say, visualizing peace and empowerment. All those many many hours of sitting: it's hard to imagine many of us carving out this time in our busy lives, and being able to manage it physically as well (as he struggles to, too). But I enjoyed this memoir and its insights and hope to find a complementary Zen book not unlike this but offering more -- without being (and this fine author wasn't--) too dry or esoteric or overly koan-like!, thank you.

[Julie King · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this memoir. I found it to be an honest, poetic depiction of the author’s journey from trauma to healing that honored the wild, woolly, everyday, and sometimes weird experiences along the way. Although describing past events, Henry Shukman conveys a sense of curiosity about his internal experiences, the people in his life, and the landscapes surrounding him throughout, making them vivid and fresh with vibrant energy – whether positive or negative – for the reader.

Over time, and serendipitously, Zen Buddhism became Shukman’s center of gravity. He shares his discovery process in a way that educates but does not evangelize. The reader feels like a fellow traveler, coming away with a basic understanding of Zen’s lineage and culture that rescues it from common misperceptions and misapplications that have occurred to some extent in the west. I value the vocabulary and the new perspective on the role of community and relationships in Zen that I gained as a result of reading this book. Most of all, I simply enjoyed Shukman’s utterly human, vulnerable, authentic, and heartfelt exploration of what it is to be alive on this earth.

[Ben Jakuben · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was gifted to me by a friend, and I am so thankful because I would otherwise not have known about it. Nor, if I’m honest, would I have been inclined to buy or borrow it. While I’m intrigued by Zen and the healing and life-shaping power of meditation, I have not pursued it with any sort of vigor other than a semi-regular yoga practice and occasional meditation session.

The author is a very good writer, which I appreciated from the start but didn’t learn until later in the book that this was his profession. His story is captivating and motivating, and there are many lessons I want to apply to my own life and share with others. This came at a timely moment for me to tip my thinking further in a direction I was already headed, and I hope I can stay on the path and evolve the process to lead the kind of life I want to lead.

I will be recommending this and purchasing it as a gift for people dear to me who I think would appreciate the story and benefit from the lessons contained in it.