The author of this book is an elder teacher in the Zen Buddhist community in North America. He’s a Zen priest. He is also an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister. So his experience in religious communities is vast and varied.
This is his second book in as many years. We reviewed the last one too: The Intimate Way of Zen.
Ford takes a new approach to Zen, offering it as a path for those who feel they’re done with religion. Part One is titled “The Collapse of Religion” and begins: “We’re in a liminal moment, when the grip of our old religions has loosened. In this moment we’re able to see things a bit more clearly.” Soon, Ford makes his case for Zen as a place to turn: “Zen offers something to those who have seen the failures of the old religions, but who intuit some profound spiritual core within those religions.”
A page later, he adds: “A tide has gone out, and we’re seeing what’s around us. One thing that becomes apparent if we’re paying attention, is how religion is a cultural phenomenon. And, yes, many intuit that there is something important that mostly arises within religions, or at least in their vicinity. What we call ‘spiritual.’ Spiritual for all practical matters, is a human thing.”
Chapters then introduce you to “The Varieties of Zen,” followed by sections on classic teachings of the Zen way, about Zen spiritual practices, and then extended reflections on five koans.
In the end, Ford describes Zen not as another religion but as a sort of magical realism. He explains: “As we live into our Zen lives, as we take up the practices and open ourselves to the mysterious unity of the many parts, things happen. We encounter disruptions of time and space, disruptions of our perceptions of reality. And with those eruptions we discover openings for us into new ways of being.”
