Just finished reading Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck. I really enjoyed this book. Thank you for recommending this one, Jundo[emoji120]
Joko was a very pragmatic teacher and quite honest it seems. For instance she said something like that we should give up all hope. This “giving up hope” was especially powerful for me. What a huge and heavy stone to lift out of our backpacks!! A very useful reminder to really accept life just as it is. Two other examples were: “practice is hard and lasts a lifetime” and “no one is 100% enlightened”. Both a “modern” way of expressing Dogen’s “practice enlightenment”(?), I believe.
One chapter in particular stood out to me. This chapter, I think, is the lense one should read all other chapters, and books, of Joko through. In this chapter she says that awareness is what is left when you stop doing. Trying to be aware is just another thought. Stop trying/doing and awareness is there! After reading this, the other chapters and books changed from being very vipassana like (e.g. mental noting of thoughts to gain insight), to being zen (mental noting as an expedient means). Maybe just me though.
Sorry for running long.
Gassho, Michael
Satlah
Joko was a very pragmatic teacher and quite honest it seems. For instance she said something like that we should give up all hope. This “giving up hope” was especially powerful for me. What a huge and heavy stone to lift out of our backpacks!! A very useful reminder to really accept life just as it is. Two other examples were: “practice is hard and lasts a lifetime” and “no one is 100% enlightened”. Both a “modern” way of expressing Dogen’s “practice enlightenment”(?), I believe.
One chapter in particular stood out to me. This chapter, I think, is the lense one should read all other chapters, and books, of Joko through. In this chapter she says that awareness is what is left when you stop doing. Trying to be aware is just another thought. Stop trying/doing and awareness is there! After reading this, the other chapters and books changed from being very vipassana like (e.g. mental noting of thoughts to gain insight), to being zen (mental noting as an expedient means). Maybe just me though.
Sorry for running long.
Gassho, Michael
Satlah
for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆
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