The Intimate Way of Zen: Effort, Surrender and Awakening on the Spiritual Journey

In this pensive outing, Ford (Introduction to Koans), a Zen teacher and Unitarian Universalist minister, traces an “arc of the spiritual life” that loosely mirrors the Zen path to enlightenment. He begins by describing the feelings of unease that lead some people into a lifelong search for enlightenment that involves wading through life’s “messiness” in hopes of better understanding themselves and the cosmos (“I could see the hole in my heart,” Ford writes, describing how he felt before he began studying Buddhism in the 1960s). Drawing on his “pluralistic physiology of faith” (“My brain is Buddhist... but my heart is Christian”), Ford enriches traditional Zen teachings with philosophy, mythology, and Christian scripture, noting, for example, that Psalm 90, which meditates on the brevity of life, functions as both “an invitation into a holy place” and a reminder “of one’s own insignificance.” While the book’s mix of memoir and instruction is sometimes haphazard, patient readers will find plenty of food for thought. It’s a boon for the spiritually curious. (July)