WAKING UP TOGETHER: Intimate Partnership on the Spiritual Path

"How can... Zen meditation... help couples be partners in both life and... wisdom?" ask Ellen and Charles Birx, a husband-and-wife writing team and co-founders of New River Zen Community in Virginia. They set about exploring that question by drawing extensively on their own Zen practice and by sharing stories drawn from 37 years of marriage. In brief chapters, they address a variety of topics of interest to readers in committed, long-term relationships, from the ordinary (the importance of communicating spiritual values during financial planning, for example) to the esoteric ("the love you manifest in your relationship" has the power "to extend to the ends of the universe"). Indeed, the text walks a fine line between the accessible and the arcane. At times, the value of meditation is clear (on ending a relationship: "meditation practice helps you slow down and work through your pain and fear of being alone"), and the Birxes' frequent anecdotes of married life often helpfully illustrate a point. But at other times they merely assert, without real explanation, the value of advanced Buddhist insights, and their use of koans as teaching points in such brief discussions sometimes confuse, instead of illuminate, the topic. The result is an easygoing book that will appeal primarily to those already familiar with the techniques and benefits of Buddhist meditation. (May)