booklogging

HREF="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0631191313/nouslife-21">
Boykin, Kim. 2003.Zen for Christians, a Beginner's Guide. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. 07877963763. Hb, 183pp, £11.50

This was a book that I enjoyed reading, perhaps partly because it suited the way that my mind works: it does three main things and it does them well. However, I could imagine that some readers might find the way that it moves from one focus to another somewhat irritating. The three things that Ms Boykin tries to achieve appear to be: (1) to give a practical introduction to the basic techniques of Zen meditation; (2) to help Christians to understand Buddhist perspectives and in particular the Zen variety; and (3) to demonstrate the incommensurability of the two and so aid a dialogue and commend Zen practice to Christians without damage to their faith. It seems to me that in a book like this all three of those things need to be done and that they are done well in a book of 183 pages of text.

It turns out that basic Zen meditation techniques are not, at one level, that hard and Boykin does a good job of introducing them, and not all at once, and conveying the purpose of them which seems to come down to learning to be in the present moment rather than in all of those other 'places' our minds take us. Interspersed with introducing the techniques is a personal history of how she became a Catholic Christian from being a Buddhist and how she now views her Zen practice in the light of her Christian faith. And nested within that are a few more detailed discussions of the relationship between Buddhist philosophy and Christian faith in which she deals with a few Christian misapprehensions and objections. Basically she takes the route of the Zen and Christianity trying to do different things and so there is no incompatibility. I think I broadly agree but I do think also that perhaps she tries a little too hard and that perhaps there is a little more friction than she sees. In fact there is something of a hint of this in that she makes the comment that in her time of Zen practice before becoming a Christian she rarely heard anything about transmigration of souls. However, it is, for that, a good resource for interfaith dialogue with Buddhists.

The book does not deal with the issues of how the human person is conceptualized and so the discussion on suffering is fairly tightly focused on the way that being in the present moment can help and on using pain. The latter discussion I found very helpful but was left wanting more on how this marked out differences between Christian faith and Zen Buddhism. For example it seems to me that there is quite a difference in eliminating suffering by aiming to eliminate, in effect, the subject and learning to relate to pain more 'objectively' [and there is some value ion learning that, to be sure] and on the other hand recognising that eliminating the subject [who is loved by God and for whom Christ died] is not really an option. There is also a difference between saying that the solution to 'desire' which leads to ills is to remove ego and saying that the solution to 'desire' is to refocus it on God. However, it is not fair on this book to criticise it for not pandering to all my issues with Buddhism.

It is a useful book both for introducing meditation techniques and insights that flow out of the Zen tradition to a Christian readership. It conveys a humanity and pragmatism that the author evidently sees as characterising Zen practice and the contextualising of the practice within the overarching basics of Buddhism is well presented, sympathetic and helpful to the Christian reader.

If you are interested in meditation, get this book. If you are interested in understanding Buddhism better as a Christian, get this book.