Books for a Clear and Empty Mind : A writer learns to meditate

Seven years ago, I started meditating. For a long time, books were my only teachers.

The first book came a few weeks after my mother died; an aunt sent me an older edition of “The Choice is Always Ours,” (Harper & Row: 1948, 1960). Designed as a non-sectarian manual for all on a religious path, “The Choice” was an anthology of excerpts from the world’s great religious writing. Chapter One’s opening epigraph came from Buddha: “Do you not seek a light, ye who are surrounded by darkness?”

Every morning, I sat down with a cup of coffee and I read a few pages in “The Choice”--writings from the Greeks, the Confucians, the Upanishads, psychotherapists, etc. When I reached the chapters on prayer and meditation, I tried out a few suggested practices.

Some of these practices came from Catholic mystic training (I grew fond of the Franciscan method), some were more contemporary, such as meditations on grace, beauty and holiness by Aldous Huxley. I tried “The Use of the Holy Sentence,” which involved meditating on a single sentence, such as this from physicist Alfred Romer: “One must go into the darkness for that is where God is.” The very title of another meditation cheered me up: “Consideration of One’s Psychic Abyss as an Act of Resignation.” Through fitful, purblind effort, I soon appeciated Soren Kierkegaard’s brief prayer: “Teach me, O God, not to torture myself, not to make a martyr out of myself through stifling reflection, but rather teach me to breathe deeply in faith.”

Be careful what you pray for.

In the next few years, there was always one book or another I read slowly, first thing in the morning: Stephen Mitchell’s translation of “The Tao Te Ching.” Matthew Fox’s translations of Meister Eckhart’s sermons. “The Basic Writings of Carl Jung.” I could, I discovered, read almost anything, no matter how impenetrable, one page at a time. After reading, I’d sit in a half-lotus and do my own homespun meditation, a hybrid of “The Use of the Holy Sentence,” Jung’s Active Imagination, and the time-honored plunge into the psychic abyss.

Meanwhile, I had two good friends who practiced Buddhist meditation. One introduced me to “Peace is Every Step,” by the Vietnamese Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh. Although it ran counter to my chronically melancholic temper, I practiced Nhat Hanh’s simple breathing meditation--to positive effect: “Breathing in, I calm my body. / Breathing out, I smile. / Dwelling in the present moment, / I know this is a wonderful moment!”

Then, my other Buddhist friend suggested I read “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,” by Sogyal Rinpoche, a vast, careful exposition of Tibetan teachings, which includes detailed instruction in Dzogchen meditation. I did the best I could with these instructions, yet, as my legs grew carbonated under me, I had little sense as to what, if anything, was supposed to come of all this breathing.

Books were my first meditation instructors, yet the one instruction common to all of them I ignored: Find a teacher. Instead, I pestered my two practicing Buddhist friends for meditation tips. They both told me to find a teacher. One gave me a zafu --a meditation cushion--and the telephone number of his teacher. I lost the number. He gave it to me again. I pinned it on my bulletin board and looked at it for a month. I read “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,” sat on my zafu and tried to become “just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.” Mostly, I worried if I was practicing correctly. I called the number, left a message. Weeks passed. I tried again and this time made an appointment with Ken McLeod, who studied in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism and now teaches what he calls “pragmatic Buddhism.” After I got off the phone, I walked outside and stood in the sun and felt an enormous sense of relief: Now, perhaps, I’d stop tormenting myself. As Suzuki-Roshi says so aptly in “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”: “With your teacher you will correct your practice. Of course you will have a very hard time with him, but even so, you will always be safe from wrong practice.”

Although I have a teacher, I still read meditation books every morning. The difference between reading meditation texts before I found a teacher and after is the difference between sitting in a parked car and driving out on the open road: a definite sense of movement. Rather than using the books as how-to manuals, I now read them for inspiration and amplification. One chapter or “talk” a day before sitting down to meditate is like getting a daily teaching in the Dharma, in what is . Sometimes I reread a favorite text--and am always surprised that, as my understanding shifts, it will seem like an entirely new book.

The following is a very short, very limited list of books written for and/or about meditation that this reviewer found helpful as a beginning meditator.

Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh (Bantam Books: 1991). This slim book by the Vietnamese monk has a deceptively simple surface: short passages drawn from informal conversations, teachings and Nhat Hanh’s various writings focus on conscious breathing and mindfullness. In many passages Thich Nhat Hanh can appear relentlessly cheery, yet the second part of the book, which deals with transforming anger and other unpleasant emotions, is invaluable.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche (HarperSanFrancisco: 1992). This ambitious, generous text was written by a master in the Nyingma tradition who came to the West and felt the imperative to produce an accessible a document detailing the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. Included are instructions in Dzogchen meditation. Individualistic Westerners may pause at the emphasis on the devotional practice of guru yoga (merging one’s mind with “the wisdom mind of the master”) although Sogyal Rinpoche explains, “The outer teacher introduces you directly to the truth of your inner teacher.”

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki (Weatherhill: 1970). Now in its 30th-plus printing, this classic is a collection of transcribed, edited talks given by Shunryu Suzuki, who came to America from Japan when he was 53 and founded the San Francisco Zen Center. Using clear, concrete language to articulate that which can only, really, be experienced, Suzuki communicates the spirit of Soto Zen with a purity that is not without dry, subtle humor. The level of abstraction is high, but reading and rereading this book has surely become one of the established practices of American Zen students.

The Wisdom of No Escape by Pema Chodron (Shambala: 1991). An American Buddhist nun in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, Pema Chodron studied with the late Chogyam Trungpa, the founder of the Naropa Foundation. This book is a transcription of talks given during a monthlong retreat at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. Down-to-earth, unsentimental, high-humored, Pema Chodron reminds us that meditation practice is all about waking up, opening up to everything that happens. She tells us the difficult news that we must not only befriend ourselves, we must also face rather than flee pain, even invite pain in.

A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield (Bantam: 1993). A psychologist and teacher in the Theravada Buddhist Vipassana tradition known as “Insight meditation,” Jack Kornfield maps out the spiritual life for both the initiate and the adept in an immensely readable book. He provides basic instructions for a meditation practice and in rich, anecdotal detail, he describes the challenges, perils, and joys encountered in consistent practice. No matter which school of Buddhism you embrace, this book is a great resource.

Insight Meditation by Joseph Goldstein (Shambala, 1993). The short essays in this book are answers to most commonly asked questions regarding Insight meditation, although Zen and Dzogchen practitioners will no doubt find much to appreciate as well. Taken together, all these answers provide an intelligent, thorough, startlingly clear description of Western Vipassana practice in particular and Buddhism in general. Crisper than Pema Chodron, less leisurely than Kornfield, Goldstein’s writings are especially helpful to the confused beginning meditator.