Original Dwelling Place: Zen Buddhist Essays

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Robert Aitken is a serious Zen master who earned his stripes the hard way: in a Japanese prison camp in World War II. My teacher Mel Weitsman (Sojun Roshi) gave me this book when I received jukai (lay ordination), as an exploration of the Zen precepts I had agreed to undertake. Aitken is a legend in the American Zen community, and deservedly so. He is a gentle, loving man, equally at home in his head and his heart, and willing to share both of them with us in this book. Many books about Zen have a feeling that there is something a little "off" about them; not so with this one. Zen is so challenging, so confusing, so difficult, so self-contradictory. Robert Aitken somehow makes it comfortable. His book is almost a consolation for the inevitable, initial disappointment when one learns the fundamental tenet of Buddhism: the doctrine of "no self".Aitken was a founder of the Diamond Sangha, together with his wife.Wikipedia has this to say about Aitken Roshi: "Robert Aitken was a social activist through much of his adult life, beginning with against nuclear testing during the 1940s. He was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, and became a strong opponent of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. He was among the earlier proponents of deep ecology in religious America, and was outspoken in his beliefs on the equality of men and women. In 1978 Aitken helped found the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, an organization that advocates conflict resolution globally."A wonderful book by a wonderful teacher.