Reviews, Excerpts & Comments

Excerpts:

Comments from Readers:

Liz Wolf
I am loving your new book.

Daya Goldschlag
I really laugh at some of the stories. For instance, the pigeon one, and that they got back to Tassajara before you did.  I like reading about Kobun and learning more about who he was.  He and I took hikes together, swimming nude in the creek and looking at bugs.  Also the story of the "kundalini" crazy guy who ran up the road after 5 seconds with Suzuki Roshi.  I'm sure I’ve told you this story but it reminded me of the time Betsy and I were walking a little ways behind Roshi in Golden Gate Park and an obviously drunk or drugged or crazy guy walked up to Roshi.  Betsy and I thought we'd better run up there and protect him.  But only seconds after the man reached Roshi, he turned and walked away.  We didn't know what if anything was said and were both impressed and a bit awed.  Anyways, thanks for all the stories, Daya

Rick Levine – on Amazon
I arrived at Tassajara in 1968, just after the action depicted in this book, and spent three of the next five years there. With that modest authority, such as it is:

Holy Bejeezus! David Chadwick has done it again! And yes, I'm speaking in exclamations!

I knew "Tassajara Stories" would be a good & charming book, but while I hadn't thought it through, I guess I'd imagined something more like a collection of wild & wacky anecdotes, drawn from a range of eccentric counterculture tricksters, the early inhabitants of American Zen frontiers of yesteryear--all curated by Chadwick, among the wiliest coyotes.

Well, there's a sampling of that sort of thing here, but much more, this is a well-wrought sober rendering of what Tassajara really felt like at dawn, from before the Zen Center purchase, and through the first few monastic years.

To be sure, the Stories are well-told, amusing, cute, or hilarious, but they serve a steady purpose: Chadwick succeeds in conveying the fundamental spirit of the whole thing--i.e., the seriously authentic, utterly sincere, lovingly compassionate, and uncompromisingly rigorous practice of Zen Buddhism as transmitted by Shunryu Suzuki-roshi. And though he doesn't spell it out, for those who might be tempted to think that reality was more real back then, or who may yearn nostalgically for a historically primordial golden age, they should know that the 1967 practice world he depicts is identical to the one we inhabit right now. The NOWness of practice sensibility back then, is identical to the NOWness of now, without restriction.

If you're even a little bit like me this book is likely to cheer you up and refresh your appreciation for Practice. Well-done, David-san!

Tano Maida – posted on Facebook
Buddhism in America has a number of origin stories, and while they have of necessity many similarities, each has its own timeframe, locations, and personalities. One of the earliest and still vibrant centers is the San Francisco Zen Center, and the arrival in the US of its founder Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1959 ultimately heralded the beginning of the first Zen monastery in the West, Tassajara. His first book, Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind, remains a classic introduction to Zen in English.

After his death in 1971, it fell to his students to maintain his tradition (and facilities) and their own practice, and despite challenges, they have managed better than most institutions after the loss of a founder, especially after such a relatively short period of development with him. One of the early students, David Chadwick, eventually took on the task of writing a definitive biography of Suzuki, Crooked Cucumber, and has now compiled a comprehensive and entertaining blended oral history and memoir, Tassajara Stories, covering the formative years of the monastery up to 1967. There will be more volumes.

His approach benefits from his longterm online efforts to collect everything Suzuki/SF Zen Center, including stories, photos, videos, lecture transcripts, and an ongoing series of podcast interviews with many people with direct or even peripheral connection. He’s an engaging conversationalist, with the special skill of not playing the expert, but leaving space to elicit comments from his guests that might not emerge otherwise. He's mined this diverse collection for specificity, and has woven together a clear narrative with many points of view, including his own. He has a particularly sharp ear (and memory) for dialogue, and an eye for the telling detail. He holds very little sacred, and doesn’t shield himself from depictions of his own errors or ignorance; “self-deprecating" doesn’t quite do it justice. He was, in fellow student Peter Coyote’s words, “widely known as one of Suzuki Roshi’s favorites,” and it shows. 

What emerges is a story of work, hard work of the physical kind, in a rustic and remote Ventana Wilderness site, with skills learned on the job, leavened a bit by the availability of natural hot springs and a cool creek running through the land. The somewhat amusing origins of the renown Tassajara Cookbook and The Tassajara Bread Book are revealed. There is also a sense of a broader effort beyond the facilities, mostly involving serious fundraising by the indefatigable Richard Baker, later to be Suzuki Roshi’s successor. And there is the daily practice of zazen, the meditation technique taught by Suzuki Roshi, a discipline that undergirds the entire enterprise and the spirits of the students. Numerous others appear throughout, each connected in some way to this unique community effort. These include Suzuki Roshi himself and his wife, his close associate Dainin Katagiri, renowned scholars Edward Conze and Huston Smith, zen teachers Kobun Chino and Taizan Maezumi Roshi, and in one of the author’s offsite encounters, the late Joshu Sasaki Roshi. Despite the remoteness of the monastery, there is no sense of isolation in these stories: Tassajara and Suzuki Roshi were part of a thriving network of people and organizations across the country and in Japan, all motivated (for a variety of reasons) to see Buddhism thrive in the West.

Tassajara Stories offers a down to earth journey with young people we can relate to, and cheer them on as they engage with this decidedly different approach to modern life offered by a deceptively simple Japanese zen master. To be continued.

Renshin Bunce - Facebook
I started reading your new book today and couldn’t put it down. It is just fabulous. Thank you for this beautiful offering. Friends who are also practicing in the Suzuki Roshi stream: you should get your own copy.

Neil Rubenking
I’m ready for the next book.

 

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