Book: The Moon In the Water, Reflections on an Aging Parent
By Kathy J. Phillips
Reviewed by Brian Schell
Vanderbilt University Press, 140 Pages, ISBN 978-0-8265-1586-5
Buy from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/082651586X/?tag=askdrarca-20

Yesterday, we talked about Kwan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. I mentioned that there was a vast assortment of artwork based on her; one style of painting involves Kwan Yin sitting on some shore watching the moon in the water. Why is she looking at the water? What is she thinking about? That’s for you to decide. Sometimes she is sitting on the bank of a river, sometimes she’s on a jutting outcrop of rock over a stormy sea, sometimes the moon is all but hidden behind clouds or trees. But the same theme runs throughout many different paintings, drawings, and wood block prints.

This book is a collection of vignettes about the author and her aging father who sells his house to come live with her in Hawaii. As the book progresses, the father gets worse and worse until the inevitable end. Some of the stories are funny, some are sad, some are very poignant. There’s a real struggle going on, but the author seems to have limitless patience in dealing with her father, something she credits to Quan Yin (the spelling used in this book). Each of the vignettes is somehow tied in with an image of Quan Yin and a Moon in the Water image. Some of the stories have a reproduction of the original picture, but many do not.

The Good:

The author takes a difficult, heart-rending situation and manages to imbue it with spirituality and compassion throughout. She sees Quan Yin in herself, she sees Quan Yin in the nurse, in the pharmacist, in the neighbors, strangers on the street, and anyone else who compassionately helps her father in his unwinnable struggle. She finds solace in Quan Yin, and maybe the reader will find solace in knowing others have been in the same situation. If you aren’t dealing with an aging parent yet, this book may help you know what kind of things to expect. If you are dealing with this situation right now, it might be comforting to know you are not alone. If you’ve been through it, you’ll see a lot here that rings familiar.

The Bad:

The pictures are reproductions of Quan Yin’s Moon in the Water imagery, but they are all in black and white, and the reproduction is not well done. Some of the pictures are little more than hand-drawn images by the author, and others are too-light scans of wood block prints. The book would have been better (although more expensive) with full-color reproductions, or perhaps with no pictures at all. In addition, some of the vignettes really don’t have any connection to the specific Quan Yin image shown or descrribed in that story’s opening. Some of the vignettes feel like the Quan Yin stuff was just tacked on for consistency.

Dealing with a parent who is degenerating is taxing, both physically and emotionally. Compassion and patience can be hard commodities to find at times. Quan Yin is the very embodiment of compassion, and she fits in well with the struggle depicted here. If you are dealing with an aging, failing, parent and are looking for something to help you through the emotional roller-coaster, this might be the book for you. I wouldn’t really recommend this one ‚Äújust for fun,‚Äù but if you are in a situation similar to the author’s or know that you will be someday, it’s worth picking up.

Book: Where is Your Buddha Nature? Stories To Instruct & Inspire
By Venerable Master Hsing Yin
Reviewed by Brian Schell
Publisher: Buddha’s Light Publishing, 156 Pages, ISBN 978-1-932293-30-2
Buy from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1932293302/?tag=askdrarca-20

This short paperback is a collection of dozens of very short stories which, as the title suggests, instruct and inspire. Master Hsing Yin was the Abbot at Fo Guang Shan, the largest Buddhist monastery in Taiwan, but was also involved with many other organizations. Over his long career, he has met many people and picked up many interesting experiences and stories along the way, some of which he recounts here. This is not a biography, but you can definitely get a sense of what this Master believes just by the way he tells the stories. He teaches humanistic Buddhism: that we should practice Buddhism in our daily lives, living our lives the Buddhist way.

The stories are broken up into eight chapters;

• Stories About Buddha
• Stories About Chan Masters
• Stories About People
• Stories About Devotees
• Stories About Myself
• Stories About Disciples
• Stories About Animals
• Stories About Monastics
• There is also a brief glossary of useful terms at the end.

His writing style is clear and simple, and many of the stories are simple heartwarming tales of compassion and loyalty.

Here’s one of the stories from the book. It’s not one of the more touching ones, but it resounded with me since I could have written the same story myself. Yes, the exact same thing happened to me last September!

Kindness (pg. 97-98)

Several years ago, a group of us traveled to Japan. We got off a train in Tokyo and went outside to look for the bus we needed to take. We climbed on what we thought was the right bus, but after speaking with the driver, we learned that it was not.

The driver said, This bus won’t take you where you need to go. You need to go around the corner over there and down the street to find the bus you want.

This was our first trip to Japan, no none of us knew where the driver was telling us to go. We felt quite lost, but there was nothing else to do but get off the bus and try to fend for ourselves. We thanked the driver and went outside. Our confusion must have shown in our faces, because in a moment, the driver turned to the people already sitting in the bus and said, I’m very sorry, but I have to show these people where to catch their bus. Please wait a moment for me. I’ll be right back.

Then he turned off the engine of the bus, pulled out the keys, and jumped down to the street. He guided us along a confusing route for about five minutes until we arrived at the correct stop.

A few years later, I went to Japan again to teach the Dharma. After one of my talks, a young man came up to me to say hello. He was quite excited as he said, You couldn’t possibly remember me, but I remember you. Can you recall a time a few years ago when you were in Tokyo and a bus driver shut off his engine to walk you to your stop? I was one of the passengers on that bus.

Oh! I said. I’m sorry we made all of you wait for so long!

Oh, no! the young man said. Don’t say that! This is a deeply Buddhist country and we all understand the importance of helping others.

Can you guess what happened when the driver came back to the bus? he continued. As soon as he came back in the door, everyone on the bus started clapping their hands in approval.

For the most part, the stories are about this length, and there is nothing complex here at all. These are simple, real-world, stories that Master Hsing Yin has lived or experienced himself. If you want to be inspired, or just want to read about the compassion and kindness of others, pick this one up.

Book: Buddhist Scriptures, by Edward Conze, Ed.
ISBN: 014044758X
Amazon: http://www.dailybuddhism.com/BuddhistScriptures

It’s important to read modern Buddhist thought, such as books by Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama. However, in order to fully appreciate what those men are saying, its crucial to have at a good foundation in “classical” Buddhism. This book will help with that foundation.

This book, at about 250 pages, includes most of the basic scriptures of Buddhism, in excerpts and small bits. There’s no need to read a 900-page archaic text to learn the story of King Milinda, for example, when the important bits are right here, condensed into a section in the “Wisdom” chapter.

Here is the chapter list, and each chapter is broken down into several sub-topics:

• The Buddha’s Previous Lives
• The Legend of the Buddha Shakyamuni
• Morality
• Meditation
• Wisdom
• Doctrinal Formulas
• Doctrinal Disputes
• Other Worlds
• The Buddha of the Future

Level: This one has a lot of long Indian/Pali names in it, so you have to read closely sometimes to remember who’s who, but that’s not strictly necessary in most cases. You’ll figure out who’s important to remember by context. The book covers all the basics that we have discussed here in the Daily Buddhism, but includes a vast number of ancient legends and stories to support the ideas. Some sections are easier to read than others, but there’s nothing here that most of us can’t get through. It’s worth it.

The book also explains various ideas from more than one “denominational” viewpoint. Some texts are important to Mahayanas, others to Hinayana (Thereveda) practitioners, and the editor explains why the texts are important, as well as some of the history behind them.

It’s an inexpensive book, at about $10, and commonly available. It includes a wide variety of material, and I suspect I’ll be referring to stories from this book in the future. I like the way it presents big ideas in small packages; What could be more appropriate for The Daily Buddhism?

Book Review:The Universe in a Single Atom
by the Dalai Lama

Several blog posters and readers had mentioned this book a while back, and that served as a reminder to me that I’d never actually read this one. I know I’ve read excerpts, but never gone through the whole thing. So it was time to get with it and read the book.

For this one, I chose to go with the audiobook version, read by Richard Gere. I’ve seen interviews with the Dalai Lama talking with scientists in the past, and he always seemed pretty well informed. This book showed me that he’s really on top of modern scientific thought.

The introduction and first chapter were basically biographical, as the Dalai Lama explains his early scientific education (or lack thereof) and his growing realization that science was a necessity for future survival. He explains that when modern science contradicts something that traditional Buddhism has stated, he is not afraid to adjust his old ways of thinking to accept the scientific viewpoint.

There is a lot of discussion, especially in the early chapters, about quantum physics. There’s a lot of technical explanation here, and this section is a little hard to follow at times, but suffice it to say, the Dalai Lama ties quantum physics in with Buddhist teachings; we are all one, and there is no single self. It’s complicated stuff, but it all makes sense metaphysically.

In the chapter on the Big Bang and Evolution, he quickly comes to the conclusion that Buddhist (and other religions) need to revise their thinking when it comes to creation myths.

I do have to admit that the book does drag in some places and gets a little technical in others. If your complete knowledge of Buddhism is from The Daily Buddhism, then I suspect this book may be confusing in places; he discussed dozens of ancient Buddhist teachers with crazy-long names and concepts that we haven’t covered here yet. On the other hand if you want to stretch a little or have more advanced knowledge, this book doesn’t contain anything too painful.

I think the book is useful primarily to show how well Buddhism meshes with modern scientific thought, and perhaps more importantly, shows how Buddhism is willing to bend when things don’t mesh so well.

Buy From Amazon:Regular BookAudio Book: