Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity

It's not every day that you come across a book by one of Japan's top Zen masters. Soko Morinaga was head of the most famous monastery in Japan and of the Rinzai Zen university, but in his book Novice to Master we see that he started out as green as a novice can be. In brief episodes that span most of his 70-year lifetime, Roshi Morinaga tells us the stories of his life, those from which he learned a lesson and from which we can learn: how he implicated himself in his beloved grandfather's death, the thrill of his enlightenment experience, the grueling existence of life in a Zen monastery. Just the opposite of most books of this type, Novice to Master is heavy on anecdotes and light on explanation and advice. Near the end, however, the advice comes on thicker, such as how to not only live in the present but how to die in every moment. Well translated for the most part, Novice to Master represents the accumulated wisdom of a modern-day master of Zen. --Brian Bruya