This Side of Nirvana: Memoirs of a Spiritually Challenged Buddhist

by Sara Jenkins, Cheri Huber (Foreword by)

Overview

A personal account of one woman's spiritual journey, this memoir examines what happens when a talented female teacher takes the masculine assumptions of Zen practice and turns them inside out. Setting out as a young woman to learn from Asian teachers, the author met with formidable masters and struggled diligently to learn meditation. Only after meeting Cheri Huber did she begin to understand and internalize the tenets of Zen Buddhism. Discussion of belief and practice blends with an unflinching frankness about personal difficulties, the honest search for growth, and revealing interactions between student and teacher.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780971030961
Publisher:	Keep It Simple Books
Publication date:	09/01/2008
Edition description:	Second Edition, Second edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Sara Jenkins is the author of Hello at Last: Embracing the Koan of Friendship & Meditation and Sweet Zen. She lives in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. Cheri Huber is the founder of the Zen Center in Palo Alto, California, and the Zen Monastery Peace Center in Murphys, California. She is the author of Suffering Is Optional; There Is Nothing Wrong With You; and When You're Falling, Dive. She lives in Murphys, California.

Editorial Reviews

The storyteller's art is an ancient talent that Jenkins (Buddha Facing the Wall: Interviews with American Zen Monks) puts to good use in her autobiographical account of the spiritual restlessness that eventually led her to the calm of Buddhist practice. She has crafted a helpful work for spiritual seekers who are unsure of the way and their ability to follow it. The story unfolds with Jenkins's classic depiction of an un-rooted personality who is certain that the next trip, town, job or relationship is the answer. While traveling in India, she received a glimmer of the light that would eventually characterize her daily path as one of peace and reasonably balanced contentment. This book is also very much an examination of the role of the spiritual teacher in a seeker's life, a parable of delicate balance that applies beyond this book's Buddhist borders. Jenkins is a likeable guide and an able raconteur, especially when detailing the passage of time in meditation and the feelings of being a part of an earnest spiritual community. She has mastered a difficult if traditional form of writing that exposes her weaknesses and transforms them into gifts for those of us who are also "spiritually challenged," which Jenkins still claims to be. (Oct.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly