Book Reflection: Zen Master Raven

It has been a while since I've written a "book reflection", so it might be worth my while explaining what they are again, before I get stuck into this one. It's a bit of a gonzo book review - I'm ostensibly reviewing a particular book, but I'm really just talking about myself and using the book as a medium. Sometimes my "book reflections" are more focused on the book than they are on me, sometimes they're more focused on me than they are on the book. Sometimes (well, probably more often than not), they just reveal me to be a bit of an opinionated jerk. Such is life. Now, onto this reflection:

I've just started reading this book for the fourth or fifth time. I've kind of lost track. And it's not like I've had the book for years and I come back to it after I've had a chance to forget most of it, I'm actually reading it consecutively. I get to the end of the book, think "that was nice", and then flick thorough it the way one does when one has finished a book one enjoyed... and then I just end up going back to the beginning and starting it again. 

Zen Master Raven: The Teachings of a Wise Old Bird, by Robert Aitken, was an early purchase for trying out a new Kindle. I had just bought an eBook reader for the first time, and I was picking up a bunch of books from different genres to play with my new toy. One recommendation lead to another, and Zen Master Raven ended up being one of my first purchases.

It was the first book I have read by Robert Aitken. I’ve since picked up a few more of his books – also on the Kindle. It’s become something I do at doctor’s surgeries and other places where I know I’m going to be waiting around for an interminable period of time: I read Aitken. I find his writing undemanding and yet stimulating. It doesn’t seem to matter that I’m hovering in some limbo where I could be interrupted at any moment (but will probably be kept waiting for another half an hour). I think his writing style is just pitched at the right level of easy-going conversation about deep and meaningful things.

It has also put me in a bit of a weird spot when I find one of his books in print in a bookshop (which has happened a couple of times but is, I’ll admit a rare occurrence). Part of me wants to buy the book because I enjoy his writing and don’t have any hard copies of his books. The rest of me doesn’t want to buy a book when I already own a copy. It’s a strange side-effect of owning a Kindle: you both own and don’t own the books at the same time.

If I ever did stumble across a print version of Zen Master Raven again, I probably would buy it (even though I won’t go out of my way to get one, because I already own the book), simply because it has become one of my favourite books and I’d love to be able to lend it to people who might enjoy it.

It’s an odd bingdingle of a book – a collection of fables written for grown-ups by a retired Zen Buddhist priest. It’s surprisingly hard to say what the book is, as I have no idea what genre it might belong to. I can only really tell you what it’s (sort of) about.

Raven (a bird), after talking to a number of Zen masters, finds a teacher in the form of Brown Bear (a bear – these aren’t people with critter names, they’re critters). After studying with Brown Bear for a while, he becomes a Zen teacher himself, and establishes a Zen community in Tall Spruce forest, where creatures as diverse as moles, badgers, woodpeckers, wolverines and porcupines come to sit together for zazen around the Assembly Oak and ask Raven questions about Zen (as well as life, the universe and everything).

These short fables aren’t really fables, as there isn’t much of a plot to them, they’re more conversations. They fit in perfectly well with a lot of traditional Buddhist literature (especially within the Zen schools) which basically consist of Monk X asking Master Y a question and getting what appears to be a ridiculous answer in return. In these stories (often featuring in books of koans), the answer is meant to challenge the assumptions behind the question – and the assumptions you brought to the table when you read the koan in the first place. Once your frame of reference has shifted, the answer isn’t ridiculous at all.

That’s what these fables in Raven are – short conversations in which the meaning shifts around depending on where your understanding happens to be at the time. In addition to other works by Aitken (including commentaries on koans), I’ve been reading books by other Zen teachers, and I swear that every time I re-read Raven, I’m picking up something new. I’ll notice that a character isn’t being treated the way I originally thought, but rather he’s been pushed to realise he’s got the wrong end of the stick. I’ll notice that an answer given to a question I originally read one way is actually quite profound for completely different reasons.

And because I’m underlining things that make me smile, or make me think, or just really appeal to me at the time, I’m coming across things I underlined on my first reading that now mean something different to me – or which were so of that moment in time that I can’t remember why I underlined them in the first place.

The stories and characters are the kind of thing we would normally regard as being “for children” – but they aren’t really. It’s not that they are unsuitable for children – the language isn’t beyond kids and it’s not not for children – it’s just that the stories make very little sense if you aren’t studying or practicing (or at least reading up on) Zen. You could read them to children, but I don’t know why you would. I expect most children would find them boring, confusing and utterly pointless. And those who did enjoy them would probably look back on them as an adult and realise they had missed the point entirely.

I expect I’ll look back on them in my old age and realise I’ve missed the point entirely.

I guess what they really are is koans for Westerners – for those of us who grew up with stories of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Br'er Rabbit. The trouble with the “serious” koans in the “serious” koan collections is they come from another time and place and culture. Half the time you miss the subtleties of what’s going on, because someone needs to explain the undercurrent. These tales belong to a more familiar cultural milieu, so it can challenge your view of things without needing to explain what’s going on first.

The reason why I’ve read the book so often is because it’s perfect bed-time reading. I like to read something short and “devotional” before I go to bed. It’s a longstanding habit from my days as a devout Christian, when I used to read actual devotionals. I really love the genre and format of devotionals. They are complete works – you read one short page of text and you’ve read the whole thing, so you can just put down the book after that page and not get suckered into reading another one “just to see what happens next…” They often have a little bit of a story, and maybe also a few lines of verse, and they leave you with a thought. Sometimes it’s a warm fuzzy thought (“God is looking out for you”), sometimes it’s a challenging thought (“are you making the most of your time on this earth?”). At no point is it such a demanding thought that you’ll be lying awake at night trying to nut it out.

I’m not a great sleeper, but I do notice that I sleep better after reading a devotional than I do after I’ve read almost anything else. Zen Master Raven’s tales give me the same “hit” as a devotional. They’re short and complete, and it doesn’t matter if I’ve been up late fussing about things I should have dealt with hours ago, I can still fit in one or two tales to help settle my brain before turning in.

Oh, and it also fits in quite nicely with my fledgling collection of books with bears in them. In addition to Brown Bear, Raven’s teacher, there is also Black Bear – a student of Raven who is slowly working out what it’s all about.

One of my favourite lines in the book belongs to Brown Bear, and I’ll leave you with it:

Owl said, “What are Right Views?”
Brown Bear said, “We’re in it together, and we don’t have much time.”