Seeing One Thing Through: The Zen Life and Teachings of Sojun Mel Weitsman

Berkeley Zen Center abbot Senauke (Turning Words) gathers an illuminating mix of personal writing and lectures from the influential American zen teacher Sojun Mel Weitsman (1929–2021). Autobiographical sections traverse Weitsman’s Jewish roots; Great Depression upbringing in southern California; blue-collar stints as a taxi driver and a house painter; transformative relationship with Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki starting in 1964; and involvement in the political and ideological conflicts that dominated the San Francisco Zen Center, where Weitsman served as a co-abbot from 1988 to 1997. Featured elsewhere are Weitsman’s teachings on the Buddhist practice of zazen, a sitting meditation in which practitioners can “just... be” and break free “from the domination of the variables of circumstance” (according to Weitsman, “it’s like riding the waves of the great ocean without being inundated by them”). While readers with some background in Buddhism will gain the most, Weitsman has a knack for bringing abstract concepts down to earth, as when he characterizes zen as not a source of pure tranquility, but a force that “sits us down right in the middle of reality between pleasure and pain, between good and bad, so that we accept everything equally.” This treasure trove of wisdom is a welcome addition to the American zen canon. (Dec.)