Most Intimate: A Zen Approach to Life's Challenges

Enkyo Roshi has presented the core principles of wide-awake living (and dying)with candor and clarity. This book is a great gift, offering precise guidance to all who wish to navigate the spiritual and psychological depths of their lives. Particularly helpful are her teachings on illness, dying, and service to others. This book is inspiring, as well as inspired; it is to be inhaled with each breath, returning us to where we are this very moment. I am grateful for it.

Reading this unpretentious and straightforward guide to being in relationship with oneself, others, and the "10,000 things" it is as if I hear Roshi's voice speaking these words in conversation with me. How intimate is that? As a teacher, Roshi Enkyo is as down to earth and upright as they get--and you can just tell she has walked this talk for a long time. A keeper.

Excellent , accessible Zen instruction for our everyday human lives. Great for beginners, long-time students, and non-practitioners.O'Hara speaks from the depths of her experience with warmth and compassion. She teaches directly with humor and understanding, as we attempt to polish the diamond that is this life. Each chapter includes suggested exercises for individual and group practice.

I keep this book in my car, for times when I get stuck waiting. It is a fine companion for stressful moments and indeed any moments.

excellent

Enkyo O'Hara, roshi delivers in the style of her colleagues Joko Beck and Joan Hallifax. This is an amazing invitation to deeper self reflection and daily practice!

Beautiful and as simply written as the practice itself. This book is ann instant modern classic in zen literature for the lay practitioner.

I have read and re-read and recommended this book. Direct, clear, easy to read in small bites. Highly recommend!

I have just bought another copy of this book after having given away two previous copies to friends who I thought might benefit from it. Aside from Charlotte Joko Beck's 'Everyday Zen' I think this might be one of the first books I would recommend to anyone interested in Zen practice. Roshi Pat clearly and simply lays out the Zen way chapter by chapter on a number of topics, each conveying the same core message - to practice Zen is to be intimate with life, whether in a relationship, at work, when grieving, sick or even dying.As with Joko Beck, Roshi Pat sets aside any Zen baggage to focus on what is really important, with gentleness, pointers and stories from her life and the life of those whom she has touched or who have touched her. Drawing on decades of practice experience, there is no pretence here just solid down to earth advice. Doesn't make it any easier to do but you feel that Roshi is by your side as you take each breath along the way.At present I am dealing with worsening illness so the chapters on suffering and healing speak to me most deeply but there is much to enjoy and contemplate in the remainder of the book.Open your heartOpen your eyesCaring, Acting, ServingThus we live our livesCrossing, crossing over fromSuffering to compassion.(opening to Chapter Four)Thank you, Roshi Pat for writing this._/|\_

i bought the kindle version of this book. i came to this book from searching for more insights on Dogen's teaching that “Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.” This is the first book that i can find solely dedicated to exploring that idea for modern practitioners. It's succinct but rich with new perspectives, quotes and practices to help you develop this special kind of intimacy in the key areas of life. Although Roshi Pat looks at the role intimacy can play in sex, death and relationships, it's central core idea (and focus of chapter 1) is that we cannot know true intimacy until we experience it in the moment to moment experience of our lives and everyday activity. How is that achieved at a practical level? There is a quote in Chapter 1 from Dizang, (from which the book takes it's title), that very simply, and unostentatiously, quietly, unlocks the secret of living in this way without having to wade through the usual lack of clarity and conflicting ideas that afflicts many books, teachings and teachers when discussing "enlightenment". The ideas presented may be simple, but they will provide a lifetime of rewarding practice and living if applied wholeheartedly. This book is useful for beginner and advanced practitioner. While the exercises appended to each chapter may seem overly simplistic, or perhaps merely added to give the book a practical orientation, couples and groups will find these exercises useful. I wish in some respects the book had been longer or that the central idea could be explored at more length, however, I came away from the book feeling that it had paid back it's reading tenfold.

stimmig, anregend, kleine Happen zum Wachsen. Ich habe es immer wieder hergenommen und kapitelweise durchgearbeitet. Erleuchtung ist es, mit allen Dingen intim zu werden.