Title: Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire at the Gates of the Tassajara
Author: Colleen Morton Busch
Acquired: TLC Book Tours
Published: July 2011
Publisher: The Penguin Press
If a fire threatened to take over your whole life, how would you react? Would you stand up to it, or would you let it burn everything you know? Most of us would be afraid of to stand up to something as unwieldy as a fire. The Tassajara monks of California felt it was important for them to fight the wildfire coming towards their monastery even if professional opinions told them otherwise. Busch reconstructs the events of the wildfire and explores the Buddhist teachings that helped the monks stay calm and focused during the fire.
I feel like this book completed its purpose. I can see clearly how the Buddhist teachings helped the monks in the fire. The idea of remaining focused on one task at a time in particular seemed to help them, and I think that is a practice that makes the monks different from other people. While I feel this book completed its purpose, I’m just not sure there is enough here for a whole book. It’s a short book, only 240 pages, but the first two hundred pages are mostly building up to the fire. Should they stay or should they go? They must evacuate, but will they go back? It was a little frustrating to read and I felt like sections were longer to build suspense–but they couldn’t really build suspense since the book was about the monks facing the fire.
I also felt it was never clear why the monks wanted to go back to Tassajara themselves. Some reasons given were the opportunity to practice their teaching in an all-consuming moment, the desire to fight a fire at Tassajara like others before them (it was the third fire at this monastery), and the desire to protect their home. I could buy any of these reasons, but I never felt the interviews went deep enough into their reasons for going back. It was just a hard thing for me to understand–if a fireman told me my house wasn’t safe I would leave. I might not be happy about it, but I would leave.
Read this if you are consumed by nature for awhile (perhaps a camping trip), you need a little zen thought in your life, or you really enjoy stories about humans prevailing in the face of danger. Please check out the other reviews of this book from TLC Book Tours!
I don’t see myself really loving this book but I can think of some other people who would love it. It is interesting to think about some of the Buddhist teachings that helped them fight a fire. I’m with you–I would just leave when evacuation was called for. But then, my values are incredibly different than those of Buddhist monks.
I’m intrigued by this one even though it may have some flaws. I think I’d enjoy reading it on a camping trip weekend.
Thanks for being on the tour Ash!