Zen Bridge: The Zen Teachings of Keido Fukushima

Zen Bridge is a wonderful, even exciting, book about Rinzai Zen, its training methods and its use of koans to bring out "mushin" ("no mind"). It does so by focusing on one Zen teacher, Keido Fukushima. Keido's ability to use colloquial English in his lectures makes the book flow easily and to a degree entertainingly. (If Zen could ever be described as "entertaining," which is not generally considered its dominant feature.)Grace and Peter Schireson have done a wonderful job on this book. It is arranged so that lectures covering similar material are grouped together. The book is divided into four main topics: What is Zen? My Training. Zen Master Joshu and Classical Teaching Stories. I found all fascinating, especially the portion that deals with Fukushima's training.Apparently Rinzai training in Japan is an ordeal to survive, with a lifetime's effort in Zen packed into a 3 year period.Here is an excerpt from that section:"The realization of no-self requires severe training and zen monastic training is quite difficult. It's not just strict, it's excessive: monks get up at three every morning, every day of the year and often practice until eleven at night. There is no rest and there are no holidays during the year. On average we do six hours a day of zazen, but for a monk serious about training, six hours a day of zazen is insufficient. It's essential to deepen the monks' experiential understanding of Zen itself. This is the focus of the direct koan question-and-answer sessions each morning and evening. But these sessions alone aren't enough. During the year there are seven sesshins of seven days each. During sesshin monks stop cleaning, begging and working in the fields. We just do hour-long periods of zazen, one after another...during the final seven-day sesshin of the year, there is no sleeping."It's enough to make an American Zen student cringe. I feel my own inadequacy when I read these words. "Not for me!" I want to cry, as Keido exhorts us that Ummon got off easily, trading a leg ruined by his teacher for satori. But it also led me to cross-examine my ruined childhood and wonder if that was why I became a Zen student. Would satori be worth 17 years of impossibly strict discipline at the hands of my father?And what if despite all that suffering, I never find the discipline enough to realize no-mind on my own?Ultimately, this is a very helpful and enlightening book. As you can see from the quotation above, Keido Roshi's English is smooth and easy to follow. His thesis is simple: we must penetrate into Mu and enter into no-mind. That is the key to Zen, and the true beginning of the Way.

This is an excellent introduction to Rinzai Zen Buddism, compiled from the words of the late Keido Fukushima Roshi. Having read several other books on Zen, I very much appreciate Fukushima Roshi’s crystal clear, down-to-earth explanations of fundamental Zen concepts and practices.

I can't give enough praise for Zen Bridge. It is both insightful and funny. I couldn't put it down! Keido Fukushima is a gem!

Not a bad attempt. But not particularly useful.

Many books have attempted to pierce the obscurity surrounding Zen practice and the experience of enlightenment. Most are unsuccessful in delivering to the reader a better understanding of these fascinating, but inaccessible, experiences in change of consciousness through Zen practice. Zen Bridge succeeds due to an unusual and fortuitous matching of its editors' skills and the teaching style of Keido Fukushima, the delightful and self-effacing Rinzai Zen master who is the subject of Zen Bridge. The editors of Zen Bridge, Grace and Peter Schireson, have edited the lectures given by Fukushima in a manner that has preserved his simple and comprehensible--but powerful--presentation of Zen practice to American audiences. Unlike many editors and authors on the subject of Zen, the editors have submerged themselves and their contribution to this presentation of Fukushima's teachings. As a result, the reader feels a direct and emotional connection to Fukushima. The book is aptly named. Zen Bridge does genuinely offer the reader a bridge to an enhanced understanding of Zen practice and an appreciation for Keido Fukushima, with whom the editors studied for many years.

Keido Fukushima, a true friend and amazing teacher, is one of the world's great treasures

Learning about and studying Zen properly is not easy for someone without the knowledge of Japanese. As Master Keidō himself said, Zen was changed in order to fit the expectations and philosophy of Westerners. Thus, most books out there, reflect that image of Zen more than they do how Zen is actually practised in Japan.Furthermore, Sōto Zen is more widespread so it is even more difficult to find secondary literature on the Rinzai Sect other than going directly to its sources (for example the writings of Master Hakuin).Zen Bridge has come to the rescue. It is a succinct, easy to read and wonderful book that tells the reader about all the basics of Rinzai Zen, from how it is to become and be a monk, a Zen master, to how to practice zazen, live your everyday life. Furthermore, Master Keidō discusses how Zen was transmitted to the West and the problems that came with such transmission. Instead of changing Zen to make it more approachable, Master Keidō taught Westerners the authentic Rinzai Zen as practised in Japan.

A collection of talks by Keido Fukushima, No Zen library is complete without it. A kind and good man , a Roshi and a master of Shodo, he allowed me to use his monastery in Kyoto in the 80s I have fond memories of him, worth reading .