Review: Fire Monks
July 20th, 2011 § 1 Comment
Title: Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire at the Gates of Tassjara
Author: Colleen Morton Busch
Published: Penguin Press / 2011
Genre: Nonfiction
Length: 224 pages
Source: Publisher via TLC Book Tours
Rating: 7/10
the premise of this book was immediately intriguing to me: a small group of zen monks fight a California forest fire to protect their monastery deep in the woods. i won’t lie; i have a thing for zen monks and spiritual enlightenment, particularly when it meets real world challenges, so i couldn’t pass this one up. and mostly, it didn’t disappoint.
in the summer of 2008, lightning ignited drought-stricken California, sending off a flurry of wildfires for several weeks. with resources thin and weather conditions worsening, the monks at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center (near Big Sur) prepared for the worst. as it became clear that the fires were imminent, evacuations forced the monastery to be left unattended for the first time in its long history.
when five of the core team of monks realized what that meant for the center – a certainty of ruin – they turned back to defend it at all costs. without the support of fire crews and nothing but their own zen training, Tassajara still stands today. and this was it’s story. part monastic history and part fire survival 101, this narrative telling of those turbulent few weeks was interesting, to say the least.
Zen is not a passive path. It’s a practice of complete engagement. A zendo is profoundly still and quiet during zazen. But then the bell rings. There’s work to do, relationships to navigate, dishes to wash. And there’s no dividing experience into what matters and what doesn’t. It all matters.
with this simple approach to life, and to fighting fires, everything mattered. every act was an act of great importance, one that meant life instead of death, or a building burning or left standing. by connecting the dots between zen practice and fighting fires, Busch focuses on the readily apparent metaphor that fire fighting provides when we look inward to ourselves and the challenges that we each face. while this isn’t a new concept, it was still a joy to read the ways that the incident at Tassajara played out, moment to moment.
what i adored about the book was the easy way that zen monks were presented. i don’t know what i was expecting from monks, but they were so very human, in ways that surprised me. for example, in one situation, the only woman in the group was talking about how she was babied during certain tasks.
“The fact that I’m a woman might have made Steve feel protective,” she told me later. “It’s understandable. But at the time it just pissed me off.”
i think i actually snorted when i read that line. i just hadn’t expected zen monks to be capable of being pissed off, and it made me immediately connect to her in a way that i hadn’t before. she was human, just like me. and despite her many years of zen training, she does get irritated. it was an a-ha moment for me, and i appreciated the simple honesty that the book portrayed in these moments.
my only complaint with the book was that Busch, at times, seemed to overemphasize the metaphors and overwrite the story, which made me feel like she didn’t think her readers would be intelligent enough to get it. as a result, the book was a little heavy handed, with a few moments where perhaps bad editing made for jumpy reading, but altogether was an enjoyable read. i would recommend the book to anyone interested in zen practice, or for those interested in the ways that fire and humans can live together in peace.
Fire Monks is currently on tour with TLC Book Tours and was sent to me by the publisher for review. thank you to Trish, TLC and Penguin for the opportunity to partipate!
I love that comment about the one monk getting pissed off – you are right, it does make me connect to her more than I would expect to.
Thanks for being on the tour!