If you have any questions
Zen & the Art of Reading - A Path to Enlightenment?
by
Derek Ayre
Reading books, when coupled with zazen (Zen meditation), creates a "pathway" that begins to penetrate subconscious barriers that lead ultimately to spiritual enlightenment. The value (particularly) of Zen books is that they are challenging as well as informative. Even something read, that you do not agree with, can act as a catalyst to trigger an emotional response that can cut through belief-systems, thus exposing underlying (spiritual) truth.
I remember my first encounter with Zen in a workshop in London in the early seventies. I was fascinated and intrigued with this "nonsensical" and "unreasonable" approach to spritual enlightment and had many profound insights in the nature of my true self. So much so, that I decided there and then to do all I could about it and scoured the bookstores for books on the subject. Whilst I was reading one particular book, I suddenly became aware that I was doing much more than just taking in the words. The book was eliciting an experience triggered by the words, but not of the words. The writer was literally opening my mind to a different level of consciousness and he wasn't even present! My experience of reading a book on Zen was akin to that first workshop.
There are many paths to enlightenment and I would like to add that there are also many words in many books, written by many Zen masters and practitioners, that can trigger the experience also. And that experience is priceless.