Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I'm in a different position from some of the other reviewers because I was there. Speaking from that perspective, the book is dead on accurate. It is not (only) the salacious story which compells, it is the unanswered questions, questions which, I believe, most people who went through the whole thing have to continue to ask themselves. There is a deep human need to give up our hearts completely to something/someone, and in this case, this need was manipulated and abused. This is a simultaneously old and fresh story. How was it that a man convinced highly intelligent well-educated Americans to treat him like a god come to earth? Presidents and movie stars don't get the heroically self-abasing treatment Dick Baker got from his students. Baker is a remarkable person, a genuine Zen master without a moral mirror of any kind. He still can't figure out what he did wrong.
It was enormously educational to be at Zen Center just before the Debacle. In all my varied life, I have never been in a more confusing place. Nothing seemed to add up, and I put it down to my lack of spiritual attainment. It's true I didn't have much of the latter, but that wasn't the confusion. It was that the whole place was a nest of lies and delusions. That came out later.
The amazing and hopeful part of the story is not really stressed in the book. And that is, Zen Center is alive and well. They took a situation which has destroyed many spiritual practice centers, and they survived and learned. That is a tribute to the deep moral and spiritual treasure of the committed students which are still there. If it wasn't for them, no one would bother to tell that old story.
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