Keep Me In Your Heart Awhile Review from Luc Nyushin De Winter

The review is from Luc De Winter, a Soto Zen priest and student of Roland Yuno Rech, disciple of Taisen Deshimaru. Roland is now roshi of the Temple of La Gendronnière (170 km south of Paris – biggest Zen place in Europe, I’m told). Luc is doing some really interesting work composing vocal compositions for Dogen translations. Luc, pictured on the left above – nice posture, eh? – shares responsibility for Dojo Ho Sen, Antwerp, Belgium (http://www.zenantwerpen.be/?page_id=3).

Many, many books are written on zen these days, many bad, many good, but few, very few, that I really would recommend. Here we have such a book, one you can safely recommend to beginners, long-time practitioners, priests and teachers… Here we have a very honest, authentic book on zen practice, presenting profound teachings in a simple language.

The subjects that are touched and elaborated vary from basic practice to considerations on the future of zen in the west (equally interesting, of course, for us Europeans…) The stories Dosho tells us are deeply moving, often funny, and very recognizable.

For me, Keep Me in Your Heart Awhile is a presentation of the present teaching of Dosho Port, and at the same time, a tribute to Katagiri Roshi, also a bit of history of the development of Soto Zen in the US: these 3 are not separate.

If you want to read more of Katagiri Roshi – and who wouldn’t! after having read this book -, there is enough: Returning to Silence (1988), You Have to Say Something (1998) and Each Moment is the Universe (2007)….