Reviews and Comments

Weirdly, I thought this book would be gayer. It took a really really long time to get to the exciting part: the gender change. I'm trying to read all of Woolf's works, and I am glad I read this one. Still... I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be.

I really enjoyed this. It was a thoughtful meditation on excellence and mastery in one's profession.

I wasn't sold on the author's breezy, personal writing style at first but her journey really pulled me in! I've read this and her translation of Momoko Kuroda's work, and she's won me over.

I enjoyed being exposed to stories I didn't know. I found the language too lush and poetic at times, if that can be said of a poem! Still, I enjoyed the adventure.

I wasn't very familiar with Ram Dass before reading this. For my brother's sake, I'm glad I read it, but some of Dass's comments seem just plain wrong (becoming so spiritually advanced that you don't have to eat anymore and can just subsist on light?!). I most enjoyed reading about Dass's journey into spirituality. The alternative living tips at the end didn't interest me so much. Oh, and the art was wonderful!

Wow! Now I want to be a tea monk, biking thru villages, bringing tea and succor to upset villagers. This book was a very charming, comforting read (as Becky Chambers's stories so often are!). This might be one of my favourite new reads of the year.
I look forward to Book 2!

This was a nice quiet read. I actually wish it were more in-depth about Buddhist practices specifically so maybe I should've chosen a different Hanh book to start with.