eatsitlsleep

Eat, Sit and Sleep
Kaoru Nonomura

Reviewed by Tina Avon

I read Eat, Sit and Sleep with high expectations. The story of a "corporate' guy leaving literally everything behind in order to discover and practice at a Zen monastery in Japan, for one year, promised to be at the very least inspirational.

First of all, I knew very little about monasteries and the culture surrounding them, as a matter of fact, I know very little about Japan, so this book was a fountain of information and from this point of view, the book works very, very well. Author Nonomura does an excellent job of describing in minute detail from the very beginning, all the processes and rituals that (often mysteriously) surround life in a monastery. I could not believe how hard these monks worked, how little they ate and slept and how much time they spent in meditation. At times, I found myself wanting to yell out to him "what the heck are you doing?" or more specifically, I kept asking myself why anyone would choose to live like this or actually, why we, as humans, think that god could possibly every expect us to live in this manner. Being a catholic, it reminded me greatly of the cloistered nuns - who, I was amazed to recently discover, still exists in Canada! and as one of the nuns said to me "they exist but to pray for everyone else". This seems somewhat out of touch to me - and that is probably the most dominant feeling I had as I read Eat, Sit and Sleep - how far removed from the "real world" this book and this life actually are.

The writing is a tad stilted at times and a tad slow moving (too many details). The other thing that I felt was missing was the spiritual aspect of the book. For some reason, I somehow thought that this book would be loaded with "words of widsom" and although it is clear that the author goes through some changes, I did not feel the "spirituality of the path" in this telling of events. Perhaps that was not the point? But really, I was hoping it would be.

This is not a horrible read, it is quite interesting and the subject matter is different! However, I just did not feel the connection that I had hoped.

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