Wow, it’s been eight years since I bought this book at the Friends of the Christian County Library book sale back when they only had it twice a year in Ozark. One would think I would have jumped on this book sooner. But one would also have thought I’d also jump on Chuck Norris’s autobiography, too, but yet it languishes here, somewhere, amid the stacks.
I’ve got to say: I’ve read my Shunryu Suzuki (Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind in 2017), and I have read my Joko Beck (Everyday Zen in 2020), and I have read other non-Zen Buddhists including Thich Naht Hanh (various), but this book is maybe the best book on mindfulness I’ve read. Not true Zen, but mindfulness.
The book is not a true biography, but it has enough biographical elements and anecdotes to be interesting. But its focus is on what we now call mindfulness which Norris was introduced to in his various dealings with the inscrutible Orientals in Korea where he learned tae kwon do and later in California where he had a chain of martial arts schools before he got into acting. He talks about emptying the mind, focus, breathing, et cetera, and, again, it’s leavened with the anecdotes and name drops. He mentions Bruce Lee, of course, and even includes a story/koan/sutra of the empty cup that was in Shannon Lee’s Be Water, My Friend. He mentions that Steve McQueen recommended he try acting when he was at a crossroads (being open to those pivotal points is a lesson taking a chapter).
So it’s a little like Joe Hyams’ Zen in the Martial Arts, but, to be honest, better. Because it’s Carlos Ray Norris, man. And I say this even though I’m only slightly afraid that if I posted a bad word about him that he would spin kick me from beyond.
And I’m kinda encouraged to find his autobiography. More inclined to do so than to watch The Jimmy Stewart Show based on reading the latter’s book of poetry.
