My teacher, Junpo Denis Kelly Roshi, was a Rinzai Zen master. As such, he often said things intended to irritate listeners in a way that would cause them to reflect more deeply on their beliefs. It is our beliefs, more than anything, that obscure us from the deeper clarity sought through a spiritual practice.

One of his favorite sayings was, “The only trouble with Zen, and with psychotherapy, is they don’t work.”

That is a very interesting thing for a Zen master and lineage holder to say; especially one who was the head abbot of his own school of Zen, and who spent many years in ongoing forms of psychotherapy, even well into his later 60s.

If you consider yourself spiritual, you might be moving away from your goal. In fact, that's almost certainly the case.

We all know people who are a little too identified with their spirituality. You know the types. The ones who describe themselves as empaths and lightworkers but seem like they would benefit more from a few psychotherapy sessions than another cacao ceremony. Or the spiritual seekers who always seem to be chasing another spiritual experience, be it through ayahuasca, retreats, workshops, or an endless consumption of books -- as their ability to be fully in this world seems to grow more tenuous.

Unfortunately, it’s not that different with us.

One of my wiser professors in graduate school said that there were advantages to filtering knowledge through many different minds. He said there were also advantages to integrating knowledge within a single mind. This has proved to be true and helpful over the years for me, especially when it comes to knowledge. However, this book is not about knowledge, it is about what the author calls “Enlightening,” which relates to insight, discernment, wisdom, and awakening. It is also a deep look into the teachings of a great Zen Master — Junpo Denis Kelly Roshi (1942-2021) — that were received, integrated, and further evolved by a single mind, the mind of the author.