"The Empty Mirror" is a reflection by the author, Janwillem van de Wetering, on his time living and studying meditation in a Buddhist monastery in Kyoto in the late 1950s.
The account was published (and I presume written) more than ten years later in 1971, and one of the most immediately fascinating parts of the text is the way it reflects the cultural views and attitudes of the time it was lived, and published in. There are definitely elements of the text that would shock a sensitive reader.
At one point "Jan-san" (as he's called in the text) reflects almost idly, or perhaps meditatively, on a sexual assault that he committed– rubbing up against a woman on a train. This is given no particular weight and doesn't dwell in his conscience, in fact he seems to write with no shame in enjoying it. The account is broadly misogynistic in general– the presence of women is almost never commented on, and when they are, it is in conjunction with sexual activity. Homosexuality, in contrast, if brought up several times in the text and while the author does not write about participating in it, its repeated referencing, and the comment that it's "more normal in Japan" as well as other comments lead me to speculate that he did participate, and simply left it out of his account.
More fascinating than speculating on Jan-san's sexual activity or lack of it, and closer to the point of the narrative, is his study of Zen meditation. The author came to Japan to study under a master with the hope of reaching enlightenment– in his own words, finding out the purpose of life. What's fascinating to me in his account is how absolutely bad he is at it. And he writes about being bad at it. The central theme of the narrative is that Jan-san absolutely sucks as a monk the entire time he's living and studying. At the beginning of his studies he's given a "koan" (a meditative story) to solve as his training, and over the course of the narrative he never solves it. It's repeatedly made clear that other students solve their koans much faster, and Jan-san just can't do it. He spends a lot of time smoking, and he goes to the bath house, and he has sex with whores. He gets hemorrhoids from trying to sit lotus style. He meditates 11 hours a day, and he leaves Japan without ever getting closer to the answers that he was looking for.
The Empty Mirror strikes me as a meditation on, and reflection on hubris, and ultimately on failure. The author seems excessively self-involved and it frankly doesn't surprise me that he was unable to solve his koan, because throughout the narrative the biggest character is not just Jan-san, but his ego. His own obsessive need to be succeeding, to solve things, to be in control and enjoy himself. This makes for a wild departure with other accounts of Zen study that I've read which tend to center the teachings, or the other people that the author met and interacted with. The Empty Mirror is a navel gaze, and a fascinating look at the author's psyche.
Aside from being a 'what not to do when studying Zen" manual, one of the things I loved best about The Empty Mirror was its look at the Japan of the era from an outsider's eyes, even if it was admittedly shallow due to its author's self involvement.
I don't know if I'd recommend the work to most people, but I can say that it held my attention through the entire book, and that I read it in one sitting. I think elements of it will stay in my head for a while– maybe next time I'm feeling a little too smug.
Some excerpts from the book under the cut.
