Zen Reads

Book Review by Elizabeth Goldstein, Dharma Teacher & Editor of Composting our Karma

The Mind of Clover: Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics by Robert Aitken

Originally written in 1984, The Mind of Clover: Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics is a great read anytime, and particularly timely in today’s troubled world, causing many of us to need to dig deep to figure out how to apply don’t‑know mind as we feel compelled to social action. In the book, Roshi Robert Aitken uses experiences from the Honolulu Diamond Sangha, co‑founded with his wife Anne in 1959, to teach the ten precepts. In the Kwan Um School of Zen we have a tradition of teaching the precepts during group precept ceremonies and also individually with a teacher.

I was introduced to Mind of Clover by Kathy Park, Ji Do Poep Sa, a teacher in our school who lives in Korea with her husband, teaching and leading retreats. She recommended the book during a teaching session for the new dharma teachers training program through Kwan Um Zen Online. Having taken teacher precepts as a dharma teacher in training during COVID, by the time I became a dharma teacher and started the training program I couldn’t even remember what the ten precepts were. They didn’t feel very relevant to my practice, but suddenly when I took the long teacher robe I thought, “I’ve gotta get my act together!” So, reading a book with an essay devoted to each of the ten precepts was a very motivating opportunity. I learned a lot about the ten precepts, and found it interesting and useful the ways in which the Japanese Zen angle on them was both similar to ours and different. For example, our fifth precept is translated as, “I vow to abstain from intoxicants, taken to induce heedlessness,” whereas Roshi Aitken’s translation was, “Not giving or taking drugs.” It expanded my thinking about this precept to consider the actions towards others, not just the taking of intoxicants myself.

In reviewing the book to write this, I noticed that the essay I had the most ear‑marked pages for was The Sixth Precept: Not Discussing the Faults of Others. While I’m generally not a gossipy person, when I first read the book I was going through a rough time in one of my personal relationships and was feeling emotionally injured by that person and talking about that with friends for support. Reading the essay helped me notice the attachments I was bringing to the situation, which helped. These words cut through my thinking: “Trust and intimacy are the upaya, appropriate means. When they are present in the group, we ourselves are the Buddha’s dojo. We include people, animals, trees, stones, and clouds by our realization of Buddha‑nature; the other is no other than myself.”

The essay I found most inspiring as a fledgling teacher was the eighth, “Not Sparing the Dharma Assets.” Whereas our translation of that precept is about covetousness and generosity more generally, I found it very inspiring to consider ways of being generous with the Dharma (although Roshi Aitken also has a broad description of “Dharma Assets” to “indicate energy and its tendencies, energy and its inclinations”).

To help face current world circumstances, I found the chapter “Bringing Forth the Mind” very helpful. “Clarity for the Buddhist is neither clarity nor confusion, and therefore, to use the logic found in the Diamond Sutra, it is called clarity.” In order to bring forth mind “we must cut off the mind road.” The last paragraph of the chapter summarizes how this can be applied to the current world situation.

The title chapter, “The Mind of Clover,” is a wellspring of hope and an antidote to despair. Those who are struggling to find ways to help in the face of so much need might enjoy this chapter. “Clover does not think about responsibility, and neither did Shakyamuni. He simply arose from his seat and went looking for his friends. The clover simply puts down its roots and puts up its leaves and flowers… Clover is incapable of not nurturing.”

I hope you find something nurturing in these words, and in all the words in Roshi Aitken’s book. Maybe one or two of the essays will help you with something you are dealing with now.