Review of The Zen of Jesus Christ

[Amy_Jackson]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Zen of Jesus Christ" by Carlos O. Santacruz.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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In this book, The Zen of Jesus Christ, the author, Carlos O. Santacruz, compares 114 sayings of Jesus with those of Zen Buddhism, bringing out the similarities between them.

I see myself as one who knows a great deal about the sayings of Jesus, but this book got my eyes popping wide open. When the author mentioned the Gospel of Thomas, I braced myself for what I thought would unfold, because I know that there are quite a number of books out there about Jesus that were not included in the Bible we know today. Yet, I was unprepared for the revelations the author poured forth. So I encourage anyone who wants to read this book to do so with an open mind to learn, so as to better appreciate it.

I like how the author made the comparisons, writing out the sayings of Jesus, then the Zen equivalent, and adding a commentary for each comparison to explain the similarities and the lesson to be learnt. I'm glad for the commentaries because I couldn't quite grasp how some of the quoted sayings of Jesus were similar to that of Zen Buddhism. With the commentaries, the author went beyond the words to the depth of their meaning, bringing out revelations that one ordinarily wouldn't notice.

Some of the lessons from the commentaries that particularly spoke to me were about discovering the treasure within us, the burning flame of love, the best way to act, the thieving mind, true spirituality, and several others.

However, I do not quite agree that some of those sayings were actually what Jesus said, for example, the part of Jesus saying he loved the lost sheep more than the other 99. Also, in the Afterword, it looked more like the author wasn't happy that the Book of Thomas was excluded from the Bible, which sort of took the focus away from Jesus and Zen, and centered it on Thomas. Thus, I rate the book 4 out of 5 stars.

I recommend this book to philosophers, Bible scholars, Buddhists, historians and those who seek to know more about the essence of Iife.

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The Zen of Jesus Christ
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[Kibet Hillary]

The book sounds really interesting, but I think much more will be learned after reading it. My curiosity is piqued to know what the author makes of the similarities in the sayings. I have always known that some of the doctrines could be the same across religions superficially, but fundamentally, there are a lot of differences.
Many thanks for the review, @Amy_Jackson.