STOEP ZEN: A Zen life in South Africa
by Antony Osler (Jacana)
Antony Osler, “Buddhist monk, human rights advocate, farmer, father” and the Herman Charles Bosman of the Karoo, has created a haven for jangled nerves with this exquisitely produced collection of anecdotes, Zen philosophy, personal thoughts and acute observations, plentifully illustrated with photographs, some breathtakingly beautiful, others quirky and entirely whimsical.
From his stoep on the farm Poplar Grove he offers his readers the wisdom gleaned during a life lived at a variety of levels, but always simply, with care and caring, with humour and with love.
“People ask which is better, a monk’s life or family life.
“What can I say?
“In the morning buddhist chants
“At night Pooh Bear”
There is nothing solemn or didactic about Osler; his touch is feather-light, whether he is writing about one of the eccentrics who populate his world, imparting a fragment of Zen thinking, describing methods of meditation, or simply observing the flight of a bird, the change of a season or the vagaries of a piece of farm machinery.
As we traverse the seasons, into which the book is divided, we are told of the young prince Siddhartha, the Buddha, and are introduced to some of his latter-day followers, who come from near and far to meditation retreats held in the “Zendo” on the Osler farm.
We also meet the locals who frequent the stoep and its environs — Abie, “a philosopher”; Bakkies Boorman, the borehole driller; Pickup Willemse, the local auto-electrician; Lollie Windpomp, who repairs the windmill; and Bitterkoffie and his gang, itinerant sheep shearers.
We learn the lessons of Buddhism, among them the four traditional vows, and the lessons of South Africa — the old and the new. And we learn them in the Buddhist way — handed to us in the form of anecdotes and poems.
“I am doing this out of gratitude to an ancient tradition,” writes Osler in his introduction, “to see how it sits in a new setting — in an African, South African, Karoo setting … It is to see if I have absorbed enough of this teaching to make it my own and to pass it on in my own tongue.”
He need have no doubts; he has certainly done that.