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Journal of Religion & Spirituality in

Social Work: Social Thought
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The Zen of Helping: Spiritual Principles

for Mindful and Open-Hearted Practice,
by A. Bein
a
Fung Kei Cheng PhD Candidate
a
Department of Social Work and Social Administration , The
University of Hong Kong , Hong Kong
Published online: 04 Nov 2013.

To cite this article: Fung Kei Cheng PhD Candidate (2013) The Zen of Helping: Spiritual Principles
for Mindful and Open-Hearted Practice, by A. Bein, Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work:
Social Thought, 32:4, 425-427, DOI: 10.1080/15426432.2013.839261

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15426432.2013.839261

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 Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work:
Social Thought, 32:425–427, 2013
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1542-6432 print/1542-6440 online
DOI: 10.1080/15426432.2013.839261

Book Review

A. Bein (2008). The Zen of Helping: Spiritual Principles for Mindful and
Open-Hearted Practice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 202 pp.,
$39.50 (paperback).
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The reviewed book, The Zen of Helping: Spiritual Principles for Mindful
and Open-Hearted Practice written by Professor Andrew Bein (2008), is
renowned in the field of caregiving professions including social work,
counseling, psychiatry, occupational therapy, and nursing. Emphasizing on
spirituality and humanism from the perspective of Zen, the book contains
10 chapters involving a spiritual framework, acceptance, mindfulness, com-
passion, encouragement, middle way, trauma alleviation, and failure and
anger management. Its aim of helping the practitioners strengthen their
capacities of emotional self-management by offering “an under-our-nose
guide” (p. xvi) to the professions is a remarkable feature of the book. All
these make the book valuable to those professionals who are interested in
integrating Eastern philosophy with their career practices to serve clients and
reinforce their own capabilities.
The author, with more than 20 years of clinical experience in healing
industry and social work, and 10 years in practicing Zen meditation, intends
to develop a set of practices with the acumen to reach the deepest tap-
root of the inner world. As a “pragmatic and self-caring guide” (p. xv), the
main theme of the book focuses on elaborating a spiritual-focused approach
for maintenance of energy and the spirit of helping practitioners. The Zen’s
essential ingredients, as the author promotes, could be used for self-care
skills and techniques that are coincident to the needs of contemporary
human service novices and veterans such as social workers, counselors,
psychotherapists, psychiatrists, hospice nurses, occupational therapists and
medical service providers regardless of their religious orientation. This
approach without religious barriers reflects the author’s embodiment of
beyond boundaries or dualism, as one of the main teachings of middle way,
and the practicality of the Zen principles.
Moreover, the author coins the concepts of “strong back” (p. 10) and
“soft front” (p. 16). The former serves as a guideline of meditation posture

The author thanks Dr. Rainbow Ho, Dr. Samson Tse, and Miss Ellie Law for their
comments.

425
 426 Book Review

and a metaphoric description of transformation. This metaphor penetrates

into the qualities of practitioners such as patience (open and gentle attitude),
acceptance (being a flexible and reflexive practitioner), and stillness (calm
but responsive and sensitive reactions). Sustained by the strong back, the
soft front radiates open-heartedness to clients and the helper himself or her-
self; whereas open-heartedness prominently leads the helper to go deeper
into the internal world of the client and the own self, attain clarity of feel-
ings and thoughts, live in here-and-now, and arrive nonmanipulative resort.
To summarize, the application of strong back and soft front and their mutual
support are part of the critical inclusion of the book.
In spite of advocating the applicability of the Zen philosophies and
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inventing the metaphorical interpretation of strong back and soft front, the
body of knowledge on Zen seemingly is thinly explained; and barely are
examples found. As the book names “Zen,” the explication of the association
among Zen, strong back and soft front is desirable. However, the absence of
elicitation of the Zen theories will make the readers, especially for the new
Zen learners, confused about the connection between Zen and the concep-
tion of the book. Although the two exceptions “Zen mind is not Zen mind”
(p. 7) and “Throwing away Zen mind is correct Zen mind” (p. 7), cited at
the end of Chapter One, look somewhat like Zen expressions, the sources
of the quotations are unspecified. This will create difficulties to identify the
adequate interpretations. As such, canon interpretation varies from different
scholars, and using secondary sources without primary data may be insuffi-
cient for the readers to understand the deeper and proper meaning of the
text. The first hand source is therefore of importance for the works which are
based on classical theories. It is suggested that the readability of the book
could have been enriched with stronger forging with Zen provided that the
Zen principles had been expounded more explicitly.
Furthermore, the thoroughness of the work can be examined by remov-
ing the word “Zen” from the text. Taking out the word without changing
the major contents of the book may imply an ineffective integration of the
concepts of Zen into the work. An example in Chapter Five showing this
limitation is about compassionate caring, which is also a pivot of other reli-
gions, but not only in Buddhism. The lack of Zen specific illustrations in this
example produces an ambiguous relationship between compassion and Zen
in the discussion. It is proposed that a deeper analysis of Buddhist compas-
sion incorporating into the metaphors of strong back and soft front could
contribute to a comprehensive description of the themes of the book.
Likewise, the discussion about “Right Speech” (pp. 116–117) points out
the vitality of using right and trustful words to clients. This is true, in gen-
eral. However, it may deviate from the spirit of Zen, which pursues the
level beyond using language. Language is always a barrier, in Zen theory.
Substantial Zen cases exhibit how nonrationale or paradoxical responses
 Book Review 427

convey the message that language sometimes becomes an obstacle to under-

stand the world and is not the only tool for communication, understanding
or learning. Instead, silence is frequently employed in the Zen context; and
the power of silence is also a significant technique in counseling. It, thus,
could be a legitimate topic within counseling and the Zen tradition. If this
unique characteristic had been captured and been further explored, the book
could have exposed the wisdom of Zen in a more profound manner.
In conclusion, the reviewed book, The Zen of Helping: Spiritual
Principles for Mindful and Open-Hearted Practice, displays its insights,
stemmed from the Zen principles, of discussing self-caring of helping pro-
fessionals which are imperative in this current challenging workplace. With
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its aids of case examples, stories, poetry, anecdotes, and exercises, the book
is recommended not only to the relevant professions, practitioners, trainers,
and students but also to the caregivers who are looking after people with
chronic illnesses. Despite the merits discussed, it is suggested that the linkage
between the Zen theories and the spiritual helping framework and practices
introduced should be clarified. This might also stimulate discussions on the
prominence of using first hand sources in Buddhist-related literature where
the readers could gain different views from the original sources of Buddhist
teachings. Briefly, the book offers experience sharing and an invaluable ref-
erence of a spiritual approach to the readers who are eager to take better
care of themselves and others.

Fung Kei Cheng, PhD Candidate

Department of Social Work and Social Administration
The University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong