This Side of Nrvana-Sara Jenkins

Sara Jenkins : award winning free lance actor and writer. North Carolina. (238p) 2001.

Easy flowing reading, at times gripping and at times boring, as she relates the her experience,
of finding solution to her restlessness. There are many lessons about life we can learn from here. However, probably got to share some of her sufferings to be able to recognise it. For Asians, used to being drummed into having to work for a living, her ability to "not work" and yet able to live via volunteering is something I yearn for. The author stays very focus on her personal journey ie nothing were mentioned about her family or relatives. Very surgical and clean cut. Throughout the book, there were only probably less than 10 people that she deal directly with are written about.

What's interesting is that finally, when she met her "teacher", presumably, since there wasn't any formal ceremny to demarcate as such, the teacher is also someone who is just known as a teacher. The teacher- an American lady from California, did not talk much about her teacher/s.
There were not much bestowing of teaching status.
This is an interesting story of how Budhhism has transplanted into mid West America - without much Asian inheritance. Most of the other Western teachers, one way or another had teaching or lineage from some Asian countries, be in Thailand, Burma, SriLanka, Japan or Tibet.
Her teacher- Cheri : does not give formal teaching, but teaches through her interaction with the students and through retreats.

The universal truth is the truth, regardless of who present or teach it. Sara desribe how it seems that her teacher intuitively understand what i s needed to teach her about the dharma. The teacher "kind of arrange" happenings/event/change of acitivities (or is it cocincidences) that forces Sara to confront and learn about lessons in her life.