I am writing this review from the perspective of a reader with a layperson’s knowledge of Zen Buddhism, but with no knowledge of Yoga, and with some familiarity with Trevor Leggett’s writings, in particular with a few of his many Zen stories.

‘Jewels from the Indra Net’ is Trevor Leggett’s final book, published posthumously on the occasion of his centenary, fourteen years after his death. The title of the book “refers to the fabled net of the god Indra of which the strands have a jewel of truth at each junction”. This slender volume contains over thirty stories or pieces illuminating Yoga and Zen teachings, and many of these have more stories within them. It may be a difficult book to review entirely dispassionately, given the esteem within which Mr Leggett’s writings are held, his life respected and the spiritual importance he holds for his many friends and admirers. Fortunately, regardless of this and as always with his work, there is much in the book to educate, inspire and delight the reader.

Some of its ‘jewels’ for me include these words from a Japanese training monastery head: “An absolute amateur of Zen can write an essay about it without any mistakes…..But let the amateur speak even a single word, and his spiritual status is clear to all who know Zen.” Wise words to silence many of we garrulous westerners.

In an interesting piece about people attending a concert, Trevor Leggett contrasts “the energy of extraverts”, constantly dependent on external stimulation, with the focus and stillness of those who have some “inner training”. However he is not simply critical of extraverts. He acknowledges their helpfulness, their sociability, their welcoming gestures to those around them, so successfully in fact that I warmed to them equally as much as those who, with quiet thoughtfulness resulting from ‘inner training’, would enter the crowded auditorium “like snowflakes falling”, with the resulting silence deepening into “an almost intangible peace”.  Unsurprisingly it is the latter who are capable of the “fullest appreciation” of the concert; it is they who have “passed through the Zen riddle (koan) called The Sound of One Hand”. It is easy to identify then which group we spiritual aspirants might wish to join but it is one of the strengths of his stories that this is not simply black and white, it is more thought provoking and unsettling than that. Despite the clear direction of the teaching, one still feels that that bustling extravert behaviour, without the inner training, was well intentioned and kind hearted, which many of us would probably settle for and Trevor Leggett himself notes “it cannot be said that this is bad.” 

There is something similar in the story of The Ethical Bazaar where a businessman has the chance to help some needy people but only by deceiving someone else whom he describes as “quite a rogue”. As he is a member of a yoga group, he asks the senior there for advice. Again this matter is not at all clear cut – it is a tricky issue. Eventually the senior advises against the ‘helpful’ action showing how harm done “is always more potent than any good that may come from it”. And finally, just when the reader is nonetheless still anxious about those “needy people”, he advises the businessman to “meditate and some other way will suggest itself to you”. Those words serve to puncture the small balloon of the reader’s anxiety as the matter is sat upon and a way forward quietly waited for, rather than by simply pursuing our anxiety to ‘solve’ the problem which could lead to harm being inadvertently perpetrated.

Other gems for me include the true story about the Prime Minister of an Indian state wishing to improve sanitation to overcome cholera epidemics but who was concerned about opposition from the highly respected but traditional and conservative Brahmins. So the issue here is saving lives versus sacred tradition – no contest for a western mind, even though we are told that such a breach could be the start of a process undermining the peace that the ancient Indian tradition had given to the people. It could risk reducing them to the plight of westerners, lost and restlessly searching, as Leggett explains. Eventually a successful way forward is found through the Prime Minister asking scholars to look at making sense of the new medical approaches within the context of Indian traditional sacred writings, which they succeed in doing to the satisfaction of the traditionalists. This was an expedient solution to a pressing health problem we may think, and so it was, but it was much more than this. The way forward was only found after deep meditation on the part of the Prime Minister, a meditation which led him to feel such profound empathy with the pandits that he could only seek a resolution which would be acceptable to them, and that was when the idea arose of returning to the sacred texts for the way. In this regard a successful external change could happen only by going inwards in deep meditation.

For me some accounts and stories worked better than others. At least a few of the stories he has published elsewhere – ‘Good, No Good’ about the frog, the snake and the insects, and ‘The Brahmin Thief’, stealing rice from the granary to benefit others – though they still retain their power to challenge the reader of course. One or two stories were for me initially hard to take – I was left puzzling over ‘The Garden’, where the old man who found peace in the presence of the meditating yogin was told by the yogin: “What do I get out of it? Sit somewhere else.” Of course as a teaching story its intention is no doubt to startle the reader, to make one more alert to its lesson: “that it is wrong to enjoy peace without making any contribution to it oneself” – even for old men apparently.

Over all, in terms of any shortcomings the book had for me, they are small and few. Given his dedication of the book and his references throughout to his teacher and friend Dr Shastri, I would have been helped by a specific piece on this “defining” relationship of Trevor Leggett’s life. I am unfamiliar with Dr Shastri’s work and so was at somewhat of a loss to appreciate his significance and the reasons for the many references to him. And occasionally the mixing of spiritual traditions as sources for some of the pieces is a little confusing.

Aspects of one or two of the stories relayed in some accounts are perhaps inevitably a little dated. There is the Japanese scholar, who asks when talking about British explorers: “Did you ever wonder what the Spanish thought of your Sir Francis (Drake)? Just a pirate, just a robber”, saying according to Trevor Leggett “the sort of thing a foreign scholar knows….. (that was) not in our history books”. I suspect it is in the history books now though and has been for a few years. Towards the end of the book too the editing went a little awry in parts  - particularly in the over use of commas in the opening paragraph of ‘The Brahmin Thief.

But these small points are inevitably nitpicking. No one book can be expected to do justice to the writings and life of this remarkable man.  This posthumous publication is a good read and contains much to remind us of the vitality and depth of understanding underpinning Trevor Leggett’s eclectic and profound intelligence.

Hilary Tucker

Details of this publication and of the accompanying DVD ‘Man of the Ways’ can be obtained from:  Productions@Dial-Media.org