Waking Up Together: Intimate Partnership on the Spiritual Path

My boyfriend and I went through some really tough times and because of life we had to spend a couple of months away from each other. During that time he told me he wanted to learn more about meditation. I sent him this book along with a couple of others. A couple of days later he called me and asked me to get the book myself and read it along with him because he said this book spoke about the realtionship he always wanted with me. This book has really helped us see each other. for my boyfriend it has awakened his spiritual side. It has taught me that i can pursue my spirituality while involved and through my relationship. It has helped us both really open up to each other. Thank you to the authors of this amazing book!!! I really recommend this book to any couple who really wants to learn to truly love and appreciate each other.

This is an immensely practical and detailed guide to enhancing spiritual and personal intimacy in the lives of couples committed to spiritual growth together. The Birxes do a wonderful job of speaking with wisdom, insight, compassion, and humor to a great number of issues and challenges that arise in any relationship. They write with passion and love. Their insights really challenged me to a higher level of committment, vitality and intimacy in my own marriage as my wife and I strive to deepen our contemplative practice together. This book fills a real void in the literature of Zen in the West, and I find it extremely welcome. Each page contains the fruit of years of devoted spiritual practice and a deep sense of loving, joyful intimacy with each other and with the One.

For centuries in Asia Zen practitioners have typically resided in monasteries. But in America most of us live with our families. Zen teachers Ellen and Charles Birx, who have been married for 37 years, have taken this discontinuity seriously and have put a lot of care and thought into their book on Zen practice for couples. Their writing reminds me of many passages from Dogen; what's different is the context. At first we Zen practitioners are always puzzled by Dogen. He seems to be reciting a bunch of rules for monastic life, but there's something else there that's fascinating...what is it? He is saying something and at the same time he isn't. And yet he is, fully. That's what's so remarkable about him. And that's what's remarkable about the Birxes' book. It has a lot of carefully organized, sound advice for couples, but there's something else there...what is it?