This is a remarkable book by a remarkable man. Kawai's writing is direct, honest and self-effacing and it can be quite confronting to read. The author seems to want us to relinquish our props and furniture, and gently insists that we sit in quiet emptiness with him. To me, this book is an elaboration of the spirituality of subtraction; we gain by sloughing off and throwing overboard what is known. Kawai starts with himself: he says he knows nothing about psychotherapy and nothing about Buddhism. Is he joking or in some way profoundly serious? Do any of us know anything? That is why the experience of this book is quite unnerving, because one feels oneself seated with Kawai in a therapeutic situation, in which he seeks to throw out old props that we believe are holding us together. If we throw them out, will there be anything left? There