This is a book I actually avoided for years on the grounds that what it was saying came across as…well, creepy. And rather disconcerting.

Disconcert, friends, is of course exactly what it aims to do. Suffice it to say that after I had plucked up the courage to read it, a lot of things from elsewhere that hadn’t made sense were suddenly perfectly clear.

It’s rather hard to explain exactly what this book is about, except that the subtitle – Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious – is spot-on, because it’s about something that has literally been staring you in the face all your life, but which you probably have never looked at in this way ever before. Namely, your real nature.

I’m not deliberately being mysterious, honest, it’s just that you really cannot get the import of what this book is saying without reading it and trying what he suggests for yourself. So, I’ll say no more and leave anyone who’s intrigued to do exactly that.