Huston Smith (1919–2016)

Huston Smith was a brilliant thinker on religious topics. His honesty and piercing insights help you see that what has become a tired topic for many deserves not only a second look but a central place in our collective psyche.

I left Evangelical Christianity over a decade ago because of the peer pressure to conform in behavior and political belief. While I haven't missed going to church, I have missed the feeling of a close connection to the transcendent. Smith helped me understand what I had show more lost in turning my back on religion.

While I am unlikely to ever return to a specific church, he provided ample evidence that there is room for me at the table of Mystery, Truth, and the Spirit as I comprehend it. I'd recommend this book to anyone who feels their life is without meaning. As Smith points out, religious fanaticism has its dangers, but so does relativistic nihilism. show less

Six-word review: Comparative religionist examines what shaped him.

Extended review:

For an autobiography of anyone, this personal history is short. For a man of (then) nearly ninety to tell his story in under two hundred printed pages seems remarkable. All the more so when the man is Huston Smith, a world-renowned scholar, traveler, author, and teacher in the field of comparative religion, and one who has a considerable appetite for being recognized and admired. So I must begin by awarding show more bonus points for keeping it brief, crisp, and relevant, with only a modest helping of self-indulgence and very little repetition.

Born into an evangelical Christian family as the son of American missionaries to China, young Huston was exposed to a variety of Eastern and Western religious practices from childhood onward. At sixteen he came to the U.S. to attend college and remained as a permanent resident. As a student he came under the influence of a mentor who encouraged and broadened his thinking in religious studies.

The hallmark of his career is first-hand experience: he didn't just learn about various spiritual traditions but joined them and followed their disciplines and teachings himself for significant periods of time. He was thus able to write about them in The World's Religions and other works from the inside rather than as an academic onlooker and impartial analyst.

The book is structured in two timelines: Smith's personal chronology and his spiritual journey, both depicted with rigorous selectivity through representative sketches rather than exhaustive detail. The two are intertwined but distinct. Together they deliver a moving account of how he came to be a celebrated expert on comparative religion as well as a fulfilled and self-realized individual. We detect some vanity here and a touch of false modesty, but we also see frank admission of error and an inextinguishable ardor for ever greater enlightenment. His narrative, if unapologetic, is also unsparing: he openly admits shortcomings of self-involvement and self-importance that for a time dangerously blinded him to the needs of those closest to him. Once seen, his personal failings are not defended but amended. One hardly thinks that any person could achieve the heights of accomplishment that he has reached without some personal cost.

I have met and spoken with Huston Smith on several occasions: decades ago when he taught a day-long class at Berkeley Extension; during the nineties, when he spoke at a zendo where I was a member; and, most recently, in 2004, when he appeared as a lecturer at East/West Books in Mountain View. In all cases and even (at the last of those times) when he had largely lost the power of speech, he radiated a contagious enthusiasm for his subject and a consuming excitement with the uplift of spiritual understanding. He has known real tragedy in his life, and now, at 95, he lives with considerable physical impairment, and yet his prevailing worldview appears to remain one of confident optimism in celebration of the infinitely faceted jewel of life.

When it comes to inspiration, I'm a hard sell, skeptical, resistant, not readily affected by anything calculated to move, lure, or seduce. I'm also a committed atheist with no place in my life for dogma and empty ritual. Yet I found myself drawn in by Smith's narrative, touched by the authenticity of his experience and, in spite of myself, uplifted by his joyous conviction.

On page 75 he says, "Now I am writing my memoirs, the book you have in your hands, and after it is finished I have still one more book up my sleeve. Stay tuned for what comes next." I'll stay tuned.
  show less

Six-word review: Religious teacher celebrates long, joyous life.

Extended review:

This compilation of anecdotes, many of them touching on luminous figures such as Aldous Huxley, Pete Seeger, and the Dalai Lama, reflects a long life lived with joy in abundance.

Almost too giddy for me, Huston Smith nonetheless sounds sincere in relating with gushing exuberance a number of episodes and vignettes from his very full life as a student and teacher of comparative religion and worldwide spiritual show more practice. With no taint of false modesty, he tells us of the countless ways in which he has enjoyed exceptional privileges, received special treatment, and basked in extraordinary recognition from a significant array of distinguished persons and personages. In fact, I don't think I've run across another personality who was so genuinely and unabashedly delighted to be himself. He doesn't even blush to tell us about a song that he thinks of "when I suspect that I am becoming infatuated with myself" (page 85).

This book reads like outtakes from his memoir Tales of Wonder (reviewed here, together with some background). They seem to be miscellaneous recollections of standout memories, some very personal--ecstatic reunions with his wife after separations, sometimes of only a day; cute sayings of his grandchildren--and some of brushing sleeves with the world's great and near great of the past seven or eight decades.

Because Smith seems so ingenuous about his delight in displays of mutual admiration, it's hard to begrudge him all the name-dropping and self-congratulation. Rather, I think I would do myself the greatest service by putting aside my native cynicism for a minute and taking a lesson or two. Here is a man who has actively sought opportunities to expand the scope of his life, has made the most of every opportunity that has come to him, and has learned to embrace all experiences, even life's tragedies, with gratitude and an appetite for enlightenment. Now 95, he does not even express a longing for his own youth and physical robustness but revels in the joy of the moment. Reveling, it seems, is something for which he has a boundless talent.

It makes me think I should try to revel a little more. show less

I seldom read biographies, and still less often, autobiographies, making exceptions only for those subjects who truly fascinate me or who I believe have much to teach. Huston Smith falls squarely into both categories.

Many years ago, my husband and I took a class on World Religions being given at the local high school by a professor from the nearest state university. The text was Smith's [b:The Religions of Man|495395|The Year of Living Biblically One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As show more Literally As Possible|A.J. Jacobs|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41ZF6uRAJKL._SL75_.jpg|2325789], since revised, enlarged, and retitled [b:The World's Religions|15015|Conversations with God An Uncommon Dialogue (Book 1)|Neale Donald Walsch|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166669525s/15015.jpg|16955]. So I was familiar with Smith, and the title of this book attracted me. I pulled it from the library shelf and realized it was an autobiography, but sat down to read a few pages; immediately I knew I wanted to read the whole book.

Smith is 90 years old -- he and his friend Pete Seeger share a birthday -- and grew up in a remote village in China where his parents were Methodist missionaries. He still belongs to a Methodist church - I believe, from things he says in this book, that it's San Francisco's Glide Memorial -- but has not only studied, but practiced, other religions. His quest for learning took him first to Shanghai, then to a small college in Missouri, and then to Chicago for grad school. Subsequently, besides teaching in several universities, he travelled all over the world and even to the doors of perception. (He tells of taking mescaline with Timothy Leary.) The tale of his experiences is fascinating in itself, but what makes this book truly worth reading are the nuggets of wisdom, well expressed, that Smith has gained from his studies, his practices, and his life. As a bonus, the appendix to the book is a lecture, "A Universal Grammar of Worldviews," that Smith gave at Pacific School of Religion four years ago, and which contains both knowledge and wisdom. Highly recommended. show less