Quick Take
- Narration: Peter Coyote brings decades of Buddhist practice to a narration that is notably unhurried, and the bonus thirty-plus minutes of remastered original Suzuki Roshi lectures at the end are genuinely remarkable.
- Themes: Zen practice as being rather than doing, the nature of self in Buddhism, sitting meditation as a path of authenticity
- Mood: Quiet, spacious, and occasionally disorienting in the way that genuine Zen teaching tends to be
- Verdict: An audiobook that does something rare: it changes the texture of how you listen, not just what you think about.
I had read Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind twice: once in my twenties when I was drawn to it as literature, and once in my mid-thirties when I was drawn to it as something harder to name. When Becoming Yourself arrived, I listened to the first session on an early morning before the household woke, sitting in a chair with coffee cooling beside me, and I did not get up until it was finished. Something in how Suzuki talks about sitting made me want to actually sit.
That quality, the capacity to induce the very thing it describes, is what distinguishes great Zen teaching from merely good writing about Zen. Suzuki had it, and this collection of previously unpublished lectures, assembled with care after his death, preserves it with fidelity.
Our Take on Becoming Yourself
The book’s central proposition is contained in the teaching that gives it its title: zazen, seated meditation, is not a technique for achieving some improved future self. It is a practice of being entirely what you already are, moment after moment, without the addition of approval or the subtraction of difficulty. As reviewer Elena noted, this is not about the small self or cultivating a unique style; it is about Buddha nature, the dimension of self that is not assembled from preferences and history.
Suzuki’s humor surfaces throughout, and Coyote captures it. These are not solemn lectures. Suzuki was famous for talking about enlightenment the way you might talk about washing dishes, with the implication that the distinction between those two activities might be less significant than we assume. That equanimity of tone, applied to questions that other teachers would approach with elaborate architecture, is one of the qualities that made him such a formative figure in American Zen.
Why Listen to Becoming Yourself
The exclusive audiobook content is the genuine point of differentiation here. Peter Coyote’s narration of the assembled text is excellent, carrying the warmth of someone who has lived with these teachings. But the thirty-plus minutes of Suzuki Roshi’s own voice at the end, remastered from original lectures, are something else entirely. Reviewer Brian described often being confused about what Suzuki did or did not mean and finding that confusion itself a form of Teaching. Hearing Suzuki’s actual voice creates that quality of productive uncertainty in a way that even the finest narration cannot replicate.
Reviewer Larry W. Patrick, who approached this as a longtime admirer of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, described finding fresh insight in Suzuki’s teachings while acknowledging this collection is not as iconic as the earlier work. That is an honest calibration. This is not a book that supersedes its predecessor. It is a book that opens a different window into the same building, and for readers who have lived with Zen Mind for years, that new window has real value.
What to Watch For in Becoming Yourself
Zen teaching resists the very thing that book reviewing depends on: summarizing, extracting, applying. If you approach Becoming Yourself the way you approach a self-help audiobook, looking for techniques to implement and metrics to track, you will miss what makes it valuable. The book explicitly refuses that framing. As Suzuki says, becoming yourself is not meant to be understood as an idea but tried out as a way of being. Listeners expecting a clear methodology will find the deliberate openness of the teaching frustrating.
The lectures, assembled from multiple sources by Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler, have a compiled rather than composed quality. The book does not build a sequential argument; it circles, returns, shifts perspective. That is faithful to the oral teaching tradition from which it comes, but it makes the experience more like sustained immersion than structured study.
Who Should Listen to Becoming Yourself
Those already familiar with Suzuki Roshi’s teaching, through Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind or through Soto Zen practice, will find this a deeply rewarding companion volume. Those new to Zen who are drawn to the tradition through curiosity rather than crisis will also find it accessible; Suzuki’s genius was precisely his ability to speak to beginners without condescension. Those seeking a practical meditation instruction course with progressive techniques should look elsewhere first, and perhaps return to this afterward. The bonus audio of Suzuki’s original lectures alone justifies the audiobook format.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you need to be a Zen practitioner or have prior experience with Buddhism to get value from this audiobook?
No. Suzuki’s teaching is explicitly addressed to beginners, and the book’s compilation prioritizes warmth and accessibility over sectarian depth. Prior familiarity enriches but is not required.
How does Becoming Yourself compare to Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind for someone who has read both?
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind is the more cohesive and iconic work. Becoming Yourself offers new material from unpublished lectures with a wider range of subjects; think of it as an essential companion rather than a replacement.
What exactly is included in the exclusive audiobook bonus content at the end?
Over thirty minutes of remastered original audio recordings of Suzuki Roshi delivering the lectures that became the basis of the book. These have been cleaned up for audio quality and are exclusive to the audiobook edition.
Is Peter Coyote’s narration appropriate for the material given his own Buddhist background?
Coyote has practiced Buddhism for decades and his narration carries an earned stillness that suits Suzuki’s voice. He does not perform the teachings but delivers them with a quality of settled attention that is notably right for the content.
