Book Review

By Derryll White

Hendricks, Gay and Tinker Lindsay (2012). The First Rule of Ten.

As introverted as I am, I still force myself to abide by the code of committed, unrepentant readers, which states that one must talk to others about books. Gloria, a serious reader who also works in a library, took me aside recently and said, “Try Hendricks! Start at the beginning. He is different.” So, following another rule in my life that states I should be very aware of beautiful women, I listened to her.

Tenzing Norbu, a Tibetan monk turned L.A. cop goes through another life change (all of us are always near to one but don’t always embrace the possibilities) and quits the force to become a private investigator. Tenzing or “Ten” is a reflective character, stopping often to apply his Buddhist knowledge to everyday life situations. I like that as each time he does this I, the reader, have to also stop and reflect, process, analyze. It is good to stop your world and reflect on the way things are.

Hendricks and Lindsay, in true Buddhist fashion, pay attention. They take small things, such as a trapped hummingbird, and give them importance. The resolution of these acts is also a learning lesson for the reader. Those are the kind of things that keep me reading a particular author.

There are a few places where the plot stumbles, but the authors pick it up with Buddhist insights that ask the reader to open up, inquire, and move on. This is certainly a different kind of mystery and I liked it. I will certainly read another Tenzing Norbu novel.

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Excerpts from the book:

CALIFORNIA REALITY – I entered Boyle Heights, land of the gang, home of the disenfranchised. Last count, it was over 90 percent Latino, and who could blame them? Their forefathers were victims of restricted covenants that limited land ownership throughout L.A. to only the whitest of lily-whites. South Central and Boyle Heights were the exceptions. Now these two neighborhoods marked their territories with spray cans and bullets.

THE WAY – Mortality is hard to face, but impossible to avoid. Me? I’d been trained to view the inevitability of death as a goad to living a more meaningful life – by showing compassion to others, for example. I only wish it were that easy.

MENTAL STATE – The Buddha tells us our thoughts and emotions, good or bad, never stay put. Rather, they pass like weather systems, so long as we don’t attempt to control them.

KARMA – Every situation comes with myriad karmic influences and conditions. The Buddha himself said that karma is so complex a person could go crazy trying to figure it out – the only way to simplify, he suggests, is to follow the basic principle that it is our intention that determines our karma. Good intentions produce good karma and bad intentions produce bad karma. When conditions are right, in this or a future life, effect follows cause, and the seeds of your good and bad actions ripen into fruits that are your karma. Or something like that.

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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