Awakening the Buddhist Heart: Integrating Love, Meaning, and Connection into Every Part of Your Life Review

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Awakening the Buddhist Heart: Integrating Love, Meaning, and Connection into Every Part of Your Life ReviewI have been a follower of Buddhist philosophies for many years and during that time have read all the books of Lama Surya Das. Even if exploring the philosophies of Buddhism takes you into unknown territory, you will find his books easy to follow and understand because the author's concepts have been adapted for the Western World. If you are just beginning to read the books of Lama Surya Das, I would suggest starting with, "Awakening the Buddha Within" as it gives a very general overview of the fundamentals of Buddhism; however, all his books are excellent, leaving much food for thought.
In this book, the author helps the reader to understand the importance of integrating love, compassion and understanding into our personal relationships on a daily basis. The limits also go beyond to encompass the relationships we have with those in our community, our country and around the world. By awakening one's own Buddhist heart, one will find inner peace, contentment and happiness abound. The greatest gift we can share with the world is our love for humanity.
The beautiful meditations and amusing anecdotes the author lavishly uses in this third book of the "Awakening" series will immediately warm your heart and soul. The reader quickly realizes Lama Surya Das is a man with strengths and weaknesses like our own. He is humble, compassionate, kind, inspirational and enlightening, everything one would expect to find in a true "Bodhicitta." I highly recommend this beautiful and expressive book from a inspiring and insightful man.Awakening the Buddhist Heart: Integrating Love, Meaning, and Connection into Every Part of Your Life Overview

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Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters Review

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Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters ReviewYeah, that's a cliche, but after reading this book it will feel like the most true thing you have ever heard.
I have been reading and enjoying Robert Augustus Masters' newest book, "Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters." I'm reading a Kindle version on my iTouch and my Kindle, so I find myself highlighting whole pages that I want to share.
I can't post the whole book here. Yet I cannot recommend this book strongly enough - if you want to be fully integrated as a human being, get the most from your spiritual practice, and/or go deeper in your psychotherapy, you MUST get this book and read it, slowly and let it sink in.
Of all the people who talk about an integral spirituality and psychology, Masters is the only one I really see walking the talk. His books are not filled with abstract theory, they are practical guides to becoming more authentic, more integrated, and more whole.
Masters gives us an overview of the many varied ways we engage in spiritual bypassing in the first 7 chapters. When we get to chapter 8, "What Generates Spiritual Bypassing?", the answer he gives is perfectly obvious - pain - and yet all the ways we seek to escape the pain generally just make it worse. We seldom look into our pain and seek to heal it - we often try to bypass it and spirituality is often a great way - in our minds - to do it.
In my opinion, this book will become as important as Chogyam Trungpa's "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism," which they publisher mentions as well (see above).
This book is so clear and so true that one wonders how no one else has ever written this. Here are a few short quotes:
"Instead of trying to get beyond our personal history, we need to learn to relate to it with as much clarity and compassion as possible, so that it serves rather than obstructs our healing and awakening. This also means relating in similar fashion to our tendency to spiritually bypass, casting a lucid, caring eye upon the part of us who buys into us." (Location 225)
* * *
"When we remain outside or removed from our fear, we are trapped by it, but when we actually do get inside, cultivating intimacy with it, we are no longer trapped by it, discovering--and not just intellectually--that it is but darkly contracted energy, a knotted-up vitality that can be freed when we become intimate with it." (Location 337)
* * *
"Real shadow work does not leave us intact; it is not some neat and tidy process but rather an inherently messy one, as vital and unpredictably alive as birth. The ass it kicks is the one upon which you are sitting; the pain it brings up is the pain we've been fleeing most of our life; the psychoemotional breakdowns it catalyzes are the precursors to hugely relevant breakthroughs; the doors it opens are doors that have shown up year after year in our dreams, awaiting our entry. Real shadow work not only breaks us down but also breaks us open, turning frozen yesterday into fluid now." (Location 635)
* * *
Those are from the first few chapters - there are wise quotes like these on nearly every page. I could offer lots of other quotes, especially from the chapters on shadow work (hint: 1-2-3 shadow work ain't real shadow work), blind compassion, false transcendence, magical thinking, sex, shame, and so much more.
One of the more important sections in the book is the chapter on "magical thinking." So much of what passes for "spirituality" is simply magical thinking (and spiritual materialism) all dressed up in new language. The so-called "law of attraction" is a prime example that Masters takes on, revealing the childish thinking behind the pseudo-spirituality.
Most importantly, he is not condescending - we all engage in spiritual bypass from time to time. The trick is learning to recognize and limit it's ability to keep us isolated from ourselves. In the end, that's exactly what happens. If we do not get to know our pain and our wounding, our fears and our hatreds, then we are never fully ourselves, we are two-dimensional beings casting a large shadow.Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters Overview

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The Meaning of Life Review

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The Meaning of Life ReviewAs with the other books of the Dalai Lama I have read, this book combines difficult and obscure teachings with the simplicity of the everyday. The book consists of the text of a lecture series the Dalai Lama gave in London in 1984, before he received the Nobel Prize. The title of the book together with its subtitle "Buddhist perspectives on cause and effect" give some idea of its breadth.
The first two lectures in the book, together with Professor Jeffery Hopkins's introduction discuss the fundamental Buddhist doctrine of Dependent Origination. The discussion is based upon an exposition of a famous Tibetan painting of the Wheel of Existence which is beautifully reproduced, in whole and in a number of details following page 40. Turn to the painting before beginning to read the book and refer to it while reading both Hopkins and the Dalai Lama.
The Doctrine of Dependent Origination teaches the both the impernanence and interrelationship of things we take in our everyday lives as substantial. It talks about the pervasive effect of ignorance and its immediate consequences, lust and hatred, in poisoning our lives and attitudes. It offers an antidote twoards breaking the wheel of selfishness in the doctrine of non-self.
If this sounds obscure, it is. In a famous Sutra in the Pali canon, the Buddha rebukes his disciple Ananda when Ananda thinks he understands the teaching. The Dalai Lama presents the doctrine not as a dispositive treatment, which can't be done, but to stimulate reflection and meditation by the reader.
Following the discussion of Dependent Origination, there are almost equally difficult discussions of the Buddhist doctrine of Karma (causality and intentionality) and discussions of specifically Tibetan Tantric practices.
Interlaced with the specifically Buddhist doctrinal discussions are discussions of the goal of the doctrines which the Dalai Lama describes (page 34) as "to tame one's mental continuum-- to become nonviolent." This in turn is divided into two levels: altruism, or helping others, and, perhaps more broadly, doing no harm. According to the Dalai Lama (page 35) "The chief quality of a buddha is great compassion; this is why it is appropriate to take refuge in a buddha."
As always with the Dalai Lama, his goal is to teach and not to convert. He seems somewhat skeptical in this book with the rush of Westerners to adopt Tibetan Buddhism which, he points out, is a form of Buddhism adopted to the specific culture of Tibet rather than to Western culture. Although Tibetan Buddhism does not recognize a creator God, he urges those people comfortable with their own religions to adhere to them as proper sources of spiritual realization and inner peace. For those unable to adopt any religion, (those committed to Western secularism) he urges reflection and self-understanding as a means to end suffering.
Similarly, the Dalai Lama emphasizes that the Buddha taught different people in different ways depending on their background and their readiness for religious teachings. Many people, particularly those in the West, must find their path through life in the everyday workaday world rather than mediatating in a forest. The Dalai Lama recognizes and encourages people to work through to their salvation in a way appropriate to and consistent with their individual situation. Wise advice.
This is not one of the Dalai Lama's easier books to read. But it will stay with the careful reader. The painting of the Wheel of Dependent Origination is well reproduced, Professor Hopkins's introduction is valuable, and the book has a good bibliography for those wishing to pursue sources further. The teachings may not make the reader a Tibetan Buddhist; indeedmthat is not their intention. They may, however, bring some guidance and insight to the open reader.The Meaning of Life Overview

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Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy Review

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Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy ReviewIRRATIONAL MAN is a great read for anyone interested in existentialism. William Barrett does not bore, and he covers existentialism from its roots in Hebraism and Hellenism to its development by its most famous spokesman, Jean-Paul Sartre. For Barrett, existentialism is a personal and relevant matter, and he passionately reminds the reader that it is a philosophy for the modern age, an age of atomic weaponry. Though he has only four chapters on particular existentialists (Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre), he also addresses various other figures such as St. Augustine, Descartes, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. The scope of this work is vast.
The aforementioned "existentialists" have disparate views, but all share the understanding that reason has its limits, that man is alone in the world, and that to live, one must face one's own finitude. Each thinker comes to their ideas from a unique point of view and Barrett connects their ideas with their personal historical context. What we have is a study that is coherent and enlightening, passionate and somehow urgent.
But perhaps it is a little too passionate, too grandiose. He has romantic notions of greatness, in art and in thought. Sometimes he seems too sure of his interpretations as well, but it is up to me to go to the original sources he writes about and try his findings against mine.
In the end, the very fact that I desire to read directly the works of the four existentialists he writes about shows to me that Barrett has done a fine job, and he has simultaneously clarified and deepened my understanding of existentialism beyond the famous line "existence precedes essence." As an introduction or a supplement, IRRATIONAL MAN is an essential, and entertaining, work.Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy Overview

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A Frequency Dictionary of Pali: Core Vocabulary for Learners Review

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A Frequency Dictionary of Pali: Core Vocabulary for Learners ReviewThis is an interesting comprehensive Pali dictionary. The author's idea to select Pali vocabulary by frequency and only focus on canonical Pali (it seems to be mostly Sutta Pitaka Pali) makes sense. It gives someone who starts learning Pali a clue as to which words he see most often.
I especially liked the combination of word definition with sample sentences (all of which are real extracts from the Suttas and very short full sentences to see the word in its proper context).
At the end of the book there is an index, which is critical to find words.
All in all a very nice edition of core (fundamental) Pali vocabulary.A Frequency Dictionary of Pali: Core Vocabulary for Learners Overview

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The Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life Review

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The Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life ReviewWestern scientists and philosophically minded intellectuals often have contempt for religion, and some think it is a justified contempt that religious leaders have brought upon themselves by not living up to their principles - and by being ignorant of science, insisting upon theological premises and conclusions that no"philosopher" could accept.
So a culture at cross-purposes has been built up in the West. At times it has led to spiritual heartsickness and anxiety, the abandonment of hope that life has meaning. What people are left with on the whole is nihilism, the view that nothing exists except phenomena apparent to the senses, and that consciousness is an accidental product of matter, that one's mind does not survive death. Given the barren desert in which the spirit has to dwell, it seems courageous rather than merely materialistic that people just get on with trying to improve their standard of living, and it adds poignancy to the fascination with money and sex and celebrity, the recourse to entertainments and the love of sports.
This book, The Monk and the Philosopher, provides an antidote to the conflict between Western science and philosophy and traditional religion. It illustrates the highest possible vantage point from which to see meaning directly and simply, that is, a principial metaphysical tradition of wisdom, in this case, Buddhism.
The Monk and the Philosopher is a dialogue between a father who is an authority on Western philosophy (one of his books is entitled, From Thales to Kant) and a son who in his twenties took a doctorate in molecular biology at the Institut Pasteur and later became a monk in the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition.
From the very first exchange between father and son the book provides a surprising jolt of energy and clarity to the reader. Unnecessary things weighing on the mind fall away and one is welcomed into an invigorating world of essentials. The company of these two first rate minds, narrating the experiences of life that led them to the conclusions they hold - atheist humanism versus the view on the path toward Buddhist enlightenment, raises one's own capacity for "the examined life" that Socrates considered the only kind "worth living," and makes one feel the thrill of the mind working as a powerful instrument capable of cutting through sloth, avoidance and fuzziness to arrive at the threshold of a new awareness. (Like Keats, "Then felt I like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken").
These are conversational exchanges, challenging and harmonious, between a western philosophically and scientifically minded father and a son who has come out the other side of the scientific investigation of truth as residing exclusively in the deciphering of matter and has lived for thirty years with Tibetan Lamas, monks, nuns and lay people as an outstanding exponent of the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition. They are fascinating, civilized, candid, wise, funny, deeply tragic about Tibet, serene, and full of loving-kindness. The Frenchness of the two men is perhaps what contributes the "clear ideas", the capacity to express ideas with logical rigor at the same time as one is charming and entertaining one's interlocutor with the elegance and ease of one who knows the world and is able to maintain a healthy detachment from any sort of fanatical insistence upon one's standpoint. It is a family dialogue between a savant and a sage.
Certainly the deep compassion that radiates through the dialogue comes from the effect on both men, to one degree and another, of their privileged encounter with Tibetan Buddhist communities. Therein the experience of the worst that man can inflict upon his neighbor has been met with wisdom and compassion, so that the Tibetans are qualified to be the teachers of a western philosopher and a molecular biologist. What is profoundly admirable about these two brilliant companions in the search for truth is that they are eminently capable of learning from the wisdom and compassion of their Tibetan Buddhist friendsThe Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life Overview

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Mindfulness for Beginners Review

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Mindfulness for Beginners ReviewThis CD is an introduction to mindfulness that is aimed at an audience of Westerners who are not familiar with Eastern philosophy. This audio provides the foundational concepts necessary to have a meditation practice and gives a taste of several different types of practice.
The first CD covers concepts such as the present moment, the definition of mindfulness at attending to what is arising in the moment, awareness, the relationship between mind and heart, etc. It also covers the importance of openness and curiosity vs. judgment and identification with what is going on. That is to say, it distinguishes between a witness of what is arising and the phenomena in question. In other words, it makes the point that there is something standing behind the mind, emotions, sensations, etc. and that this something is a type of consciousness called witness consciousness. This CD also goes into the important of allowing (non-striving) vs. a desire that pushes toward acheiving something. In the last section of CD Zinn contrasts awareness which is passive and accepting with thinking which arises out of desire.
The second CD provides an introduction to some minfulness practices such as mindful eating, breath meditation, mindfulness of the body as a whole, mindfulness of objects such as sounds, thoughts and emotions. It also introduces the notion of meditation as pure awareness without judgment. One might compare this to pure experience without desire or aversion. Although one is given a taste of each of these practices, none of them are comprehensively covered and the guided meditations are not long enough for practice purposes except for a complete beginner.
In general, meditative practices are divided into concentration practices (narrowing the attention) and mindfulness practices (awareness is expanded in a detached way). On the this CD, all of the practices are termed mindfulness practices, but the CD actually contains both types which in essence are about attending to different aspects of reality in different ways.
As someone who teaches meditation to Westerners myself, I find this an excellent, gentle and easily accessible introduction. It achieves what it sets out to do, which is to provide a philosophical framework for a meditation practice and the very basics of starting one.
If you enjoy this tape and you want to take things deeper, then Guided Mindfulness Meditation (Guided Mindfulness) by the same author would be a logical continuation. The book Breath by Breath: The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation would also be a great next step. Something complimentary that build on it, but is a bit more heart-centered would be Meditation for Beginners. There is also a listmania list on my profile for meditation that has other recommendations.Mindfulness for Beginners Overview

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The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force Review

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The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force ReviewI was having a bit of a philosophical crisis when I went looking for a book on free will and determinism -- I had discovered that deep down, I really didn't believe in free will. That was a surprise, since consciously I thought the idea of fate was absurd. I always thought that my brain had been programmed to be the way it was through my genes and the way I was raised, and that the best I could do was to not get too upset about the way I am, do whatever came to me, and hope for some life-changing experience to make things better.
After some research on the internet I decided to do what William James and Abraham Maslow did and "act as if" I had free will, and see if I got the same extraordinary results they did (both had been depressed determinists and were "cured" once they gave free will an active try). I still wanted intellectual confirmation though, and I came across this book at the bookstore and bought it on a hunch.
This book has blown my mind. Schwartz' cognitive-therapy work with obsessive-compulsive patients leads us to ask the question, "How is it that a strictly mental process can result in measurable brain changes as shown on PET scans?" Is it caused by another part of the brain? Even if it is, that just postpones the question, because what caused that part of the brain to be any different this time? He makes the case that conscious experience isn't reduceable to anything more fundamental -- try having a colorblind researcher truly understand the color "red" by tracing physical and chemical changes in the brain. Combine that with the fact in quantum mechanics that observation affects which reality it is that shows up, and he proposes a kind of fundamental "mental force" and does a much better job of explaining it than I've done here.
One problem is that in the middle of the book there is a lot of scientific history of particular studies that would support his theory, but they aren't really necessary because they don't say much more than what he's already said, and there's lots of detail that isn't necessary for making his point. It can get dry and uninteresting in those parts, and it seems more like he's just trying to give these unsung scientists their due.
That can't negate, however, how great the rest of the book is. It has a very powerful argument against strict materialism, especially for this atheist/materialist who didn't believe in free will last week. (I can't *believe* how many things this book explains with regard to spiritual claims.) So, don't get discouraged by the scientific history if you get bored by it, and see the book through. And have fun.The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force Overview

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The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation Review

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The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation ReviewThis little treatise is nothing less than a handbook for more effective, more joyful living. Thich Nhat Hanh has a beautifully simple, wonderfully direct manner of communicating the need to live mindfully, and using the practice of meditation as a means for becoming more mindful. Living in exile in Paris, this humble Vietnamese monk has worked tirelessly for decades, living his religion of compassion for the poor and orphaned in his native Vietnam. He is a living testament to the power of mindful living.
In addition to being a treat for your mind, Thich Nhat Hanh provides a number of exercises that help the student of meditation begin the process of focusing and concentrating on the moment at hand. It is a book that will be especially of value to those who are just beginning to meditate, (which is where I find myself), though I expect that as with most things written by wise people, the experienced student of meditation will find much of value as well.
This is not a book about Buddhism. It draws very heavily on the path to enlightenment that the Buddha taught as his fourth Noble Truth, but this book is first and foremost about mindful living. In that sense, it is completely accessible to the Christian, Jewish, agnostic or anyone else who recognizes the power of meditation in acheiving a degree of personal enlightenment. Thich Nhat Hanh has written extensively on the relationship between the principles taught by the Buddha and Jesus, and he is ever mindful of the needs of his Christian/Western audience as well as that of his Buddhist audience. Regardless of your religious orientation, you will find this little book to be an effective guide to living mindfully, completely and with joy.The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation Overview

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Understanding the Mind: The Nature and Power of the Mind Review

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Understanding the Mind: The Nature and Power of the Mind ReviewThis is a book for those unafraid to look into their minds, those who seek to know what is unknowable for most people. If it isn't unknowable then it is surely never contemplated. The"mind" is shown for what it is with such clarity. Not a single nuance is overlooked...Western psychology is light years behind as it heals the splits, soothes the rips and mends the tears of existence. One sees everything one is, was and can be in the text of this compact "Wisdom" teaching.
Tremendous insight and understanding of the mind, our thoughts and how they produce the world we experience. Tedious for those who won't explore their minds and enlightening for those who will!Understanding the Mind: The Nature and Power of the Mind Overview

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