It’s a widely held view that the Buddha taught his followers to disdain wealth and worldly success, or at best tolerate them as necessary evils. Sunada reviews a book that shatters these misconceptions and repositions the lay life as one of dignity and happiness, and full of opportunities for personal growth.

Here’s a pop quiz for you: What famous spiritual teacher taught that the way to happiness is through … Click to read more »

Sara Jenkins was handed a dilemma in the form of two seemingly contradictory teachings: while on retreat, maintain silence and abstain from communication, and at the same time deepen your connections with others. Samayadevi reviews the book in which Jenkins explores the creative tension between those teachings and the vision of friendship that it gave birth to.

Sara Jenkins is a woman one would want to know, to have as a … Click to read more »

Avant-garde musician John Cage; Catholic mystic Thomas Merton; Beat writers Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac; psychotherapists Carl Jung and Erich Fromm; Zen teachers Robert Aitken and Philip Kapleau, philosophers Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger: 20th century giants all, and all have one thing in common — they were deeply influenced by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, a gentle scholar-practitioner from Japan.

This litany of names is merely suggestive of the massive impact that … Click to read more »

Collectively we’re spending longer and longer commuting: The average American takes around 30 minutes to get to work, and in large cities the drive can take much longer. In rural areas commuting can also eat up the miles and hours: I know two Buddhists in New England who each drive 1000 miles (1600km) per week.

Even without those extremes, commuting makes for a lot of time spent in cars, trains, buses, and … Click to read more »

How useful are books, really, in stimulating spiritual realization, when such realization must be grounded in experience? Paramananda takes a skeptical — yet appreciative — look at a new book attempting to pointing the way to non-duality.

It seems a little ironic that I find myself in two minds about Genoud’s book — ironic because this slim volume is all about “being” in one mind. It is not that I … Click to read more »

What is the Buddhist Path? Can we become spiritually awakened through meditation alone, or do we have to take a more rounded approach? If we’re already free, why do we need to follow a path anyway? Looking for answers, Tejananda, long-term Buddhist practitioner and meditation teacher, follows The Meditator’s Atlas on a spiritual road trip to purification.

The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga) is Buddhaghosa’s classic commentary on the way to full awakening. Buddhaghosa … Click to read more »

Parami reviews a new book highlighting that ethical living does not consist of following rules, but rather involves taking awareness into the moment before action so that we can choose how to respond creatively.

Waking Up to What You Do: A Zen Practice for Meeting Every Situation With Intelligence and Compassion, by Diane Eshin Rizzetto

“A precept can be thought of as a beacon of light, much like a lighthouse beacon … Click to read more »

When we think of a meditation class we generally think of a group of adults sitting quietly. But is it possible to make meditation accessible even to young children? Bodhipaksa has been taking lessons from Lisa Desmond’s book, Baby Buddhas, and finds that he’s learned, or perhaps relearned, a new language.

I taught my first meditation course almost 20 years ago now, and yet I’d feel at a loss teaching … Click to read more »

Ravenna Michalsen’s new CD of dharma-inspired songs is gutsy, powerful, and deeply devotional. Reviewer Sunada gives her ringing endorsement of this original and inspirational music.

From the very opening bars of Dharmasong, I was immediately captivated. The first track, “Ki Ki So So” begins with a gentle, rhythmic chant reminiscent of a trotting horse — it’s Ravenna’s multi-tracked voice creating a compelling percussion loop that becomes the backdrop for her soaring a cappella vocals that … Click to read more »

Zen and Christianity may have much to offer each other and to learn from each other. But is it possible to be both a Christian and a Zen Buddhist? Author Ruben Habito seems to think so. Reviewer Samayadevi is more skeptical.

Ruben L F Habito was for many years a Jesuit priest serving in Japan. He studied with both Father Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle, a spiritual pioneer in inter-religious dialog and with Koun Yamada, a … Click to read more »

Social worker, father, and dedicated meditator Steve Bell takes a look at the late Lama Thubten Yeshe’s legacy, and is spurred to go deeper into Dharma practice. The Lama would have approved.

I have the fantasy that there is a perfect book out there for my next spiritual step.

A book like The Bliss of Inner Fire by Lama Thubten Yeshe complicates things. It’s the kind of book … Click to read more »

As Dharma teachers go Ethan Nichtern is hot, or at least that’s the impression one gets from the number of his podcasts that people are downloading and the blurbs on the back of his new book One City: A Declaration of Interdependence.

The book attempts to express the fundamental truths of the Dharma using contemporary language and popular culture, and is aimed at a generation for whom iPods and … Click to read more »

In “Let Go” author and former Buddhist nun Martine Batchelor guides us through a wide range of circumstances where meditation can be helpful. The book begins by pointing out the ways we are limited by our patterns and habits. Its premise is that if we can break free of habits we will be able to live more creatively, responsively, and with the ability to choose which patterns of behavior we wish to … Click to read more »

Nyanasobhano, an American actor/playwright turned Theravadin Buddhist, writes essays and reflections on the Buddhist path that stand well apart from the general run of writing on Buddhism for their sheer literary quality. His first book, Landscapes of Wonder was a triumph of lyrical meditation and close observation of nature. Then came Longing for Certainty, and Available Truth is his third collection. Here he is, at the start of this book, displaying his gifts … Click to read more »

It’s an interesting thing when a book induces a sense of confusion and self-doubt. For the past couple of weeks this particular book, “ Minding What matters: Psychotherapy and the Buddha Within,” I have picked up and put down, picked up and put down.

No matter how I approached it I just found the style of writing and content too peculiar to engage my attention or interest. This resulted in … Click to read more »

What are the principle differences between Buddhist psychology and Western psychotherapy? Three answers come immediately to mind.

Firstly, Buddhist psychology is primarily concerned with the ethical status of our mental states rather than with identifying their causes in earlier life experiences.

Secondly, while Western psychotherapy aims to heal our inevitably damaged psyche of its mental and emotional turbulence, Buddhist psychology sees the mind as the original source of its own conflict … Click to read more »

There are some books on engaged Buddhism that tend to be rather polemical or academic in style. ‘Mindful Politics’ is not one of them. Its editor hopes that it will serve as a guide or a handbook for those who wish to draw on Buddhism to help make the world a better place. His hopes are well justified. It is an anthology that draws on the accumulated experience of much learning - rich … Click to read more »

Lin Jensen’s little book Pavement — Reflections on mercy, activism, and doing “nothing” for peace (Wisdom, March 2007) arrived in the mail a few weeks ago and has been by my bedside since, an almost-daily source of inspiration in the mornings before rising. Its 36 short chapters are an easy read, but squarely address a tough theme — how to respond as a Buddhist when you are a citizen of a … Click to read more »

Gerald Huther is head of neurobiological research at a psychiatric clinic in Germany, working to discover more about the effects of fear, stress, addiction and nutrition on the brain. This book is a by-product of that research.

For Huther the human brain is a densely networked structure that is open-ended in terms of its programmability. Unlike those found in many other forms of life – such as stickleback fish whose complicated mating rituals are … Click to read more »

According to the brief biography at the front of her book, Valerie Mason-John is a British journalist, author, Buddhist practitioner, and trainer in anger management and conflict resolution. Detox Your Heart is her own unusual story woven into a practical manual of advice for dealing with the negative emotions of anger, hatred, and fear. To write it, Ms. Mason-John has drawn upon her experiences with Buddhist meditation, the work of several Buddhist teachers … Click to read more »