a. Quantum theory: a very short introduction (John Polkinghorne) ⇒
b. Flow (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) ⇒
c. The places that scare you (Pema Chödrön) ⇒
all started, finished, wanting notes. All burrowing into my brain in different ways. I finished Pema’s last night in a few hours, lucky with knowledge. No essays today, sorry; not firing on all cylinders. And that’s okay.
Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective (Mark Epstein) ⇒
Very different to the first time I read it, several years ago. Still mid-book at the moment, so things might change.
This was the book - or at least, I’d thought it was - which introduced me to Buddhist conceptions of mind, and exactly what anatta (no-self) means. The whole, coherent complex of no-self, dukkha (suffering/unsatisfactoriness), attachment, and non-duality latched at once to the base of my mind, and bloomed inexorably.
There are definitely examples of these, which might’ve helped illuminate the concepts so that they could grow so readily when I read this, but I’m finding it certainly not a primer for that. It’s based, as the title says, in psychotherapy, applying Buddhist thought to that.
This means: lots of Freud. Lots of case studies. Lots of orthodoxie cachée: automatic deference to psychotherapeutic theory feels to me to be pervasive. And I find that troubling, given the problematic power structure inherent in that tradition.
There’s a lot of subtlety, though. I can feel that while my political hackles are raising at yet another story of insight through ten years of psychoanalysis, each of these stories does still bring a good bundle of practical Buddhist and psychological tools and knowledge, for the reader to work on themselves, if they so choose.
In that respect, the book feels like a work in progress. Which, actually, is very Buddhist in spirit, fundamentally. It’s a good thing to chew on.
Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings - that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide. (a fair, loose translation of the Kalamasutta, apt as anything here)
__________
edit, June 2011: I’ve just run into a note of my initial impressions, from 2005: ‘full of third-hand insights repackaged with fattening narrative’. Curious!
Whether you’re reading one book or five—or just the back of your cereal box—FridayReads wants to know.
Living Yogācāra (Tagawa Shun’ei, tr. Charles Muller) ⇒
A version of basic Buddhist theories on consciousness, in brief.
“… Tagawa Shun’ei makes sense of [Yogacara’s] seeming unwieldiness. He shows what the Yogacara masters are talking about are, in many cases, everyday experiences shared by all, and that the structures of consciousness that they articulated are things we all take for granted but for which we have no real explanation. Eloquent and approachable, Living Yogacara deepens the reader’s understanding of the development of Buddhism’s interpretation of the human psyche.” (Amazon blurb)
- & -
The Summer Book (Tove Jansson, tr. Thomas Teal) ⇒
Quiet, light, gentle. Practical and playful. Tove through and through, in fact. But only recommended if you like:
“If only she were a little bigger, Grandmother thought. Preferably a good deal bigger, so I could tell her that I understand how awful it is. Here you come, headlong into a tight little group of people who have always lived together, who have the habit of moving around each other on land they know and own and understand, and every threat to what they’re used to only makes them still more compact and self-assured. An island can be dreadful for someone from outside. Everything is complete, and everyone has his obstinate, sure and self-sufficient place. Within their shores, everything functions according to rituals that are as hard as rock from repetition, and at the same time they amble through their days as whimsically and casually as if the world ended at the horizon.”
