A successful fusion of Western medical advice and Eastern spiritual guidance.
A manual that offers clearheaded advice on how to change negative routines.
Mandalapu (Replenish, 2013), a practicing neurologist in Austin, Texas, delivers a simple, informal regimen to help readers change destructive old habits and implement constructive new ones. His approach blends daily meditation, improved diet and strategies to help reduce worry. He stresses throughout that the ultimate responsibility for change comes down to the individual (“If you are not able to change the way you deal with daily habits; if you cannot change your pattern of behavior…then egoism may be the cause.”). He presents an odd cast of characters—Gandhi, Buddha, Darwin, Newton, Steve Jobs and others—as examples of people who changed the world by first changing themselves. In a refreshing difference from most self-help books, he looks at the central role of adversity, quoting Swami Vivekananda: “In a day when you do not come across any problems, you can be sure you are traveling the wrong path.” In a perhaps unsurprising move for a neurologist, he highlights the infinite capacity of the human mind to effect its own changes (“The immense joy and potential the trained mind can create is limitless.”). Mandalapu also discusses substance abuse and addictions—including caffeine, alcohol and tobacco—with the levelheaded dispassion of a physician. In every chapter, the author offers common-sense advice, such as exercising moderation in all things, refraining from smoking or drinking alcohol, and keeping up an active mental life by reading regularly. But Mandalapu’s main point is that all these good actions come together best through the practice of meditation; he cautions that learning to meditate effectively takes time, and “consistency is the key to success.” Although the observations here sometimes tend toward the banal—“Paucity and adversity are our teachers”—they nonetheless have an engaging, cumulative positive effect.
A successful fusion of Western medical advice and Eastern spiritual guidance.Pub Date: April 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-1475984118
Page Count: 200
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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