A unique rendering of Buddhist teachings.
Sanderson presents a creative translation of the Dhammapada.
Rather than offering yet another literal interpretation of the Sanskrit and Pali Dhammapada—possibly the earliest known teachings of Buddhism—this collection offers a version based on the author’s own meditations on the original text. The result is a highly personal volume whose stronger verses evoke the metaphors of the Tao Te Ching, as in “Repetitions”: “Rain floods through cracks in a broken roof; / Emotion floods an undisciplined mind. / Rain rolls off a well-built and maintained roof; / Emotion rolls off a disciplined mind.” Representations of death are steeped in fear and escape, rather than acceptance, in contrast to the original Dhammapada, as in “Thinking”: “The student’s mind, learning meditation / Shivers and twitches like a fish on dry land; / The fibers of our being fear Death’s snares, / Our frightened minds run in all directions.” Some interpretations are expressed though expletives, while others use imagery that isn’t often associated with Buddhism, as in “The Ruins”: “How can we find happiness when we know / Our bones will be tossed out like old pumpkins / After Halloween, buried like compost?” “The Mirror” embraces a present-day zeitgeist: “And people buying and selling fake news / Will choke on their own bullshit in the end.” The section on the Paths—also known as the Eightfold Way in Buddhism, and the Four Noble Truths that form the basis for Buddhist teachings—is perhaps the most instructive part of this experimental translation; it appears in “Stanza Twenty: The Octovia,” in which the author labels in italics parts of the original text (in English), which offers a truly tangible connection to the interpretations that follow: “Right Mindfulness is one of the eight paths. / Getting your head straight is something you do.” Overall, this is a highly interpretative rendering that’s perhaps best suited to students of Buddhism, rather than newcomers to the Dhammapada.
A unique rendering of Buddhist teachings.Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 9781952386268
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Sagging Meniscus Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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