A smart, eminently readable Buddhist guide to achieving an inner awakening, an inward victory that “looks like surrender.”
A manual offers advice on anxiety-free living, filtered through a Buddhist perspective.
Drawing broadly on classical Buddhist tenets, the latest book from Hunter (You Are Buddha, 2014) seeks to encourage readers to breathe deeply and take stock of their lives. It does this by distilling traditional Tibetan Buddhist thinking into four “reminders”: first, that every person is a “spark of divine consciousness”; second, that an individual is mortal and will soon die; third, that humans are the architects of their own realities; and fourth, that a sense of fulfillment ultimately comes only from within. In underscoring these reminders by advocating that his readers empty their minds of negative emotions, Hunter is completely unhindered by the fact that one of his dictums is controversial (are people really the sparks of some larger “divine consciousness”?) and another is wrong (humans are not the architects of their own realities; huge amounts are determined by elements entirely outside of their control). He concentrates his eloquence and enthusiasm throughout this book—which is engaging and knowledgeable enough to serve as a general introduction to the modern Western versions of Tibetan Buddhism—on two of his four reminders: the belief that all people are mortal and that their attitudes toward the world are largely their own to forge. “The human body needs constant protection and support in order to avoid being snuffed out by a hostile world,” Hunter writes. But the human mind is shaped internally as well, and those factors can be vital in determining the course of a life. “The reason karma is so infallible,” Hunter insightfully reminds his readers, “is because there’s no way to escape or hide from your own mind.” Rather, a healthy emphasis should be placed on improving karma by enhancing the mind, and this lucid book is full of hard-won and well-phrased pointers on how even the most stressed-out readers can start to bring that about in their own lives.
A smart, eminently readable Buddhist guide to achieving an inner awakening, an inward victory that “looks like surrender.”Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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