by Ethan Nichtern ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2015
Not to be confused with Jim Harrison’s book of the same name, the product of another bodhisattva, though both are steeped in...
“The pond never stops rippling.” Buddhist teacher Nichtern (One City: A Declaration of Interdependence, 2007) offers a wise, humane, and deeply sympathetic introduction to the practice of Buddhism.
The pond never stops rippling indeed, which means that each of us must be mindful of the stones we throw into it. As the author writes elsewhere in his vade mecum, karma may not quite work as the popular conception has it, but what we get out of life certainly depends on what we put into it. Karma hinges on the acceptance of responsibility for how things turn out, though without interpreting it as “a kind of spiritual libertarianism, a way to praise the privileged and blame the oppressed.” (Take that, Ayn Rand!) Embracing the celebratory, friendly spirit of Thich Nhat Hanh rather than the austere solemnity of Robert Aitken, Nichtern examines the question of emptiness, which he insists is anything but nihilistic, and detachment, which is anything but uncaring, as well as the hows and whys of meditation and self-cultivation (“no fast food in this garden”). He also looks at such things as whether Buddhism is a religion, his finding that it is essentially humanistic being a matter of dispute among the many schools of thought that make it up, and at the problem of being mindful in an age of continuous partial attention. Longtime practitioners may find Nichtern’s approach a touch simplistic, but those wondering what Buddhism is all about will find plenty to think about in these pages, which make for a gentle and user-friendly invitation to explore further—understanding, of course, that there are many flavors of Buddhism, some of which would reject the author’s interpretations out of hand, others of which would embrace them wholeheartedly.
Not to be confused with Jim Harrison’s book of the same name, the product of another bodhisattva, though both are steeped in the same spirit. Thoughtful and helpful alike.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-374-25193-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: North Point/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
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by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
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
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by Albert Camus ; translated by Justin O'Brien & Sandra Smith
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by Albert Camus ; translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy & Justin O'Brien
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by Albert Camus translated by Arthur Goldhammer edited by Alice Kaplan
by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
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
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