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THE FRUITFUL DARKNESS

RECONNECTING WITH THE BODY OF THE EARTH

Radical ecospiritual memoirs and meditations from a globe- trotting seeker of truth. Halifax (Shamanic Voices, 1991, etc.—not reviewed) boasts impressive New Age credentials: ex-wife of psychologist Stansilav Grof; former assistant to Joseph Campbell; creator of California's spiritually experimental Ojai Foundation; student of assorted shamans and of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh (who offers a grateful introduction). During her decades of world travel—her memories here range from circumambulating a sacred Tibetan mountain to eating peyote in Mexico's Huichol Sierras—Halifax has evolved a worldview that rejects what she calls Western society's ``dualistic'' perspective in favor of one that perceives ``a self coextensive with all phenomena.'' Simply ``by being born,'' Halifax contends, we share ``the World Wound''—a state of universal suffering—that we can escape through several paths, or ``Ways'': the Way of ``Traditions''; of ``the Mountain''; of ``Language''; of ``Story''; of ``Nonduality''; of ``Protectors''; of ``Ancestors,'' and of ``Compassion.'' Each Way involves a return to ``the fruitful darkness''—the shadow side of things, found in the root truths of Native religions, in the fecundity of nature, and in the stillness of meditation. Halifax writes of these paths, and of how she's walked them, in loamy, para-poetic prose: ``Mountain's realization comes through the details of breath. Mountain appears in each step. Mountain then lives inside our bones, inside our heartdrum.'' While declarations such as these, examined in reason's cool light, can seem opaque, even wooly-headed, they gather real force as they roll over pages, ultimately offering a warm and potent testament to the author's beliefs and to a life lived vigorously for the sake of the spirit. Not for those enamored of logic and common sense. But those who wish to ``hear,'' as Halifax puts it, the ``language of the river, rock, and wind,'' will find much to listen to.

Pub Date: April 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-06-250369-3

Page Count: 256

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993

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THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

AND OTHER ESSAYS

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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THE ART OF SOLITUDE

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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