Book review I did several months ago.
This book is one of the most wonderful books I have read it has helped in so many areas of my life I cannot even begin to list all of them. If you love Buddhist ideas and philosophy and use them in your rituals and daily life you will enjoy this book.
The book is divided into 5 parts
1. Who are you really?
2. Mindfulness: The Great Medicine
3. Transforming the Roots of Suffering
4. Finding Freedom
5. Embodying the Wise Heart
In the first part of the book “Who are you really” he talks about the principles of Buddhist psychology and begins to breakdown in easy format the 26 principles.
1. See the inner nobility and beauty of all human beings.
I love this one and I have to say it is probably the hardest one for most people including myself to get past. He talks about spending time finding the good in your closet friends first then spreading out to acquaintances. The final step is being able to love your enemies.
2. Compassion is our deepest nature. It arises from our interconnection with all things.
This one is wonderful also. I love the concept of finding oneness with all nature and life. It also made me realize reading through and doing the meditations at the end of the chapter that I am to hard on myself as well and to love myself for all that I am.
3. When we shift attention from experience to the spacious consciousness that knows, wisdom arises.
He speaks about the 2 different forms of consciousness and awaking to the now and present time and realizing that there is a universal consciousness between all life and all of us are a part of it.
4. Recognize the mental states that fill consciousness shift from unhealthy states to healthy ones.
This section is fantastic for people who focus on the negative in life (Myself included) and shows you how to shift from the unhealthy/negative thoughts to the health/positive ones. Also he talks about how our emotions are not who we are and that the self behind the emotions is only experiencing these feelings.
He also adds a beautiful quote in this section that I found so much joy from reading.
“To study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.” – Zen Master Dogen
5. Our ideas of self are created by identification. The less we cling to ideas of self, the freer and happier we will be.
In this section he talks about the stages of development of self and the roles and images we create for ourselves throughout life. He talks about how these roles and images we have of who we are is not who we are….he puts a really cool quote in this section that I find scientifically fascinating and wish to learn more about this topic.
“After more than a century of looking for it, brain researchers have long since concluded that there is no conceivable place for a self to be located in the physical brain, and that it simply does not exist.” Time Magazine 2002
6. Our life has universal and personal nature. Both dimensions must be respected if we are to be happy and free.
In this section he talks about universal consciousness and personal consciousness and how we are living in both and we must acknowledge and learn to work with both.
Part 1 “Who are you really?” Is just the tip of what you can learn from this wonderful book. I recommended this book to all people who wish to find inner peace and higher purpose for their lives through meditating on self and high power.
I will go on below and list the rest of the 26 principles because they are so wonderful and useful within themselves. Happy reading!!
Part 2 – Mindfulness: The Great Medicine
7. Mindful attention to any experience is liberating. Mindfulness brings perspective, balance and freedom.
8. Mindfulness of the body allows us to live fully. It brings healing, wisdom and freedom.
9. Wisdom knows what feelings are present without being lost in them.
10. Thoughts are often one-sided and untrue. Learn to be mindful of thought instead of being lost in it.
11. There is a personal and a universal unconscious. Turning awareness to the unconscious brings understanding and freedom.
Part III – Transforming the Roots of Suffering
12. The unhealthy patterns of our personality can be recognized and transformed into healthy expressions of our natural temperament.
13. There are both healthy desires and unhealthy desires. Know the difference. Then find freedom in their midst.
14. If we cling to anger or hatred, we will suffer. It is possible to respond strongly, wisely and compassionately without hatred.
15. Delusion misunderstands the world and forgets who we are. Delusion gives rise to all unhealthy states. Free yourself from delusion and see with wisdom.
Part IV - Finding Freedom
16. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is not. Suffering arises from grasping. Release grasping and be free from suffering.
17. Be mindful of intention. Intention is the seed that creates our future.
18. What we repeatedly visualize changes our body and consciousness. Visualize freedom and compassion.
19. What we repeatedly think shapes our world. Out of compassion, substitute healthy thoughts for unhealthy ones.
20. The power of concentration can be developed through inner training. Concentration opens consciousness to profound dimensions of healing and understanding.
Part V – Embodying the Wise Heart
21. Virtue and integrity are necessary for genuine happiness. Guard your integrity with care.
22. Forgiveness is both necessary and possible. It is never to late to find forgiveness and start again.
23. There is no separation between inner and outer self and other. Tending ourselves, we tend the world. Tending the world we then ourselves.
24. The middle way is found between all opposites. Rest in the middle and find well-being wherever you are.
25. Release opinions, free yourself from views. Be open to mystery.
26. A peaceful heart gives birth to love. When love meets suffering it turns to compassion. When love meets happiness, it turns to joy.
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