Final comment

I've been reading Living As A River for a while, and I finish it on New Year's Day. I started it on a camping trip, I've read it on retreat, and through various times in my life. It's a deep and relentless book that pounds away at important Buddha-Dharma points.

I find it refreshing that elements of parenting were seen as a spiritual opportunity and not just a hindrance to the spiritual life. Perhaps we are truly building a "neither monastic nor lay" movement.

As he writes about developing a vision as one of the ways we develop spiritually, I suddenly had the feeling that I needed to do a puja. For me the TBC Sevenfold Puja is my mission statement (Which can be found on this page). It's derived from Santideva's Bodhicaryavatāra, a great Mahayana text.

So I vote for this book as the best book of 2010, as 2011 starts and I have a renewed sense of purpose, as I reflect on my life on New Year's Day. May you all be happy, may you all be well.

Living As A River

I found a link to Bodhipaksa's original essay on the 6 elements in Tricycle.

He's getting amazing reviews on Amazon. "Bodhpaksa's book is literally the most amazing thing I have ever read, period - and I'm a well read guy, I've studied Carl Jung's writings, dozens of books on spirituality and volumes on Cosmology and Astronomy. I can honestly write tha...t I have never read anything that left me with such a sense of clarity..."

I have to agree. I've stalled a little bit on the chapters I've already read, but I'm voting it for book of the year.

I'm going to have to go on line and update his entry on Wikipedia, there are some inaccuracies. It could use a photo too.

Living As A River.

So I want to bang out a wonderful review of this book, but I'm finding that it's so rich that I like to linger over it. So many interesting tidbits, food for thought. It's the kind of book I read after meditation, camping or on retreat. I have to be ready for it.

(I once had to read a book 3 times to review it.)

I wonder at why the 6 element practice is so challenging for me, I freaked out once when I was doing it a lot, after a profound meditative experience of it on retreat. In the TBC it's mostly used up in the run to joining the order, but it's also taught early so you are familiar with it, and just because you can get close to your experience in any meditation and this is just another one. Anyway, I keep asking myself why is tearing the self apart so threatening?

But the book is more intellectual, so it's not really a meditation book, in a way. I think it has larger appeal, and it really is opening up my ideas about the self.

You can listen to Bodhipaksa on Free Buddhist Audio.

teaching on not-self

Reading Living As River

I've always been very interested in the question that intersect with Buddhism and Psychoanalysis. The question of no-self, is often confusing when you translate it into modern parlance. Everything about our present times says we need to develop a positive sense. Reading Living As A River, I have been thinking more on this.

There is a phrase, "you have to be somebody before you dismantle the self." So that brings up the question--do you need to create a positive sense of self, and then dismantle the self, or can you just go straight to dismantling? Which would be best in the psychotherapy situation?

Perhaps it's not even a question. A therapist will just ask questions and then, the patient will choose their course. On the one hand I do have values as therapist, but I do value self autonomy, and the patient choosing their course. Values: curiosity, hope, kindness, courage, sense of purpose, emotional balance, bearning loss, integrity and emotional use of theory is Buechler's list.



So, when I wrestle with this question, I really want my patient to wrestle with it, though we're always sharing the journey, and I can think about it too.

Is there a difference is letting go of a negative sense of self, and developing a positive one. Also developing a provisional positive sense of self is allowed. Bodhipaksa is good at clearly defining what sense of self he's against. It's a permanent one, not a provisional one.

I've been asking myself why is it so hard and scary to dismantle myself? I find it very threatening. I've freaked out in the past doing this meditation practice, and I think I need a bigger well of positivity to buffer me through the fearful times. I think it is a misunderstanding on my part. This book is great at clarifying. This is the perfect book for me right now in my spiritual development.

I would also note, that reading his section on the 3 fetters, he's streamlined it for his purposes in this book. I've heard a few talks on this from him and others, and they are a special list for me. You can tell that he's battened the hatches, as he's heading for a destination. He's sensitive to his writing purpose. I think Bodhipaksa's a really good writer. And yet each paragraph sends me off into a reverie of thoughts and feelings. This is a book for lingering and rereading.

I saw on one of his tweets that he hasn't read The Power of Mindful Learning. I read this book a while ago, and all I remember is that you look to notice changes. In a way the change blindness suggests that we forget to look for changes. I like to look for changes in people, I don't treat them as static.

living as a river

Triratna Buddhist Community News: Living as a River - new book by Bodhipaksa

I started reading this intense book this weekend. It is very well written and spiritually deep with a synthesis of the Buddha's teachings and modern research. An amazing work, which sends me off into reverie every paragraph.

Living As A River

I'm psyched, I just got Living As A River in the mail.