Customer Reviews

Awake in the Heartland: The Ecstasy of What Is

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Some years ago I also stopped reading spiritual books, as the author of this book says she has done. I got tired of reading about the finger pointing and wanted to step back and live it, not read it. Or as Jack Kornfield says someplace -- if you get the message, hang-up the phone. Well, I am happy that I read this book. It describes nothing other than what IS, what is available to everyone, right here, right now. Nothing special. Quite exceptional to read about enlightment written with such clarity, honesty, and humor. "You are it. Everything is it. There is nothing else. Wake up to the Holy Reality. Pull back the curtain and see your own face everywhere. Dance until you dissolve. This awakening is absolutely simple. There is literally nothing to it. It is what is, just as it is" to quote from the book.

If your spirit is excited by Advaita/Zen philosophy and living in a way that reflects that immediate understanding, then this book is pretty much all you will need for "your" journey. I have struggled with "understanding" advaita philosophy for many years. I "wanted" advaita/zen to have some significant impact on how I lived my life. I sought tangible answers, big experiences...but this book put in all in perfect perspective. Reading it is truly and utterly liberating experience. No other book is so radiantly clear on a subject that cannot be put into words (thought) Reading Awake in the Heartland was like reading my own inner sense of this moment to moment experience of life.

I have no idea how to express my feelings about this book.
It's very clear that words, however carefully strung together,
will not come close to capturing how profoundly this book has
effected me. But since words are all I have......

From where I sit typing this, I can see my bookshelf.... filled
with at least a hundred books. All of them what you would
consider "spiritual/non-dual/advaitic" (whatever term you want
to use). Some of them are written by the most well-known
and popular "sages/teachers" of all time and some are great
books written by people you've probably never heard of. But
not one of them comes close to Awake In The Heartland as
far as the impact it's had on my life.

This is quite simply the most amazing book I've ever read. On
the "everyday regular book" level, it is very very good. It is
extremely well written...... beautifully poetic in places. And it
is interesting and enjoyable to read the autobiographical portions...to realize that the author has gone through many of the same things we all have. She's dealt with severe adversity, she's had "good" and "bad" times, she's gone on a "spiritual search", etc. But this is NOT a "typical" book in any sense of the word. The author would probably say that EVERYTHING is "typical" and there is nothing "special" or "above" or "different" about this book. But this book functions at an entirely different "level" than any I've ever read.

That other "level" is the one that transcends the mind and everything you think you are. Continually throughout this book, the author will take a concept or idea and deftly and lucidly point out reasons why it could be "true". While reading it my mind would GRASP at that concept....."Oh.....okay...now I've got it, now I understand..... that's the way things are.... that is the Truth." But THEN..... in the next page or two the author will take a SEEMINGLY OPPOSITE perspective on the very same concept and just as deftly and lucidly point out how THAT may be "true". And my mind would then grasp THAT perspective and think that once again it had found the Truth. The effect of that, after the author had done it a few times with various subjects... is that my mind SPUN and had nowhere to "land". It was "frustrating" and "freeing" at the very same time. She does
this with the most profound issues the human race has ever faced
(and the most mundane too for that matter). Free Will, Addiction,
Pleasure, Grief, Death, Spirituality, Love, Teaching, etc. etc. etc. The result is that this book ends up being one incredibly powerful Zen Koan. Like this............

The following sentence is true.

The previous sentence is false.

If you are like me, in reading that, there was a moment, probably
just a split second, when your mind could make no sense of it
and "rolled over" and STOPPED. Well, all I can say in closing is
that..... THIS ENTIRE BOOK IS LIKE THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is why I say it's not a "regular" book. Reading it is an EXPERIENCE.

If you want a good novel........ buy something else. If you want
an autobiography...... there are plenty of good ones out there.
If you want a self-help book........look elsewhere. But if you want to stop dreaming and actually experience Reality (and if you think you know what Reality is..... you are wrong..... the second you try to conceptualize it, you've already strayed from it), then get Awake In The Heartland. I'm not sure that my encouraging you to get it will change anything..... maybe "you" aren't in control and have no choice in the matter. But maybe you do.
Who knows? I certainly don't.

I keep thinking i've written my last review and then something great like this comes along and i tap away again. This book is a really great rare honest funny story. It also brilliantly keeps pointing to the perfection we already are but refuse to see. For us "nondualist seekers" this is another one we need to read and contemplate and be reminded that life is as it is, perfect, free, here, now. This book is very well worth a few bucks and a few hours. enjoy!

If you've been suffering through Zen sesshins or other rigorous meditation retreats, or chasing "enlightenment" on the satsang circuit--as I was--then this may be just the book you need to set you free. This is one of those rare spiritual books that doesn't compromise or sell out the truth. It keeps bringing you back to here and now, and keeps demolishing all your ideas about how things "should" be. As it says on the back cover, this is a book about discovering perfection in imperfection and the extraordinary in the ordinary. I found it truly liberating and refreshingly unpretentious. It is beautifully written--prose like poetry--exquisite! I loved the author's honesty and sense of humor. This is a book I will read again and again, and one I highly recommend to anyone who is ready to give up the search.

In reading the other reviews I think all has been said about this book. Joan Tollifson's honesty is a help to those of us who need concrete examples instead of abstract theory. A book to be read and reread. A keeper.

This gutsy and moving book has the power to alter one's whole attitude toward life problems such as addiction. Tollifson candidly tells of her successes and failures in a way that helps the reader draw immediate practical conclusions for her own life. Tollifson also calls into question the whole spiritual quest industry -- in which she has been a dedicated consumer and producer -- and invites the reader to become aware of the fundamental reality of simply being, "in the ordinariness and imperfection of ... daily life."

I've read a lot of spiritual books and met a lot of teachers over the last two decades, and this book is by far the very best. It stopped me in my tracks and woke me up to the miracle of here and now, apparent imperfections and all. The author's personal story is beautifully interwoven with the teachings in a way that brings it all down to earth and makes it completely accessible. I loved Joan Tollifson's previous book, Bare-Bones Meditation, and this one is even better. This book is honest, funny, wise, beautiful, radical, touching, and true. This is bottom line Advaita-Zen-Taoist wisdom without any of the dogmas and doctrines. It invites curiosity and open presence with what is right now, rather than beliefs and security blankets and future hopes. I recommend it highly.
---a reader in the USA.

I found this book a real shock actually..that someone could do "serious" zen practice for so many years and yet be caught up so easily in the glamour of shakti-induced hysteria, run about from teacher to teacher and then back to zen practice, without all of this seeming to make a huge impact on her understanding of some basic issues (i.e. asking the very critical question..."who is doing all of this and why?")...and then to publish a book about it and call it "awake" (in the heartland or anywhere else). OK, that's not anything new, plenty of folks from the 70s have gone through the same trip, in and out of the spiritual supermarket, semi-digesting teachings from various traditions. Trungpa was already talking about "Spiritual Materialism" way back when. But what I found disturbing about this book was the fact that Tollifson found it ok to be teaching others during this period of imbalance and confusion. At the end of the book, I did not have the feeling that she had found any kind of deeper truth. Better, maybe, to go directly to the sources...Ramana, Suzuki Roshi, Nisargadatta, Ani Tendzin and others.

This is the most helpful spiritual book I've ever read. I can't think of any book which shows so clearly that awakening is available now, and it's not an abstract, distant goal.

Joan writes very openly and candidly about her spiritual journey, including her anger, doubts and addictions, and the gradual process of giving up the spiritual search and accepting what is. She doesn't write about amazing experiences of awakening after which everything is changed forever, but instead she writes about awakening in a way which makes it seem very accessible and not far away. Joan's personal experiences are interwoven with clear, lucid writing about awareness, meditation, advaita, etc., plus exquisite descriptions of nature. Every page is a joy to read and re-read. This book is highly recommended for anyone who is really interested in awakening.