Awakening the Buddhist Heart: Integrating Love, Meaning, and Connection into Every Part of Your Life [Paperback]

Lama Surya Das (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 11, 2001

Surya Das illustrates how to develop authentic presence, how to connect to our own life experience, build deeper relationships, embrace life's lessons, as well as learn how to love what we don't like.

Everyone needs to feel connected, to love and feel loved, to reach out to others and communicate in order to overcome alienation, loneliness, and a feeling of being disconnected. In AWAKENING THE BUDDHIST HEART Surya Das shows you how to reach inward and outward.

By developing spiritual intelligence, a sense of compassion that helps us be more sensitive, more aware of our own feelings and the feelings of those around us, we become more intuitive; we relate better and love better. Cultivating spiritual intelligence and learning how to connect will improve our capacity for intimacy, making us better mates, friends, parents, and coworkers; it helps all of us to become more giving and brings us fulfillment, meaning, and love. With tremendous insight he explores specific ways in which we can more fruitfully relate to our own experiences as well as each other in today's fast-paced, complicated, and often confusing world.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Surya Das's breezy delivery makes his teachings come off like colorful conversation. In the third installment of his bestselling "Awakening" series, America's most popular lama shows us how to integrate inner and outer practices. Our inner spirituality, he says, can never be separate from our relationships with others. With his trademark clarity, he integrates his teachings with light- hearted anecdotes and down-to-earth practices. Basic meditation, for instance, can help us create a gap between our knee-jerk judgments and our reactions, allowing for calm, wise relations. Likewise, one can try authentic listening ("opening the third ear") or exploiting the power of speech to build deeper connections. And beyond human relations lies our connection to the natural world, for which Surya Das also includes a few lovely meditations. Taking that extra step in our practice from the self to the world requires more than just individual persistence, it takes compassion and teaches more than you'd expect. --Brian Bruya --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

The "Buddhist heart" that Surya Das refers to in his third book turns out to be a good heart. Blending intimate anecdotes with wisdom gleaned from his decades of study with traditional Tibetan Buddhist teachers, the American-born author seeks to help readers to awaken this heart so that their everyday relationships may become a way to experience the meaningful interconnectedness and sacrednessness of life. Surya Das wishes to cut to the essence of Buddhist wisdom, while bolstering a general readership with a dawn-of-a-new-era pep talk: "As we enter a new century and a new millennium... it seems increasingly important to awaken our Buddha-like hearts through spiritual connections." Unlike in his first two booksAAwakening the Buddha, an explication of Tibetan Buddhism, and Awakening the Sacred, an attempt to describe spiritual values in nonsectarian termsAhere Surya Das initially seems to be trying to be all things to all people, and the advice he offers can feel flimsy or vague. He counsels readers to cultivate a more authentic presence, for example, by learning to be natural, simple and open. The disarming honesty of the many personal accounts he presents puts a friendly human face on an ancient tradition, yet the work as a whole lacks power and coherence. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; First Printing edition (December 11, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767902777
• ISBN-13: 978-0767902779
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #619,623 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lama Surya Das is one of the foremost Western Buddhist meditation teachers and scholars, one of the main interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, and a leading spokesperson for the emerging American Buddhism. The Dalai Lama affectionately calls him "the Western Lama."

Surya has spent nearly forty years studying Zen, vipassana, yoga, and Tibetan Buddhism with the great masters of Asia. He is an authorized lama (priest and spiritual master teacher) in the Nyingmapa School of Tibetan Buddhism as well as the founder of the Dzogchen Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and its affiliated branches. He is the founder of the Western Buddhist Teachers Network annual conferences with the Dalai Lama.

As a best selling author, sought after speaker, teacher, and lecturer, he conducts retreats and workshops around the world. Surya is also a published poet, translator, and chant master. He has been featured in numerous publications and major media, including ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The Boston Globe, Boston Herald, New York Post, Long Island Newsday, Long Island Business Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, The Jewish Free Press, New Age Journal, Tricycle Magazine, Yoga Journal, and The Oregonian.

One segment of the ABC-TV sitcom Dharma & Greg was based on his life ("Leonard's Return"). Surya has appeared on Politically Correct with Bill Maher and on The Colbert Report.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars POWERFUL WORDS - ELOQUENTLY WRITTEN!, June 15, 2001

By 

Sandra D. Peters "Seagull Books" (Prince Edward Island, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Awakening the Buddhist Heart: Integrating Love, Meaning, and Connection into Every Part of Your Life (Hardcover)

I have been a follower of Buddhist philosophies for many years and during that time have read all the books of Lama Surya Das. Even if exploring the philosophies of Buddhism takes you into unknown territory, you will find his books easy to follow and understand because the author's concepts have been adapted for the Western World. If you are just beginning to read the books of Lama Surya Das, I would suggest starting with, "Awakening the Buddha Within" as it gives a very general overview of the fundamentals of Buddhism; however, all his books are excellent, leaving much food for thought.

In this book, the author helps the reader to understand the importance of integrating love, compassion and understanding into our personal relationships on a daily basis. The limits also go beyond to encompass the relationships we have with those in our community, our country and around the world. By awakening one's own Buddhist heart, one will find inner peace, contentment and happiness abound. The greatest gift we can share with the world is our love for humanity.

The beautiful meditations and amusing anecdotes the author lavishly uses in this third book of the "Awakening" series will immediately warm your heart and soul. The reader quickly realizes Lama Surya Das is a man with strengths and weaknesses like our own. He is humble, compassionate, kind, inspirational and enlightening, everything one would expect to find in a true "Bodhicitta." I highly recommend this beautiful and expressive book from a inspiring and insightful man.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the american version of buddhism, February 10, 2001

By 

James Altucher "James Altucher" (NYC, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Awakening the Buddhist Heart: Integrating Love, Meaning, and Connection into Every Part of Your Life (Hardcover)

Buddhism tends to layer itself on top of whatever culture it enters. Tibetan Buddhism makes use of many elements of the Tibetan Bon religion. Zen has elements from Taoism and Confucianism. So I was hunting for what the American version of buddhism would be like. Surya Das has a great ear for the subtleties of the 'American' religion and what elements Buddhism can enhance. Without being new-agey he mixes self-help style chapters with Buddhist exercises and philosophy to create an american manual on buddhism. This book for me was a great introduction to Buddhist philosophy and I was able to start practicing the exercises and getting results in my life almost immediately.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fine Heartfelt Book, December 16, 2004

By 

Neal J. Pollock (VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Awakening the Buddhist Heart: Integrating Love, Meaning, and Connection into Every Part of Your Life (Paperback)

This is a very fine book on Buddhism in general and Tibetan Vajrayana in specific. I did like his prior "Awakening the Buddha Within" a bit better (I gave it 5 stars). For me, 4 stars is pretty darn good! This sequel is well worth reading. I think that if you are a Myers-Briggs F-type (Feeler) you will especially enjoy it, but perhaps the T-types (Thinkers) might just get more balance from it. Surya Das has a very easy-going style but gets across lots of good instruction and some practical activities as well. He uses lots of personal anecdotes which make the book more accessible than many others that are available. If I were to recommend books to someone first exploring Buddhism or Vajrayana, his would be at the top of the list (followed by Pema Chodron's books). Of course, it's lots easier to attune with a Western Buddhist master who shares more cultural assumptions and conceptions with you. Many Vajrayana books are laced with Tibetan mythology, psychology, medicine, etc. that are, frankly, alien to the Westerner. Surya Das' books have far less of this. My favorite quote from this book is: "No appointments, no disappointments...Unedit yourself...Become a spiritual astronaut." (page 173). Pretty modern view, no?