Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life [Paperback]

Joan Tollifson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 24, 1996

Born with only one hand, Joan Tollifson grows up feeling different, finds identity as a bisexual lesbian and a disability rights activist, but also sinks into drug addiction and alcoholism. She embraces Zen Buddhism and then a very bare-bones spirituality that has no form. Bare-Bones Meditation reveals the inner process of the mind in a new way, and Tollifson's account is beautifully written--intense and from the heart.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An exquisitely honest book about an unconventional woman's search for truth in an age of doubt and anxiety--raucous, painful, and serene. I recommend it highly to every skeptic looking for companionship on his own rocky path--a wry voice of hard-earned wisdom to urgehim along the way."
--Mark Matousek, author of Sex Death Enlightenment

"I loved Joan's book. She's there on every page. Lively, ravishingly honest, funny, deeply serious, totally disarming. Her own foibles and obsessions are as transparently and tenderly rendered as her hard-won insights. She so precisely captures the ups and downs, the taste and texture of meditation practice, and the muddles we all get ourselves into. And the love."
--Lenore Friedman, author of Meetings with Remarkable Women

"Joan Tollifson gives us an unvarnished, exhilarating account of her struggle to make sense of her life. We can watch her muddy waters slowly settle into the 'right now, just as it is' understanding in which nothing is solved and nothing needs to be. Useful for all of us!"
-- Charlotte Joko Beck, author of Everyday Zen

"A wonderful piece of writing and meditation tetaching. Joan Tollifson moves decisively from self-preoccupation to self-knowing. She takes us with her, in writing that is simple, straightforward, and honest--at times excruciatingly so. The tenacity of certain stubborn forms of conditioning is treated brilliantly. Al who practice awareness must sooner or later face and see through such habit-energy.

This book also provides us with a rare and invaluable record of the teaching of Joan's remarkable teacher, Toni Packer. Joan shows us how she learns and tests these guidelines in the fire of her own life. It documents one person's courageous commitment to self discovery--to 'come-what-may' seeing. I was very moved.

I recommend this book to Zen, Vipassana, and nontraditional practitioners of mindfulness meditation. When the book ends, Joan Tollifson is in a strong and hard-earned position to take herself and all of us even deeper into the world of mind. She has the rest of her life to do that."
--Larry Rosenberg, Guiding Teacher, Cambridge Insight Meditation Center and Insight Meditation Society

From the Publisher

What so many people (including me) enjoy about this book is that its not by a teacher but by a student. Here's someone who experiences all the ups and downs we do and is not afraid to admit it, examine what's happening, and write her way out of it. When I read Joan's book, I find it hard to believe that it's her writing and not mine, she so precisely describes the difficulties and delights of meditation practice. She doesnt miss a beat.
--Toinette Lippe, editorial director of Bell Tower

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1st edition (September 24, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517887924
• ISBN-13: 978-0517887929
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #373,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Biographies & Memoirs > Lesbian

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stop the insanity!!!, October 19, 2001

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life (Paperback)

Yes, I know that line is taken, but its how I felt several times while reading this book.

Joan Tollifson's birth defect seems to have spun her off a downward path from which she turned away only after a great deal of suffering and no small amount of effort. Part of what she did to herself was to become a habitual in-your-face type of person and a compulsive joiner. These are qualities that by one-third of the way through the book I found made Joan a bit hard to take.

Once she manages to shake loose of her drinking problem and to move out of the orbit of groups which focused on her identity as that of one sort of victim or another I had a brief feeling that this was turning into a soft, warm, fuzzies type of book. No such luck, Joan continues to be a compulsive joiner - only this time she's a guru-chaser, one after the other, after the other and back again. There were times if she'd been in the room with me I would have given her a good shaking and probably screamed, "Stick with something, you ninny! Just stick with something for once."

It was at those moments that I most realized exactly how much this woman and I were alike. And her frenetic flitting from one "enlightenment" thing to another was embarrassingly familar.

So, I end up with a one-handed, lesbian, guru-chaser as a mirror. Could be worse.

I think, for me, this was lesson enough. By the end of the book I didn't have the idea that Joan Tollifson was ready to hand down any secret doctrine. In fact, that may just put this book leagues ahead of those that attempt to do so.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a window into the author's process, December 20, 2001

By 

Mark Henderson (Sammamish, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life (Paperback)

This book is a very intimate look at the author's process. Here she is, suffering like the rest of us, living on an emotional roller coaster, compelled by habitual behaviours, confused, and at the same time engaged in her practice.

She struggles. She learns not to struggle. Then she struggles again. Layers of confusion, resistance, and suffering drop away.

At times reading this book was painful. I can see so many aspects of the author in myself.

Almost everyone who is engaged in meditation practice should read this book. It is a very personal account, but at the same time it really is about all of us.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking Through a Stream, December 13, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life (Paperback)

Joan Tollifson writes with such directness she causes us to see. Taking us through the muddy waters of her early life--born without a hand, rejected and rebellious, she takes us through her coming out as a lesbian, her fierce love affairs and battles with alcohol and drugs, with being a victim. And yet the book is not about any of this. It could be any life struggle; the essence is seeing it clearly. And through the aid of several meditation leaders she finds her own ability to see and know. Her writing is a cup of tea thrown against our face. When we recover our breath it is easy and full, relaxed with her. Our vision penetrates to the bottom of the pool. At a time when "meditation" books are overflowing the market, this is one you'll want to take into your life.
-Larry Smit