Customer Reviews

Being a Buddha on Broadway

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The Universal Source has blessed the author of this engagingly written and benevolent book. In the first chapter, Bert Salzman describes how, ever since his epiphany as an eight-year old in a Jewish orphanage, he has been given access to an ineffable golden light. I experienced something similar during a traumatic infancy, and also can identify with how he zeroed in on Zen Buddhism as an art student (we must have bumped elbows browsing the same bookshelves in Manhattan). A successful twenty-two-year career in film production resulted in an Oscar - and in enough wisdom to retire early to a French village. There, with his partner Jeannie, he devoted ten years to developing the attention exercises that he shares in the second half of this book.
Salzman has no axes to sharpen other than the reader's nose, which he holds firmly to that grindstone phrase, "Who Am I," but with the warning that you should not allow your mind to attempt to answer, but remain still in an expectant silence for whatever may come. The "Locate - Be Still Procedure" teaches the reader to widen their gaze to something the author calls "Open Attention." Other exercises allow you to hone your practice to 'Watching the Watcher.' 'Slowing Down' and 'Silent Listening, Silent Speech.'
As an inveterate underliner, I marked the following passages:
"I could never look at those trees again and think of them as just trees. In "unnaming" them and myself, I had been freed! They rushed fully alive into my void-like consciousness."
"The human mind, I suddenly realized, is the mirror in which life can reflect upon itself. At that moment I saw that the entire purpose of human existence is to facilitate the awakening of life to itself as eternal consciousness."
"When the inquiry 'Who am I?' takes place, and the mind is asked not to provide an answer - yet attention is held on the question - the source of this attention responds by removing the limited boundary of thought and reveals our unlimited and boundless nature."
"The journey is never really complete, for our lives represent only tiny movements in the ever-expanding flow of consciousness."'

Anyone who has ever expanded their consciousness via traditional methods will find the regimen that this book offers rewarding. For those just beginning the journey to their deeper selves, Salzman offers smooth traveling and easy access. Try his exercises! You'll like them!

Bert Salzman's BEING A BUDDHA ON BROADWAY will obviously appeal to people already embarked on spiritual journeys. But I'm not one of them. I consider myself a highly UNspiritual person. And yet I love this book.

I love BEING A BUDDHA ON BROADWAY for its stories. Bert is an Academy Award-winning director; he knows how to tell a tale, whether set in a New York orphanage or a Korean battlefield.

I love the book for its humor and wise sayings. I'm a collector of aphorisms.

I love the book for its creative structure. Bert blends memoir, interviews, and how-to-do-it exercises in a way that's absolutely engaging and useful. I'd say that the practices are even fun, but maybe that's the wrong word for describing meditation.

I love the book for the entertaining way it presents the really difficult of subject of understanding who we are and why we are. I've been in education my whole adult life, and Bert is flat out the best teacher I've encountered.

Most of all, I love Bert's book because it has made me less skeptical about the possibility of achieving a calm mind. I'm still far from calm, but I'm a bit closer.

This book of Bert Salzman has three parts. First, there is a touching spirtual memoir describing how a liberating childhood experience set the tone for understanding life events as well as evaluating meditational methods through many years. If you have ever had such a liberating experience or contemplated or attempted any spiritual path, this memoir will probably strike you as somehow familiar. Second, there is an explanation of the workings of what Salzman calls the gross and subtle minds and their actions. If you are familiar with spiritual writings you will probably see correspondences with other explanations, but if you are not, it doesn't matter. Those explanations are really to provide a little working terminology for the third part of the book in which Salzman lays out a set of exercises. If you do the execises you will learn through direct experience the nature of attention and awareness and what is required to bring them forth when you wish. The presentation of the exercises is so straightforward and practical that the only way you can fail is not doing them. So if you're interested in your liberation through the cultivation of attention, this book is a deal!

This book can really make a difference in your life. We all get caught up in the "drama" of living and at times don't know how to work through the stress and strain of everyday problems. Salzman's story is inspiring and his words, from the dialogues, aphorisms and exercises, went straight to my heart. For people interested in meditation and inner peace, this book is for you. I highly recommend it to anyone who longs to break free from the emotional roller coaster of life, and who wants to live in peace, complete freedom and joy.

This is just a wonderful book, a moving biography of so-called worldly success and then figuring out what is truly real in one's life. I especially loved the questions and answers since there were a number of questions I would have asked myself. The excerises are both practical and transforming. This is a book not to be missed!

Being A Buddha On Broadway: Access The Power Of Your Naturally Peaceful Mind is a self-help guide by Academy Award winning director Bertram W. Salzman. Written especially to help others achieve the peace of a subtle mind that Salzman achieved through spiritual awakening, Being A Buddha On Broadway offers dialogues, pointers, and a series of Attention Exercises to condition one's thoughts to screen out noise on the path to peace. A simple, easy-to-follow and moving instructional that promotes calm, well-being, and focus.