Buddha's Nature: A Practical Guide to Discovering Your Place in the Cosmos [Paperback]

Wes Nisker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2000

The Buddha said that "everything we need to know about life can be found inside this fathom-long body." Then why is most people's spirituality--whether Buddhist, Christian, or Jewish--completely cut off from their body? In this provocative and groundbreaking book, you'll discover that enlightenment comes not from "out there," but from a deep understanding of our own personal biology. Using the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, a traditional Buddhist meditation, Nisker shows how cutting-edge science is proving the tenets first offered by the Buddha.

And he provides a practical program, complete with meditations and exercises, that enables readers to become mindful of the origins of emotions, desires, and thoughts. One of the great synthesizers of East and West, Nisker shows how to incorporate the traditional understanding of the Buddha with the latest scientific discoveries while on our spiritual journey. He shows that we are not separate from nature and the evolving universe. The way to enlightenment lies within our very biology.


Most important, Nisker offers a practical program--complete with meditations and exercises--so readers can take their own evolutionary journey into their bodies to find the origins of emotions, desires, and thoughts.  Nisker provides a liberating way for each of us to incorporate into our lives the understanding, proven by the latest scientific evidence and foretold in the great traditional teachings of the Buddha, that we are not separate from nature and the evolving universe.  Our biology is not our destiny, but our way to enlightenment. -->

Editorial Reviews

Review

"What The Tao of Physics did to connect east and west in the realm of physics, Buddha's Nature does brilliantly in the realm of biology and the mind. This is the new Tao of evolution."
--Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart

"This book will be welcomed as one of the best efforts yet to bring together meditators and scientists. It is an instrument for our greater joy and achievements."
--Thich Nhat Hanh, author of Peace Is Every Step

"A milestone in contemporary Buddhism...[Nisker] grounds the Buddha's teachings in discoveries made by the neural and evolutionary sciences. I dare you to find a book on science that is so personal, or a book on meditation that is so funny and forgiving."
--Joanna Macy, author of World As Lover, World As Self

From the Inside Flap

The Buddha said that "everything we need to know about life can be found inside this fathom-long body." Then why is most people's spirituality--whether Buddhist, Christian, or Jewish--completely cut off from their body? In this provocative and groundbreaking book, you'll discover that enlightenment comes not from "out there," but from a deep understanding of our own personal biology. Using the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, a traditional Buddhist meditation, Nisker shows how cutting-edge science is proving the tenets first offered by the Buddha.

And he provides a practical program, complete with meditations and exercises, that enables readers to become mindful of the origins of emotions, desires, and thoughts. One of the great synthesizers of East and West, Nisker shows how to incorporate the traditional understanding of the Buddha with the latest scientific discoveries while on our spiritual journey. He shows that we are not separate from nature and the evolving universe. The way to enlightenment lies within our very biology.


Most important, Nisker offers a practical program--complete with meditations and exercises--so readers can take their own evolutionary journey into their bodies to find the origins of emotions, desires, and thoughts.  Nisker provides a liberating way for each of us to incorporate into our lives the understanding, proven by the latest scientific evidence and foretold in the great traditional teachings of the Buddha, that we are not separate from nature and the evolving universe.  Our biology is not our destiny, but our way to enlightenment. -->

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; Reprint edition (February 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553379992
• ISBN-13: 978-0553379990
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #190,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buddhism, science and mindfulness, September 29, 2010

By 

Penguin Egg (London, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Buddha's Nature: A Practical Guide to Discovering Your Place in the Cosmos (Paperback)

Science has dealt a death blow to religion and has relegated the Abrahamic God to the status of mythical has-beens, like Odin or Zeus. However, one religion, if it can be called a religion, not only has been unaffected by the onward slog of science, but can accommodate it and, in the fields of neurology, evolutionary biology, and quantum physics, is strengthened by it. This book could just as easily have been subtitled: Why Buddhism is more relevant today than it has been in the last 2,500 years.

2,500 years ago, the Buddha asked a simple question: Why are we, as a species, so dissatisfied with our life? He realised that the answer was due to the attachment we put on things that are transitory, and that to find contentment, we need to break free from this attachment. He deduced that the method of doing this was a step-by-step guidance known as The Eightfold Way, which includes wisdom to see things as they are, ethical conduct to guide your life through to happiness, and meditation, the tool to gain complete control of your mind, without which you will never free yourself from attachment. An important element of meditation, along with concentration and commitment, is Mindfulness, which is what this book is about.

Mindfulness is about awareness of the now, about how things really are, about how delusion dominates every aspect of our thinking. The Buddha saw that Mindfulness required the recognition of the four foundations on which the mind rested: 1) the physical elements that make up the body; 2) the nervous system that creates awareness; 3) our emotional life that colours experiences; and 4) ideas, beliefs, concepts, and perceptions that colour the mind. Each of the four foundations has a chapter to itself and Wes Nisker brings modern day discoveries in science to support the Buddha's ideas. Modern day psychiatry has caught up with the Buddha's understanding of the mind. The quantum world of the atom confirms the Buddha's view of reality as being illusory and unstable. Evolutionary science has shown that the Brain, like everything else, has adapted to circumstances and the Buddha has shown how we can, with effort, adapt the brain for our own purposes.

Only by understanding the four foundations of the mind can we hope to control the mind. Without it, Mindfulness is impossible and without Mindfulness, meditation is also impossible.

This book is important in that it shows that the Buddha's wisdom far from being of its time is as relevant and true now as it was 2,500 years ago and will remain relevant and true as long as human beings remain human beings.

5.0 out of 5 stars The best experiential Western expression of core Buddhism i've found!, January 17, 2012

By 

R. Todd Cornell "Culturev" (US & China) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Buddha's Nature: A Practical Guide to Discovering Your Place in the Cosmos (Paperback)

The author is coming from a purely experiential angle of practicing Early Buddhism as practiced by the Buddha and taught in the Pali Canon.

This is by far the most profound and nitty-gritty expression of Buddhist practice that I have found from a Westerner. He uses everyday language and true-to-life explanations, devoid of the fluff and frills of religion, to explain concepts and practices that are far removed from the world of everyday dillusion. This book is for people who are serious about the true nature of life according to the Buddha, not the Dalai Lama, this or that Rimpoche or any other present or past star-studded "Buddhist" personality. If you really want to know what Buddhism is -- or isn't, by practicing what is in this book and making it a way of life, the practice taught in this book will open your eyes to a reality that few are so lucky to experience. Meditation is not easy, the practice takes time and will-power, but for those who have the will-power, you will be glad you stuck with it!

It is as difficult for one to have the opportunity to hear the truth as it is for a blind tortoise swimming in the sea to come across a piece of driftwood with a whole in it the size of his head and poke his head through the hole!

Only those whose hearts are ready will understand and heed the words in this book, which follows closely what the Buddha himself taught.

5.0 out of 5 stars I like it, June 24, 2011

By 

chica4edu - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Buddha's Nature: A Practical Guide to Discovering Your Place in the Cosmos (Paperback)

I like very much what Wes Nisker has to say in all of his books, This one, I got it for a present. The book question our place in the Universe and our attitude. The book has a spirutual aproach and even if you are not a budist, there is so much that estimulate deep thinking but with a lot of humor.