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

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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.

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.

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.

This was the first book that showed me the reasonableness of the Buddha's Teachings when looked through the crystal of contemporary thought. Wes Nisker did a good job in this respect. As many Buddhist thinkers, particularly in the Mahayana school and specifically in zen Buddhism, the author considers that the key to the end of suffering (or to awakening, enlightenment or direct knowledge) resides in mindfulness, this is, the permanent application of right attention, the seven factor of the eightfold path, in everyday living. The Buddha provides exhaustive details on how to practice meditation or mindfulness in his discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness (which I prefer to call the Manners to Establish Attention). This discourse (of which there are two very similar texts in the Pali Canon, one the Collection of Long Discourses and other in the Collection of Middle Length Discourses) is the main ground of Nisker's book. The foundations of mindfulness are four phenomena--physical body, sensations, mental states and the Teachings concepts--and Chapter 3, the bulk of the book, consists of four parts, each one dedicated to the corresponding foundation. The book provides a number of meditation techniques for each foundation and gives scientific background on why they should benefit meditation practitioners. I find of much interest the way Wes Nisker presents the first three mindfulness foundations but take exception to the fourth one. I recognize (and so does the author) that this one is the "trickiest" but I am positive that it is not about "thinking about thinking" (as Nisker names this fourth part of his Chapter 3). The Canon Pali refers to the fourth foundation as dhammas, the most important word in Buddhism (and one the most difficult). Dhamma means, among several translations, both the natural order and the Teachings of the Buddha (which are about the natural order). Therefore, the fourth foundation of mindfulness is precisely about the essential Teachings of the Buddha. This exception and the lack of a properly organized structure in its contents reduce the quality of an otherwise interesting book. Gustavo Estrada: Author of Hacia el Buda desde el occidente: Sus Ensenanzas sin mitos ni misterios

Those looking for a rigorous analysis of the connections between Western scientific thought and Buddhist philosophy will almost certainly be disappointed in this book. Although Nisker is interesting and knowledgeable when discussing Eastern thought, he too often settles for unsatisfactory generalizations about scientific research and theories, and suggests "rough analogies" (rather than clear correspondences) between the two. On the other hand, he does offer some fascinating insights into the biological and psychological interconnectedness we share with the rest of our world. Nisker's mental exercises and proposed meditation techniques make a worthwhile supplement to more fundamental and comprehensive meditation guides.

Wes Niskers' book "Buddha's Nature" succeeds in bridging science and Buddhism in a special book that will be enlightening to people in all fields. Further recommended reading- "Meditation" by Sri Chinmoy ; "KYBALION" by Three Initiates ; "Stalking the Wild Pendulum" by Itzhak Bentov ; "Meeting the Monkey Half Way" by Bhikkhu ; and the books by Thich Nat Hanh and Vera Stanley Alder.

After reading Nisker's book I wondered what his point was. Is experience (and spirituality as well) reducible to physical events or is there some metaphysical reality encompassing those events? Lots of brilliance has gone into attempting answers to questions like this but you won't find much in Nisker's book.