Customer Reviews

Knowledge of Freedom: Time to Change (Nyingma psychology series)

5 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is dynamite for those who want to reach their full human potential and beyond. The author uses stimulating questions to guide one's inquiry into the way one participates in life and thereby contributes to the world. For example, "How much of our lives is patterned upon assumptions we never learned to question? How strong is our motivation to discover the knowledge we would need to give greater meaning to our lives?" As I read the book, I challenged my habitual patterning and came to new ways of knowing and being in the world. To activate the power of this book, one must read in a different kind of way. This book is for reflecting, challenging, and questioning; not for merely skimming and accepting. Sometimes I would spend days on one chapter, writing notes and quietly reflecting. In summary, I recommend this book highly for all who want to explore what it means to be a human being within the world community.

This book can not help but be a catalyst for new and wonderful ways of looking at the world. Most profound ideas surronding our existance prsented lyrically, Simply magic!

This is a great book! I read it straight through in two days, fully intending to go back and really engage with it. From classes I've taken at Dharma Publishing, I understand that the way to work with the many questions in the book is to answer them, and then question your answer. Then, they say, you will find that the question (and perhaps the answer) is revealed (or reveals itself) later in the book.

It is really a book about developing an inquisitive style of approaching life. It is only by asking questions that we discover new things or really come to see what it is we think we already know. I am fascinated by the whole process of questioning - if a question is asked in a neutral way, it can lead to so much discovery!

There is a process called Questioning Mind, taught by Dharma Publishing, which uses this book as the foundation for unlocking the inherent knowledge we all have inside of us. Very often when we are trying to make decisions, big and small, we can feel frustrated because we think we don't know what to do. But we do - the premise of Questioning Mind is that we all possess an ability called inner knowing - and with the right training, we can access that and make better decisions in our lives. Like making that career move. Fixing or leaving that bad relationship. Where to put our energy and efforts in order to make the best of this life... Questioning Mind (and Knowledge of Freedom) definitely help with that!

The tulku asks many questions and conducts many interesting analyses of the human predicament, but halfway through I began to ask, "So? Any suggestions? How do we begin to unweave this tangle we find ourselves in?" Three-quarters through I was thinking maybe he was saving the best for last, hoping that the last chapter was going to reveal at least an inkling of what might be done, but, alas, not a thing. Now I'm even more confused.

As a teacher, I feel that this book can benefit all of my students in their quest for freedom as described by Tarthang Tulku. I especially recommend this resource for persons interested in learning more about their internal mechanisms or patterns of conditioning. This book has helped me learn what Freedom is really about in contrast to our president and others who base their understanding of freedom on religious beliefs, insecurities and prejudices.