Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exploring the confluence of nondual wisdom and psychotherapy, June 18, 2007
This review is from: Listening from the Heart of Silence: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy (Nondual Wisdom & Psychotherapy) (Volume 2) (Paperback)
Like its companion volume, The Sacred Mirror, this remarkable anthology brings the spiritual insights of Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, and Advaita Vedanta to bear on the practice of psychotherapy. The contributors, who are practitioners and realizers as well as clinicians, demonstrate how genuine nondual spiritual realization naturally applies itself in the therapeutic encounter. As a psychotherapist, I was especially impressed by how transformation consistently occurs when the conventional roles of therapist and client, self and other, dissolve and the truth is allowed to spontaneously move and reveal itself in the interaction, not as some interpretation imposed by the mind.
The chapter titles alone reveal the richness and diversity of this collection: "Nondual Wisdom and Body-Based Therapy," "Spacious Intimacy," "Mystery, Mind and Meaning," Experiencing the Universe as Yourself." Listening from the Heart of Silence stands at the cutting edge of the emerging confluence of nondual wisdom and Western psychology. For humanistic and transpersonal therapists interested in taking their practice to a new level, as well as for spiritual seekers who want an understanding of how to work with the mind from a nondual perspective, this book is a must read. Highly recommended!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fusion, paradox, and a gateway, June 17, 2007
This review is from: Listening from the Heart of Silence: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy (Nondual Wisdom & Psychotherapy) (Volume 2) (Paperback)
This book is overflowing with enthusiastic, pioneering, sparkling, nonduality talkers. Each contributor gives 110%. There's a sense of urgency to communicate. Thus this book is very alive.
"Nondual consciousness is experienced as the basis of contact, the most intimate contact one can have, with oneself and others," writes Judith Blackstone, revealing the cornerstone of this book.
The authors consider the paradox of nonduality: that you can talk as if you know the nondual, and there is no one to know it. Kaisa Puhakka says, "...that paradox is an antidote to seriousness, and so a gateway to openness and humility."
This book is an excellent introduction to nonduality. Read it for that reason alone. The purpose though is to show how nonduality is inherently fused to psychotherapy. Buddhist teachings are mostly the backdrop for this work. Therapists will appreciate that the authors speak their language, and will benefit from the practical side of this book. All readers could benefit, as the pursuit of nonduality is often an intense psychological adventure.
Jerry Katz
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awakening & Healing, Together Again, May 5, 2008
This review is from: Listening from the Heart of Silence: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy (Nondual Wisdom & Psychotherapy) (Volume 2) (Paperback)
Like its companion volume, The Sacred Mirror, Listening from the Heart of Silence is both inspiring and instructive. To be fully appreciated, it needs to be read slowly and thoughtfully, studied even, because it's breaking new conceptual and practical ground regarding the integration of psychotherapy and nondual wisdom.
We've understood for the last 50 years or so that the personhood of the therapist, his or her own maturity and authenticity, is extremely important to the healing process. But we're just starting to understand what it means when the mature and authentic psychotherapist is also a somewhat "awakened" being, when he or she can access a nondual state of awareness while sitting with their troubled client. That is the territory these two volumes explore. They offer us some valuable distinctions and language that will allow us to understand and discuss this new intersection more clearly.
The opening essay alone is worth the price of the book. It's titled: Toward and Embodied Nonduality: Introductory Remarks. It provides a sorely needed overview of this whole somewhat confusing territory of nondual consciousness and the process of awakening. Most of the books I've read concerning nondual awareness, while helpful to varying degrees, represent the experience and viewpoint of just one person, who usually isn't that interested in articulating his or her awakening within a larger social and cultural perspective. Listening from the Heart of Silence asks the important question: What happens, what is possible, when we listen to one another with the spacious mind and compassionate heart which accompany our awakening?
If you're only going to read one of the two volumes, read this one. But if you're trying to make sense of the nondual state of consciousness, and figuring out what difference it makes to the world, read Sacred Mirror as well. There isn't that much overlap, and we need to hear this stuff from as many directions as possible, to start making sense of it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
