Living with the Devil [Mass Market Paperback]

Stephen Batchelor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 7, 2005

In bestselling author and former monk Stephen Batchelor's seminal work on our greatest struggle-to become good-he traces the trajectory from the words of the Buddha and Christ, through the writings of Shantideva, Milton, and Pascal, to the poetry of Baudelaire, the fiction of Kafka, and the findings of modern physics and evolutionary biology-to examine who we really are, and to rest in the uncertainty that we may never know.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The author of Buddhism Without Beliefs and a former monk in the Tibetan and Zen traditions, Batchelor works to reconcile the fears, desires, and compulsions of the ego (the devil or Mara) with the certainty of death. Drawing on a rich variety of literature, religious tradition and history, Batchelor demonstrates how the anguish associated with the transient nature of life has preoccupied humans for centuries: Job wrestles with his fate; Pascal's writings reflect his dread at being expelled from the universe when his existence would eventually come to a close. Surveying responses to this intractable problem, Batchelor concludes that mankind has always relied on the temptations of the devil to still anxiety and create an aura of permanence. Compulsive activities, lustful behavior and behaving violently and destructively to others are all evils that stem from Mara. Overcoming these feelings and pursuing the way of love and compassion, for Batchelor, rests on one's ability to make peace with the devil and nourish one's "Buddha nature." Although he explores a number of philosophies, Batchelor's focus is on the path to nirvana (a cessation of desires) forged by Siddhartha Gautama, an Indian prince and the historical Buddha, whose life and thinking are presented in some detail. Some of the references will be obscure to neophytes, but Batchelor's genuine concern and desire for a better world come through clearly.
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Review

A moving and timely study of the problem of evil from a Buddhist perspective...highly illuminating. -- Library Journal

Opens the doors of understanding we might not even have known were closed...an illuminating read. -- Joseph Goldstein, author of One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Trade (June 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594480877
• ISBN-13: 978-1594480874
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #174,533 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen Batchelor is a former monk in the Tibetan and Zen traditions. He has translated Shantideva's A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life and is the author of Alone with Others, The Faith to Doubt, The Tibet Guide, The Awakening of the West, Buddhism without Beliefs, and Verses from the Center. He is a contributing editor of Tricycle magazine, a guiding teacher at Gaia House Retreat Centre, and cofounder of Sharpham College for Buddhist Studies and Contemporary Inquiry in Devon, England. He lives in southwest France and lectures and conducts meditation retreats worldwide.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, June 16, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil (Hardcover)

This book is an interesting and intelligent approach to the dualistic struggle of Good and Evil that is rooted deeply in the human character. Most of the expositions are Buddhist, but parallels in literature and in other religions are also considered with cultural poise and maturity. (Although the author used to be a monk in the Tibetan and Zen traditions, the Pali Nikaya is the predominant source of his quotations.) Many subtle points in Buddhist philosophy and meditation practice are made surprisingly accessible in lucid and poetic prose. If you have read "Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime," you will find that the author's wonderful explanations of "contingency," "emptiness" and "path" are reintroduced in this book. Yet, Buddhism goes beyond the moral connotations of Evil and Good: the meditator looks directly at Concept and Reality, at Fabrication and Truth. Freedom from suffering is ultimately freedom from all fixations, or "absence of resistance" as the author aptly puts it.

This book could serve as a better introduction to Buddhism than most books that are so dry and doctrinal they put you to sleep. If you are a Buddhist scholar or meditation practitioner, read it too, as it may give you a few fresh perspectives (or take away some of your beloved opinions). Enjoy the book, and its reminder: There is no Buddha without Mara; there is no Nirvana without Samsara.

103 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly insightful and practical, October 3, 2004

By 

Chia "Chia" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil (Hardcover)

I feel like Batchelor is someone who truly wants to face existence as it is and find an authentic respond to it. Consequently, his insights were really heart-felt. He is like the stubborn kid on the block who refuses to go home until he has resolved the question about the stars.

Living With the Devil has helped me to create a different perspective on mortality. For example, as he had suggested that our existence is "contingent rather than necessary."

To illustrate this point the best, I will give an example of how it helps me in my specific situation. I am an Asian immigrant in America. And just few weeks ago, I was walking one early morning to class on a college campus and saw a white football player type of person walking toward me. That morning I was in a fairly good mood and was in fact planning on saying hi to that person, despite the fact that few hate crime incidents had just happened in the last couple of weeks on campus and I was fairly frustrated because not a lot of people including the faculties, which were essential, were willing to participate and show support in the discussion about the hate crimes after they had happened. Anyway, as we are about to approach each other, he suddenly cut in front of me, so that I had to actually force my self to stop so that I don't bump into him. I looked at him in surprise and he gave me a nasty stare. PLEASE NOTE: this is not a racial comment, it can happen to anyone, for example, maybe in the case of a Chinese soldier to a Tibetan in Tibet.

I had thought about this incident and couldn't really think of anything. I am like 6-3, so if I have to fight I can, but I am also a psychology major and am interested in public service, so there is a conflict in me. What is more important is that I feel like I might look at white people more negatively afterwards and I really don't want to do that.

Then I read Batchelor's book. My solution is to look at the whole incident as a contingent event. I reason,
1st If I were to brush my teeth that morning or ate my breakfast, I would not have encountered him.
2nd what happens is not personal, it can be anyone else of my race, so it is really about him.
3rd Next, I just accept him as he is. Just like I accept a tiger; a tiger for some reason by nature or nurture functions differently, though it is potentially threatening to me, but I don't hate a tiger, in fact I think tigers are exotic and beautiful.

Instead of projecting my self-centered compulsive reactivity (that has helped our ancestors to survive though-out natural selection) onto the contingent world, (which freely plays itself), I face myself.

I face my own biological and psychological self-preserving compulsions. One's life is "contingent rather than necessary", there is no special reason why so and so bla bla bla, our urge to think of life as a story that revolves around us is a trick that the "devil" plays on us. We live in that fixation or routine way of thinking as if they are necessary because somehow they are special.

Fixations become a restraining routine or "devil's circle" that just repeats itself again and again. The problem and challenge that Batchelor points out is radical and unconventional in many ways. As you will see if you read the chapter "Fear and Trembling" about a nun who is fearless in the face of the possibility that she might be molested and her respond to the "devil" or her own biological and psychological fear is even more magnificent as the nun Uppalavanna says,

"Though a hundred thousand rogues just like you might come here, I stir not a hair, I feel no terror; even alone, Mara, I don't fear you. I am freed from all bondage, therefore I don't fear you, friend."

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Always enlightening, February 6, 2005

By 

Marilyn Sullivan (Nazareth, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil (Hardcover)

I ordered this book because I have been a student of both Eastern and Western views on Good and Evil, both in practical and philosophical terms. I gave the book four stars because I don't think Batchelor goes deeply enough into "the Devil" in the title. The Problem of Evil is an idea that plagues every society, and there is not much written about it from a Buddhist perspective.

Don't get me wrong; he has a helpful (especially because non-theistic) hypothesis. He has made a contribution to the thinking on this vast topic.

The best thing about this book is the prose. As always, Batchelor writes poetically, almost lyrically. It is a pleasure to read. Some might find it a book to be savored, and lingered over, and some might find, as I did, that it can be read and enjoyed in brief snatches.

Batchelor does a wonderful job of putting Buddhist thought into understandable language, and of making the ancient texts relevant to modern experience. For practitioners of Buddhism, like myself, this book can enhance one's understanding of any number of elements of Buddhism (e.g., meditation on the breath, having a body, human relationships, the idea of engaged Buddhism). I would imagine that for non-Buddhists, besides being exposed to a clear exposition on basic Buddhist philosophy, this book demonstrates how Western and Buddhist thinkers concur on the problem of evil in important ways.