Customer Reviews

Openness Mind: Self-knowledge and Inner Peace through Meditation (Nyingma Psychology Series)

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The point of meditation is not to take a daily fifteen-minute break from our lives. The point is to employ meditation to transform life so that we would never want to take a break from it.

Tarthang Tulku describes his book as a `trail guide' to extending the insights gained from meditation throughout our lives. The `openness' of the title is key. When we open our senses, the grip of ego automatically relaxes. Body and mind synchronise. As we open to the world, the relationships between thoughts and emotions, between sensations and awareness, clarify and transform. Here we find balance, enjoyment and peace. This is the way beyond fear and frustration into effective, unconflicted action.

Although the book is not primarily a meditation manual, Tarthang Tulkus presents several simple exercises that are helpful as a supplements to the fundamental shi-nè practice.

The book is written in exceptionally clear, straightforward English. More experienced readers may be surprised to see subtle concepts from Dzogchen--normally buried in layers of arcane academic complexity--presented painlessly in plain language. For beginners, the challenge is to read the book slowly and carefully enough to catch its profundity. The ease of the prose makes it easy to glide over what often sounds like simple common sense, without noticing how radical the path it describes actually is.

Tarthang Tulku's approach is unfailingly gentle and sweet. If you prefer a more rugged style, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (Shambhala Library) covers much of the same material.

This book really is amazing. I think for people just approaching Buddhism and Dzogchen, this might not really seem like much (then again, it might be mind-blowing, I don't know). I think if I read this 10 years ago, I would have THOUGHT I understood it, but I wouldn't have really understood it. Not only is it common sense, it's uncommon sense and there really is a lot of stuff her to digest.

The Eastern student can still gather a handful of gems of insight in this book. The chapters titled, "Awareness, and Meditation: Let it be", are worth reading repeatedly. Here are the gems: (during meditation)"Just be open, with no holding and no center"....."no point of reference"....."Relax and let go of the watcher". "We are able to directly experience mind as a process". "Transitoriness is not a threat at all;it is instead the opening to new horizons". Now for the best gem: "Inherent in the realization that our everyday world is actually always changing is the realization of intrinsic awareness". This book can be read for that single insight. This is the heart of the Buddhist realization.

However it is sad to note that even Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche has resorted to the cliche of the "space between thoughts" as though thoughts are things with spatial location. It is preferable to call it as the time between two thoughts.