Customer Reviews

Safeguarding the Heart (P)

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This book offers a Buddhist explanation (and comfort) of the horrific incident on September 11 that engulfed this nation and the world in grief and horror.
After reading this book, I found myself to be more accepting of the terrible events that took place and why they took place. She explains how in events are like these that we are all interconnected, how the impact on the victims impacted us as well.
She also points that in the midst of human tragedy such as these, a stronger sense of community was born, slowly diminishing the spirit of individualism.
I found this book to be enriching and comforting to those who lost loved ones on that day. It may not provide all answers to those asking but at least it provides a different view of explanining the occurance of tragedies.

The other reviewer has to be a personal friend of Yifa, because this book is the worst answer possible to events of 9/11. With so many compassionate books by Authors like the Dalai Lama, Thich Nat Hahn or even Ven. Yi Fa's Master, Master Hsing Yun, you wonder how someone who spent so much time with Buddhism can be so outright cold. Forgive the arrogance or a Chinese Monk telling American's how they should view the tragic events of 9/11, and you are still left with a mass of pedantry where Ven. Yifa lectures down to Americans. Instead of trying to help people she uses the book to bash American culture. It's amazing this monk even allowed to publish.
But with Vietnamese, Japanese and Tibetian Buddhism flourishing in the west, it not hard to see why Chinese Buddhism is floundering. It is like a case study on how to write a book that is full of arrogance and completely lacking in the compassion found in the rest of the Buddhist tradition. I met Yi Fa in person and the same attitudes I saw in book, I saw in person. You can't really put your finger on it but when reading the book you just get the sense that Yi Fa hates Americans. But don't take my word for it check it out for yourself. You can have my copy free - not that it's worth anything.