Transformation at the Base: Fifty Verses on the Nature of Consciousness [Hardcover]

Thich Nhat Hanh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2001

A finalist for the 2001 Nautilus award, Transformation at the Base is a profound look at Buddhist psychology with insights into how these ancient teachings apply to the modern world.

Thich Nhat Hanh focuses on the direct experience of recognizing, embracing, and looking deeply into the nature of our feelings and perceptions. Presenting the basic teachings of Buddhist-applied psychology, he shows us how our mind is like a field, where every kind of seed is planted—seeds of suffering, happiness and joy, and sorrow and fear. The quality of our life depends on the quality of the seeds in our mind. If we know how to water seeds of joy and transform seeds of suffering, then understanding, love, and compassion will flower.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, poet and scholar. He is the founder of Van Hanh Buddhist University in Saigon. Since the early 1980s he has come to North America regularly to lecture and give retreats on the art of mindful living. He leads a meditation community in southwestern France and is author of 40 books in English.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The present moment contains the past and the future.

The secret of transformation at the base lies in our handling of this very moment

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Parallax Press (June 2, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888375140
• ISBN-13: 978-1888375145
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #983,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Potentially Life-Changing, November 7, 2006

By 

S. Svenson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Understanding Our Mind: 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology (Paperback)

While I agree with the other reviewers that the subject matter of this book is complex, my experience has been that upon completion, all the pieces fall into place with incredible grace. In a nutshell, we need to practice nourishing the seeds (content) of our consciousness--and unconsciousness--with mindfulness. Mindfullness is the sunshine that nourishes 'wholesome' seeds and enables the transformation of 'unwholesome' seeds, such as anger, envy and desire into peace, love and compassion. What then is mindfulness? Mindfulness is a continuous practice that includes meditation and an effort to live healthily and happily in the present moment, as opposed to regretfully in the past or fearfully in the non-existent future. Suffering occurs because our mind distorts our perceptions and we mistake perception for reality, arriving at erroneous conclusions about the people, places and events that surround us. Once we realize this and begin to achieve greater levels of mindfulness through practice and meditation, we can begin to transform suffering into joy. So, yes, while some of the ideas in this book are complex (such as the concept of interbeing) its essences is elegant in its simplicity.

Incidentally, my father was a Freudian Psychoanalyst and over the course of my life (45) I have spent many hours with him discussing the role of the unconscious in relation to our everyday impulses and actions. I also went through 5 years of intensive psychoanalysis as a young adult. The conceptual base presented in Understanding Our Mind is not altogether different from Freud's treatment of the unconscious. As the author himself points out, the main difference is that Freud emphasizes examining past events rather than transforming their manifestations as mental formations in the present (p.232). I am just now embarking on the path of practicing mindfulness, yet I have little doubt that it will surpass the results achieved through traditional psychoanalytic therapy.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars May change the way you look at things, July 8, 2006

By 

vokitok (Moscow) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Understanding Our Mind: 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology (Paperback)

This was a very unexpected book from a very practical teacher like Thich Nhat Hanh, whose books on mindful living continued to inspire me for the past more than ten years. Why, indeed, would he delve into complexities of one of the most elaborate and, dare I say, abstruse philosophies that Buddhism has produced - Yogacara, or the Mind Only school? Having an undue penchant for philosophical discourse, however, I readily grasped at the book, looking in it for an excuse for my passion for abstractions. And I found so much more than what I was looking for.

The key phrase for this book is given in the introduction: "When we understand how our mind works, the practice becomes easier". I was always fascinated by the way the mind works, especially after having read Schopenhauer's "On the fourfould foundation of the law of sufficient reason" (sorry, that's how terrible it sounds), which first revealed to me to what a great extent that which we consider to be 'objective reality' is actually shaped by our mind. Later on, I became interested in Zen/Chan, which doesn't really emphasize philosophical discourse on surface (although some of the most profound philosophical works have also been produced by Chan masters - for instance, Dongshan Liangjie). In this book by Thich Nhat Hanh, Chan meets philosophy again for me (philosophy in the Kantian sense - not as a metaphysical discourse, but as an investigation of the nature and limits of our perception and knowledge). For me, unfortunately, Zen practice continuously has to be supported by intellectual conviction that it is the right thing to do, or after some time I lose it. For those as unfortunate as I am, this is the right book. Even a few lines from it every day, like a medicine, will be a great help if you don't want to veer into the foggy-groggy existence that most of us lead. After all, isn't it cautioning us against this way of life what Thich Nhat Hanh devoted his lifetime to?

This book is as dense as any philosophical treatise may be, except for the fact that each sentence seems to be so incredibly well thought out as to have a practical application to one's life. The number of Sanskrit terms is incredible for Thich Nhat Hanh (there are a couple of pages where there are 50+ of them). But the difference between this work and some PhD dissertation on the Mind Only school is as vast as between heaven and earth, for this man lives what he's talking about, whereas most professors seem to be just churning words.

I agree with the above reviewer that this may be a life changing book. It has to be read very slowly, than probably read over and over again. Then you may go to the original works (which is what I intend to do), and I bet you'll read them with different eyes. But of course the key thing here is to view your life with different eyes.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Intermediate to Advanced Resource on Buddhist Thought, June 10, 2006

By 

D. Buxman "A Seeker of Truth" (Pueblo, CO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Understanding Our Mind: 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology (Paperback)

As noted by another reviewer, this is not an easy book to read and it's not something to be tackled in large segments. Each of the fifty chapters should be closely examined and considered before moving on to the next. Sometimes, in the context of books on Eastern Philosopy, this is a result of translation or editing problems, however, with this book, it is simply a matter of an incredibly complex subject.

If you are curious about your mind and its ability to transform your world, you will really enjoy this book. If you want to understand meditative techniques, this book is an excellent resource as well. If you are contemplating the purchase of your first book on Buddhism, I would suggest another path, perhaps "Turning the Mind into an Ally," by Sakyong Mipham, which is by no means simple, but well-adapted to communicating with the Western Mind.