Customer Reviews

Wake Up To Your Life: Discovering the Buddhist Path of Attention

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Originally published in the Northwest Dharma News www.nwdharma.org

Hundreds of books on Buddhism have been published in recent years, but Wake Up To Your Life, a new book by Ken McLeod, is one of the first systematic curricula written by a Westerner thoroughly trained in traditional Tibetan ways. With deep insight, clear instructions, and entertaining stories, McLeod has given us a comprehensive manual for a lifetime of spiritual work.

Wake Up To Your Life begins as many books do, introducing the context and motivations for practicing meditation, and covering basic topics such as the four noble truths, the three disciplines of morality, meditation, and understanding, and the cultivation of mindfulness. It continues with contemplations on death and impermanence, karma, reactive emotions, and the four immeasurables, and ends with difficult practices for mind training, insight, and direct awareness.

McLeod breaks new ground from beginning to end. For example, the differences and synergies between mindfulness, awareness, and attention are clearly delineated, and active attention ("volitional, stable, and inclusive") is the central principle. That has practical implications, one of which is that ethical behavior becomes primarily a natural expression of attention, rather than a set of rules dictated by an authority or tradition.

Wake Up To Your Life is especially valuable in making explicit what has been hidden from or confusing to many practitioners. Those who have struggled to practice with insufficient instruction will benefit from McLeod's pragmatic approach. For example, he makes clear the important differences between the purpose, methods, effects, and results of meditation practice. Thus the meditator who has been instructed to "open your mind" or "be centered" will learn that being open and feeling centered (as well as distraction, clarity, sleepiness, and euphoria) are effects of meditation, and not methods. The book is packed with tools for choosing and working with a teacher, for cutting through confusion and self-deception, and for discriminating between genuine insight and passing mental states and energy surges.

Those who have been bewildered by Tibetan visualization and contemplative practices will see how they are rooted in basic Buddhist principles, and those who have been confused or put off by cosmology and deity practices will find clear explanations and a sensible approach. We see how the six realms are the worlds projected by our reactive emotions, and how an understanding of the five elements and five dakinis can help us transform the energies of our reactive emotions into pristine awareness.

The chapter on karma is a significant contribution to our understanding of meditation and of psychology. Detailed analysis of how our beliefs, reactive emotions, and habituated behaviors create and perpetuate the suffering in our lives is integrated with practical exercises for dismantling the components of those beliefs and behavioral patterns. McLeod has formulated the practices in terms directly relevant to modern audiences, and encourages the reader to rely on experience rather than belief. Waking up to your life does not depend on exchanging Western assumptions for Eastern ones; it depends on direct experience.

In the debate over whether teachers should transmit the Dharma just as it was received, or whether each culture and each generation must make the Dharma their own, McLeod is squarely in the second camp. He integrates age-old Buddhist methods with modern psychological sensibilities, and uses science and Sufi teaching stories to make his points, but the result is no sweet New Age concoction. Confusion is cut at every juncture, and no slack is given for wishful thinking. "You would probably prefer not to look at some parts of your life, but to ignore the areas of life that are uncomfortable to look at is not a good idea. If we protect any aspect of our life from the practice of attention, the habituated patterns connected with that part of our life absorb the energy of practice and gradually take over our lives. We become what we don't dismantle."

While Wake Up To Your Life is intellectually challenging and satisfying, it is ultimately a manual for spiritual practice, and not an exercise in cultural reeducation, religious history, or philosophical doctrine. Its only purpose is to provide a set of tools to deal with the challenges we encounter while engaging the work of "waking up from the sleep in which we dream that we are separate from what we experience."

Both beginning and experienced students and teachers of Buddhist meditation will benefit from using the methods in Wake Up To Your Life, but McLeod's pragmatic and integrated approach applies the power of attention to social, work, and personal relationships as well as to formal meditation practice. The book will be valuable to psychologists, mediators, managers, parents, and anyone else who deals with people and their reactive emotions. It's for anyone who has felt the suffering and confinement caused by their habitual patterns, and is serious about cultivating presence and freedom.

Mcleod's book on meditation is the most inspiring book on working Buddhism I have read. Meditation is the single most important aspect of self-actualization available. Knowing ourself is truely the key to wisdom and ethical behavior. Trying to "white knuckle" ethics, and teach oneself wisdom / understanding never works. We cannot understand what we haven't experienced. Meditation takes intellectual understanding and turns it into emotional understanding. This leads to wisdom and changes in our behavior (ethics). Ken Mcleod makes working meditation methods understandable, and presents the path to emotional understanding in a clear and concise manner. This book would take many lifetimes to complete. I have purchased many Buddhist books in the past and have never written a review on one before. However, this book is worthy of even my praise. A true lifesaver. OUTSTANDING !

While this text indeed provides a refreshing and vibrant presentation of contemplations conventionally used in Tibetan Buddhism for centuries, I disagree that it avoids central Buddhist principles of, for example, karma and rebirth. In fact, one of the strengths of this text is its presentation of these and other critical aspects of Buddhist philosophy so subtly that it could go unnoticed. The discussions and meditation exercises are not in any way heavy-handed and would be comfortable for those who have not had the opportunity to study and practice Tibetan Buddhism directly with a genuine lama. Those who have had that chance will find fresh new ways to expand and enhance their regular practice. The meditation exercises are nothing to sneeze at--they would take years to finish, even following the minimum time guidelines, and that would miss the point. These are reflections to take up and continue throughout one's life, just as the Tibetan tradition has encouraged students since the Dharma came to Tibet.

Mr. McLeod's own insistence that one undertake them in conjunction with consistent resort to a spiritual teacher knowledgeable about the path and able to guide students makes this one of the few books written from a Westerner's perspective that honors the dual importance of spiritual guidance and commitment to practice in this tradition. Kalu Rinpoche, Mr. McLeod's own lama, to whom he dedicates this book, was widely regarded as a great meditation master and spiritual guide. Through Mr. McLeod, he continues to present the Dharma to Westerners in a manner that is true to the principles of Buddhism while taking into account the differences between our cultures.

This book is not for the faint of heart. It requires a sincere commitment to spiritual growth to do justice to the splendid array of reflections it presents. Many explicitly require the guidance of an authentic lama, and all of them would benefit from that input. Doing these practices as set forth, however, definitely can bring greater authentic awareness, increased openness to helping others, and deeper peace to one's life-- visible here and now, and onwards...

May all beings benefit!

Ken McLeod has, in my opinion, written the first work-text book on the Western approach to Tibetian Buddhism. He has presented the practices in clear, direct language, making them understandable and available to anyone interested in the path of awakening. There is no cultural overlay to obscure the teachings or confuse their purpose.There are many fine books about Buddhism, but the actual "how to" laid out in the precise order it should be studied and practiced has been missing. Now we have it in "Wake up to Your Life". I encourage anyone with more than a passing interest in Buddhism to get this book. You will use it for the rest of your life.

This is definitely a book that will remain close at hand as I struggle through my meditation practice (such as it is, or isn't at times!). This guidebook helps to set up a meaningful meditation practice that will achieve results and give direction to the hard work of analysis and finding inner truth.

The author writes clearly and makes difficult mental images come alive. Stephen Batchelor claims that "Ken McLeod's eminently practical manual goes straight to the heart of what the Buddha taught." Becoming fully alive, living joyfully and with compassion are goals that the reader can clearly see being set out and achieved.

But this is hard work. I have read through the book once, but must read each step in the practice to keep on track. I think that this will be a life time endeavor and will, as pointed out in many places, eventually require a teacher.

This is without a doubt one of the most thorough discussions of Tibetian Buddhist mind training practices that I've ever encountered. But it is not an easy book to read and I would not recommend it to a person just beginning to explore Tibetian Buddhism -- read Pema Chodron first. (Not that Pema is "light," but her writing is friendly and conversational.) However, if you're is ready for something that will take you deeper into the practice, this is a wonderful and illuminating book. It is long (almost 500 pages), it is intense, you won't breeze through it, but it is worth it.

"Wake Up" is very accessible and informative. It treats many fundamentals of Buddhism with the lay-person in mind, and does that very very well. But be aware; this is a manual intended for use by someone who is considering a serious commitment to mindful meditation and (especially) inner transformation. It is written like a set of instructions (OK, now do this. Then do that. etc.). If you are interested in transforming your life, and you are committed to a Buddhist path, you will truly get a great deal out of this wonderfully well written book. But it does get a bit pedantic at times.

I am indebted to Ken McLeod. The beauty of this book is its tremendous practicality. Here is a clear means of getting started on the Buddhist path of attention without becoming bogged down in doctrinal issues. It is written beautifully and with an incisiveness that wakens one's attention all on its own. A great contribution.

I am not Buddhist, yet have benefited remarkably from this work. In particular, it offers straightforward instructions on how to make meditation a regular, rewarding part of daily life. McLeod uses this platform to move into many facets of our existence, allowing us to analyze "what's really going on" underneath it all. Knowing "what's really going on" is the first step to change. The journey allows you to begin to taste the richness of true living in all its colors ... living in attention.

As he warns, exposing this stuff can be disturbing at first. Yet, just like ridding your home of an odor, first you find where its coming from, and then you walk it personally all the way to the trash.

I have found that mere moments of quiet, as taught in "Wake Up" have exposed my own erroneous and habituated thinking in a number of areas, from anger to fullfilment, etc.; this has reaped noticeable benefits in my personal relationships.

It's a long book and, I estimate, would take at least one year to work through if approached properly. McLeod has developed a beautiful way of presenting a classic system of thought, which naturally takes time to process.

"Wake Up To Your Life" is a most comprehensive book on Buddhist practice, one that lays out a lifetime of meditation. Ken McLeod has offered traditional tibetan buddhist techniques as well as non traditional ones that have been stripped of cultural applications while maintaining the integrity and intent of the classical form. But this is not a book for the casual reader. These meditations are designed to dismantle the reactive patterns that rule our lives. Some of them are quite vivid and are designed to generate the very patterns we are trying to break down. So, without the ability to put these practices in a larger context and see them as a means, not an end, it's easy to understand how A. Reed fell victim to such a misconception and took his reaction at face value. It's regrettable but illustrative of why, as Mr. McLeod stresses, it can be dangerous to approach this material without a teacher.