What Makes You Not a Buddhist [Paperback]

Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 12, 2008

So you think you're a Buddhist? Think again. Tibetan Buddhist master Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, one of the most creative and innovative lamas teaching today, throws down the gauntlet to the Buddhist world, challenging common misconceptions, stereotypes, and fantasies. With wit and irony, Khyentse urges readers to move beyond the superficial trappings of Buddhism—beyond the romance with beads, incense, or exotic robes—straight to the heart of what the Buddha taught.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Here at last is a crisp new voice in Tibetan Buddhism. Khyentse, a lama from an influential family and Buddhist lineage in Bhutan, is also a filmmaker, responsible for the sleeper hit The Cup, about a group of Tibetan monks obsessed with soccer. The monk brings the same multicultural fluency to his first book. He can make references to Viagra and Camilla Parker-Bowles as easily as he can tell stories of the Buddha's life. With confidence tempered by wit, he cuts to the core of Buddhism: four "seals"—truths—that make up a Buddhist "right view" of the world and existence. This book is not, repeat not, about meditation. Instead, it looks at everyday life through a Buddhist lens, understanding happiness and suffering from that perspective. Enlightenment ends suffering but also trumps happiness. Khyentse writes persuasively about the importance of understanding emptiness: disappointment lessens, expectations soften, and change is not a shock. There is much food for thought in this short book for Buddhist students and for anyone interested in the ongoing adaptation of traditional Eastern wisdom into postmodern Western settings. "You can change the cup," Khyentse writes, "but the tea remains pure." (Jan. 9)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Here at last is a crisp new voice in Tibetan Buddhism. . . . There is much food for thought in this short book for Buddhist students and for anyone interested in the ongoing adaptation of traditional Eastern wisdom into postmodern Western settings."—Publishers Weekly

"A pleasant refresher or an excellent introduction to Buddhism, even for those who choose not to be Buddhists."— New Age Retailer

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala; 1 edition (August 12, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590305701
• ISBN-13: 978-1590305706
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.4 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

79 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best 130 pages on Buddhism, March 14, 2007

By 

S. A. Richards "Pelusa MG" (Minneapolis, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What Makes You Not a Buddhist (Hardcover)

What Makes You Not A Buddhist is structured around four main chapters, each of which explore the four main truths of Buddhism (Chapter 1: Fabrication and Impermanence, Chapter 2: Emotion and Pain, Chapter 3: Everything Is Emptiness, Chapter 4: Nirvana Is beyond Concepts). Sandwiched in-between these are an interesting and insightful introduction and conclusion (for a change). In each of these chapters, the Buddha's teaching about the nature of impermanence (annica) is set out and explored, as well as how this affects our understanding of everything else. One of the nice things about this book is that unlike many other books on Buddhism I have read, although the story of Siddhartha's quest for Enlightenment is once again included, it is done so within the context of a wider discussion of the Buddha's teaching. One learns about Siddhartha's family, his desire to find truth, and his becoming the Buddha at the same time one learns about what it is to be and become a Buddhist... and the really nice thing about this is that it is done in an interesting and engaging manner, not in a dry text-book fashion as so many other books on Buddhism I have read have tended to do. This really is a brilliant short little introduction to 'Buddhism'.

The range of ways the truth of impermanence is discussed in the book is impressive. For instance, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse reflects on how morality changes, how our craving for moral, scientific and religious certainty is due to a fear of the unknown (grounded in a fear of uncertainty), how any belief in immortality is based on false notions of a permanent self, how we can overcome depression and despair by realising that everything can and does change, why we will never be truly happy (as this can never last), and how killing another life for the preservation of or sake of our own, is the ultimate expression of misguided self-importance. In the end, we are led to see the world as Siddhartha did, whilst he was seated under the tree at Bodh Gaya - this being that nothing is permanent, and that everything we know of ourselves and the world is merely grounded in appearances.

'Ultimately one must abandon to path to enlightenment. If you still define yourself as a Buddhist, you are not a buddha yet.' (p.106)

This is an amazing little book, and I am so glad that I read it; no more so than because I now realise the paradox of actually writing about the notion of 'Buddhism' - for this can only be done if there is something permanent called 'Buddhism' (and 'Buddhists'). However, this is also where I struggled with the whole aspect of 'Buddhism' itself. For if there really is no permanently existing thing, then what is this book about, and how can we speak of the centrality of the four truths? Although this book concludes that the only permanent thing is impermanence, this is surely undermined by the relativity which inevitably accompanies it? I just hope that Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse adds a further volume to address this matter further...

86 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What do Yoda and George Bush have to do with Buddhism?, January 23, 2007

By 

Daiho - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: What Makes You Not a Buddhist (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful little book, 130 pages of distilled wisdom from a man who is known most widely as a film maker, the director of The Cup, but who is otherwise a well-respected teacher from the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism. Besides being deeply familiar with Buddhist scholarship, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse has traveled and worked widely in Europe and North America, knows the cultures of the countries, and is able to explicate Buddhist principles with examples that resonate for Star Wars fans and suburban American Republicans.

The purpose of the book, the author notes, is not to make the reader a Buddhist, but to explain what it means to be a Buddhist. It's not a book about how to be, but a book about the implications of being. Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse does this through the Four Seals, truths about the physical, phenomenal, and psychological world that the Buddha himself invited his students to examine and investigate. They are:

.....1. All compounded things are impermanent.
.....2. All emotions are pain.
.....3. All things have no inherent existence.
.....4. Nirvana is beyond concepts.

Each seal is discussed in separate chapters and illustrated with examples from contemporary life, as well as from the life of Siddhartha, the prince who gave up his pampered court life to seek greater truth and who later became known as The Buddha, the Enlightened One.

Full of sharp humor directed at everyone from spiritual seekers to corporate suits, from tree huggers to neoconservatives occupying the White House, this witty volume is a pithy introduction to Buddhism and would make a great gift for any one interested in the philosophy. I've already purchased one volume for a friend and suspect I'll be buying a few more in the coming year.

#

62 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The purity of the heart-mind is the most important, February 7, 2007

By 

Let it Be "Alan" (Singapore) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: What Makes You Not a Buddhist (Hardcover)

In a nutshell, this book is 125 pages of putting together people, things and our world in the right perspective, making sense of our chaotic world and how to conquer the biggest problem of our life - ourselves, and the way we run our lives. It is 125 pages of unpatented, non-copyrighted profound but yet simple fundamental wisdom as taught by the historical Buddha. The message is delivered through a hard hitting conversation with the author, wittyly written in the language of our time.

I have got a dozen comments to share on what this book is NOT :
1. NO teaching of new meditation technique
2. NO new mantra to learn
3. NOT a nice soft and motherly conversation with the author
4. NOT propagation & hard selling of religious hocus pocus
5. NOT boring stuff written to replace your sleeping pills
6. NOT not another profound and hard to understand Zen story
7. NOT another story about the Life of the Buddha or a parody
8. NO you do not need to be a Buddhist to read this book or benefit from
reading it (IMHO non-Buddhists get the best value)
9. NO you do not need to read another Buddhist book to understand or benefit from this work
10.NO you do not need to agree or disagree with the author.
11.NO you would not fall asleep reading the 125 pages of gripping truth.
12.NO it is not written to "convert" you or anyone into becoming a Buddhist.

And half a dozen more comments to share on what this book IS about :
i. It is about simple but RAW HARD truth about life according to the FOUR
DHARMA SEALS or FOUR DHARMA IMPRINTS
ii. It is about HARD truth of life that may hurt us & the truth always
hurts. Ouch.
iii. It is about our deluded mind and the problems we create for ourselves
iv.It is about how we, Buddhists & Non-Buddhists alike
cling on and attach to to our delusion.
v. It is about how to live with a pure mind & right motivation in this
increasely chaotic, and seemingly insane world populated with
countless confused and deluded beings like ourselves. The truth is not
out there it is either it is within, it's always been present in our
luminous nature.
vi.It's about becoming a real Buddhist by going back to understanding and
practising the very basic of Buddha's teachings-the four dharma seals.

If you every come across this short and bring us down-to-earth book don't ever give it a miss,take it from the shelf, browse and read it! Whatever views of the author which would not make sense to you after reading the book either in parts or in its entirety, would eventually make sense to you when the conditions arise and would surely impact your life positively.