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Overview
The Buddha said that "everything we need to know about life can be found inside this fathom-long body." Yet when most people start on the spiritual path, they consciously or unconsciously cut themselves off from their body. Why?This provocative synthesis of Eastern wisdom and Western science seeks to correct that tendency by bringing us back to the Buddha's original revolutionary message. It shows how the path to true liberation comes only through a deep understanding and acceptance of our biology and its important role in our spiritual evolution.
It also shows how twentieth-century science is finally catching up with the time-honored beliefs of Buddhism. The latest discoveries in physics, evolutionary biology, and psychology are expressing in scientific terms the same insights the Buddha first discovered more than 2,500 years ago. Insights such as the impermanence of the body, where thoughts come from, and how the body communicates with itself. Based on the traditional Buddhist meditation sequence known as the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, Buddha's Nature propels us on an extraordinary journey through our entire biological and psychological heritage.
Here is a practical program from a renowned meditation teacher for gaining a greater understanding of our true place in the cosmos as well as invaluable insight into the origin of attachment, desire, emotion, thought, and consciousness itself. These practices do not require a belief in Buddhism, nirvana, or any religious concept. Instead they offer a spiritual and scientific path to personal freedom and peace of mind.
Wes Nisker is the author of Crazy Wisdom and a renownedlecturer who has taught courses on Buddhist meditation in such places as the Esalen Institute, the University of California, and Spirit Rock Buddhist Meditation Center. He has been a featured speaker at the Buddhism in America conferences as well as the Transpersonal Psychology Association conferences. Mr. Nisker currently serves as secretary of the International Transpersonal Association's board of directors and is the founder and co-editor of the international Buddhist journal Inquiring Mind.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
At first glance, Nisker's book is a beginner's guide to Buddhism. It simply and clearly lays out, in a series of straightforward how-to steps, different Buddhist meditation techniques. At a deeper level, however, the book is not so simple. Nisker combines the practices and principles of Buddhist meditation with current breakthroughs in cosmology, evolution and molecular genetics. For instance, he argues that, in meditating on the body, one can pass through the cells into their evolutionary origins. While Nisker's remarks on Buddhism are informed by careful study, his exploration of science is less successful. Nisker often chooses scientific viewpoints that are outside the mainstream, and he presents them, often out of context, to justify his idiosyncratic points. Moreover, Nisker's rambling prose, which reads more like a disjointed diary than a refined, considered personal reflection, results in a flat, joyless book. The author's interpretations of the Buddhist view on the lack of God, the self and consciousness fall like afterthoughts in the last few pages. (Oct.)Book Details
Published
December 31, 1998
Publisher
New York : Bantam Books, 1998.
Pages
256
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780553106015