Book Review - Still Here

Cover image photo taken by David Wilder.

Ram Dass is an American spiritual teacher well-known for his bestselling 1971 book Be Here Now, as well as his personal and professional relationships with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the 1960s, his travels to India and relationship with his guru Neem Karoli Baba, and for founding the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation. He wrote the book Still Here: Embraced Aging, Changing, and Dying after experiencing a stroke in 1997.

The book covers many topics (mostly related to aging and dying) that a person may encounter on their spiritual path. As we age, many things change with our physical bodies and minds, as well as our roles in society. However, Ram Dass attempts to point out that there is another level of being—the Soul level, which is experiencing reality through a human body while simultaneously being untethered to it.

A section discussing changes with our minds—due to the aging process—introduces the concept of mindfulness practice and covers several mentally-related common fears of aging: senility, loneliness, embarrassment, powerlessness, loss of role and meaning, and depression. Following that, Ram Dass gives some advice for facing those fears head on.

The next section covers bodily changes that occur due to aging, such as discontent with body image, low energy, focusing on a list of physical woes, the difference between healing and curing, working with pain, and disease.

Following the discussion on the body, Ram Dass explains how our societal roles change and shift during the aging process, how to live in the present moment, learning to die, and the effects (both positive and negative) that a stroke had on his life.

I greatly enjoyed this book. Like Be Here Now, it is filled with wisdom and sage advice for spiritual travelers. I would recommend this to anyone interested in stepping further down their own spiritual path, especially those who are currently in the later stages of life. I imagine that Still Here would have a lot to offer the average person that is on the verge of entering the next phase of their Soul journey.

4/5 stars. 206 pages.

Book Review - Buddhism in a Nutshell

For the past five weeks, my girlfriend and I have been taking an introductory level Buddhism course titled Buddhism in a Nutshell at my local Buddhist center, the Kadampa Center in Raleigh, NC. Many of the center's members suggested this book to me over the past several months, and I decided to purchase it for reading alongside the course.

Simply put, I have been completely blown away. This is hands-down the best book I have read about Buddhism to date, at least for someone at a true beginner's level of understanding the basic concepts—like myself. I took notes furiously throughout my reading of the book, and will be putting into practice many of the meditations, dedications, and advice that it contains for several weeks, months, and years to come.

Buddhism in a Nutshell was written by Lama Thubten Yeshe, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and Venerable Amy Miller and published in 2010. It covers a lot of subtopics under the wider topic of Buddhism, including defining what Buddhism is, a brief biography of who the Buddha was, an explanation of dharma, what karma is and how it works, the four noble truths, the fundamentals of meditation, various approaches of teaching Buddhism, the importance of finding a qualified teacher, the intriguing-yet-confusing (to me!) concept of emptiness, and an appendix featuring a list of recommended reading and resources.

The book also includes an audio CD that contains 11 hours of teachings spoken by Venerable Amy Miller, which I have started but not yet completed. From what I have heard, I can report that these recordings are very helpful for a beginner like myself.

Reading this book alongside the classes I have been attending has been very helpful, as it goes into much more detail than the classes have, and reading the book has suited my personal learning style better than the verbal-based lecture style.

My only criticism whatsoever of Buddhism in a Nutshell is related to the poor editing job that was done prior to its publication. There are misspellings, grammatical and syntactical errors, and punctuation mistakes scattered throughout the book. Normally, that would cause me to bump my rating for a book down, but I am willing to overlook it in this case due to the high quality of the teachings.

Suffice it to say that if you are interested in learning about Buddhism and are looking for an all-around guide that will cover a wide variety of topics without getting so complicated as to confuse you, I can wholeheartedly recommend this book and its audio CD companion. Once I have studied it some more and am comfortable with the teachings, I plan to lend my copy out to those who would like to read it, and will consider purchasing copies for friends and family who would benefit from its teachings.

5/5 stars. 243 pages.

Book Review - Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

Photo taken by David Wilder.

Anger is an emotion that everyone experiences from time to time. I have worked very hard to improve my own relationship with anger over the years, and still feel like I have a long way to go. Although my temper does not flare up often, when it does rear its ugly head, it can sometimes be difficult for me to control. I suspect that it is most likely congruent with others' experiences as well. When something pushes us over the line, it seems like calming down is but an impossibility.

Being a fan of Thich Nhat Hanh's writing, I decided to give Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames a read. I have read some other books on anger, most notably Working With Anger by Thubten Chodron. I anticipate that I will read plenty more in the future, because I have discovered that developing a healthy relationship with anger requires a lot of practice.

Hanh's Anger defines what anger truly is, explores its causes, provides advice for learning to communicate effectively with others, and offers mindfulness and meditation techniques that address how to handle the feeling of anger (and other negatively-associated emotions). There are several stories, both from Hanh's personal experiences and people he has encountered, as well as fictional situations, that help illustrate his points for the reader.

I found the book to be extremely easy to read and full of great information about anger. I have read many of Hanh's books and have noticed that many of the stories are repeated from book to book. I do not take issue with this, and actually find the repetition to be helpful for me. But it is certainly worth noting that if one was to read many of his books, then it is perhaps worthwhile to expect to reread some of the stories multiple times. Compared to Chodron's book mentioned above, I did not find Hanh's Anger to be as practical or helpful, but it is certainly an excellent overview, with many techniques to practice and stories to learn from. Anger is certainly something that we will all face at various times of our lives, and I believe that reading this book could help transform our relationships with it.

227 pages. 4/5 stars.

Click here to buy the book.

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Book Review - The Tao of Pooh

Image by Malcolm, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

This book hibernated on my To-Read List for several years before I finally decided to check it out this month. I decided to start reading it without knowing anything about it at all, other than assuming it was about Winnie the Pooh and Taoism.

Based on my assumptions, I wasn't surprised by the content of the book. It essentially weaves Pooh's adventures in and out amongst related Western Taoist commentary. Admirably, The Tao of Pooh has several humorous moments that made me honestly chuckle. It is very simply-written, but was difficult for me to follow. One moment there is a Pooh story and the next there is a Taoist take on said story, and it wasn't easy to transition from one to another. This was a recurring problem for me because there would often be several transitions per page! I found myself rereading passages multiple times to understand them, which I admit may be a fault of my own rather than the author.

Regarding the Taoist material discussed in the book, I can't say that I understand Taoism anymore than I did previously. I have read Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu and have a preliminary working knowledge of the topic, but I don't feel like I came away from The Tao of Pooh with more knowledge or wisdom overall. Maybe it warrants another read, but I would prefer to read more about Taoism from other sources before returning to this one. I do believe that others would probably like it more than I did, though, so I would recommend it for anyone who truly enjoys the stories of Winnie the Pooh and/or has an interest in Taoism.

3/5 stars. 158 pages.

Support 'Secret Drugs of Buddhism' Kickstarter

I wanted to take the time to promote a Kickstarter campaign that I found out about just yesterday that was created to raise money for the print release of a book titled Secret Drugs of Buddhism: Psychedelic sacraments and the origins of Vajrayana, written by Mike Crowley. This is a perfect cross-section of topics for the readers of Think Wilder, because this blog has a strong focus on Buddhism and psychedelics. The book focuses on the historical use of psychedelics in Buddhism, and although I haven't read it yet, I immediately backed the campaign and wanted to put the word out to my audience in case anyone else would feel inspired to donate as well. Please visit the campaign for more information and consider acting fast because it is going to expire in 22 hours!