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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
The Dalai Lama shares advice and meditative exercises to help others acquire his peaceful, happy way of being. As I started to slip into a grumpy mood today, I did one of the exercises and found it quite helpful. (It's the one in which you imagine a loved one feeling the way you do at that moment, and think about how annoying your loved one is when they let a bad mood get the best of them.)
One of the important things to realize about this book is that it is not written by the Dalai Lama himself, but by Dr. Howard C. Cutler, a professional psychologist, and is based on his numerous conversations with the Dalai Lama.
Dr. Cutler provides the "western", science-based perspective on the Buddhist monk's teachings. When the Dalai Lama is quoted in the book it makes for fascinating reading. His insights are full of common sense, good will, and practicality.
Dr. Cutler I feel is a good stand – in for western way of thinking, but I find his naiveté gets a little irritating after a while. Also his constant need to ask, what boil down to, very basic questions and incessantly repeating, “How would a non - Buddhist do this or that?” is often tedious. These are questions the average person might ask and while that is all well and good I feel it is the author's responsibility to dig deeper and ask the questions we as readers might not think of.
This is an interesting book and it would serve as an introduction to the teachings of the Dalai Lama.
Dr. Cutler provides the "western", science-based perspective on the Buddhist monk's teachings. When the Dalai Lama is quoted in the book it makes for fascinating reading. His insights are full of common sense, good will, and practicality.
Dr. Cutler I feel is a good stand – in for western way of thinking, but I find his naiveté gets a little irritating after a while. Also his constant need to ask, what boil down to, very basic questions and incessantly repeating, “How would a non - Buddhist do this or that?” is often tedious. These are questions the average person might ask and while that is all well and good I feel it is the author's responsibility to dig deeper and ask the questions we as readers might not think of.
This is an interesting book and it would serve as an introduction to the teachings of the Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama is the man, but in this book Howard Cutler gets in the way. His continual newbie arguments were wearisome. Maybe a good intro for beginners, but anyone with more experience with Buddhist practice may end up disappointed.
3.5 stars. It's a bit misleading to have the Dalai Lama listed as the primary author of this book; it was actually written by a psychologist (Dr. Howard C. Cutler) but includes extensive quotes from the Dalai Lama based on the author's series of interviews with him and a set of public talks the Dalai Lama gave in Arizona in the 1990s. I found what the Dalai Lama had to say to be very interesting and valuable (lots of highlighting going on!), but I found the larger structure of the book somewhat annoying, with too much or too little personal input from the author at certain points.
The general concept of the book is tying the Dalai Lama's ideas to Western psychological studies to show their empirical value. In many ways, this works well, but I often found Cutler's summaries of the scientific research to be overly simplistic, plus the research is almost two decades old and some aspects have received much more study since then. Cutler's own attempts to put the Dalai Lama's advice into practice are scattershot, and the one-off examples are counterintuitive to the fact that we hear repeatedly how even small change can take a long time.
Leaving aside my issues with the larger structure of the book, as a vehicle for sharing the Dalai Lama's thoughts, I enjoyed it immensely. His thoughts are relatively basic and straightforward, but he returns again and again to the idea that you have to consciously make an effort to change your mindset -- to cultivate compassion, to replace negative emotions and thoughts with positive ones, to be grateful for your difficulties -- and he clearly has seen results from his intentional, continued meditations in these areas. Although some of what he says may appear simplistic at times, coupling it with this idea of the necessity of practice made me continually admit, "I don't know for sure that this doesn't work, since I haven't devoted any serious time and effort to trying it." And it gave me the motivation to want to put that effort into cultivating happiness.
I recommend the book, for the Dalai Lama's wisdom if not the hit-or-miss structure and commentary surrounding it.
Edited to add: The Kindle version I had was a complete mess. It looked like it was just an OCR version of the print copy that nobody proofread afterwards. It may just be the 10th anniversary version of the book that is this way.
The general concept of the book is tying the Dalai Lama's ideas to Western psychological studies to show their empirical value. In many ways, this works well, but I often found Cutler's summaries of the scientific research to be overly simplistic, plus the research is almost two decades old and some aspects have received much more study since then. Cutler's own attempts to put the Dalai Lama's advice into practice are scattershot, and the one-off examples are counterintuitive to the fact that we hear repeatedly how even small change can take a long time.
Leaving aside my issues with the larger structure of the book, as a vehicle for sharing the Dalai Lama's thoughts, I enjoyed it immensely. His thoughts are relatively basic and straightforward, but he returns again and again to the idea that you have to consciously make an effort to change your mindset -- to cultivate compassion, to replace negative emotions and thoughts with positive ones, to be grateful for your difficulties -- and he clearly has seen results from his intentional, continued meditations in these areas. Although some of what he says may appear simplistic at times, coupling it with this idea of the necessity of practice made me continually admit, "I don't know for sure that this doesn't work, since I haven't devoted any serious time and effort to trying it." And it gave me the motivation to want to put that effort into cultivating happiness.
I recommend the book, for the Dalai Lama's wisdom if not the hit-or-miss structure and commentary surrounding it.
Edited to add: The Kindle version I had was a complete mess. It looked like it was just an OCR version of the print copy that nobody proofread afterwards. It may just be the 10th anniversary version of the book that is this way.
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
This book is more a series of interviews with the Dalai Lama, interspersed with explanations citing scientific studies and case studies to demonstrate the concepts. It was quite lovely, more designed I think to be a handbook for living, a reference book, rather than something read through all at once. Some people feel cheated because it’s not “written” by the Dalai Lama, but probably at least 75% of it is his words in quotes so it seems fair to me. I found the passages written by the “author” to be refreshing for the change of tone and scientific interpretation. The book is organized into categories like how to avoid anxiety, develop compassion, combat selfishness and depression, etc. There are also a few medications explained that would be useful to practice. Overall a great book for anyone who wants to be happy. And as the Dalai Lama convincingly points out, that is the main objective of all of us.
informative
inspiring
relaxing
fast-paced
The book is not written by the Dalai Lama but it features him almost as prominently as the psychiatrist who did write the book. The book is a back and forth dialog between a western science psychiatrist (who admires the Dalai Lama but is still skeptical) and the Dalai Lama. So what you get are his questions and objections and the Dalai Lama's responses to those. Its a good read especially for those in the same place as the psychiatrist, but those seeking directly the views and words of Dalai Lama will become frustrated with about half of the book.