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A review by dunguyen
Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm by Thích Nhất Hạnh
4.0
I'm not a Buddhist. Or any other religion. Which makes reading this book a bit of a curiosity but I had it recommended through many different sources, even from people who are not Buddhists so I thought I'd give it a shot.
Fear is about, well, fear. Thich Nhat Hanh writes on how to get through fear, through the lens of Buddhism. This part was a bit hard for me to read since I don't really know that much about Buddhism, but there are parts of the book which are not Buddhism specific either which makes reading this book for someone like me much easier.
In Fear, Hanh writes about the original fear, which occurs at birth where the environmental changes are for the child enormous. And from then onwards, we fear because of our struggle for survival which starts when we leave the womb.
Hanh provides many different methods of coping with fear, most of all to acknowledge fear and look at its source. This is where it actually began to resemble stoicism a bit which I know much more about. Similarities include accepting things you can't control, know that you eventually will die and that this too shall pass.
At the end of the book Hanh provides some meditation exercises to help with fear and while I haven't done it, it sounds quite reasonable.
I like this book even if some Buddhism specific things did make me feel a bit perturbed. There are so many great things in this book though that doesn't have much to do with religion however so it's definitely worth reading.
There's also bonus points for namedropping Martin Luther King...
Favorite passage:
Everything is impermanent. This moment passes.
Fear is about, well, fear. Thich Nhat Hanh writes on how to get through fear, through the lens of Buddhism. This part was a bit hard for me to read since I don't really know that much about Buddhism, but there are parts of the book which are not Buddhism specific either which makes reading this book for someone like me much easier.
In Fear, Hanh writes about the original fear, which occurs at birth where the environmental changes are for the child enormous. And from then onwards, we fear because of our struggle for survival which starts when we leave the womb.
Hanh provides many different methods of coping with fear, most of all to acknowledge fear and look at its source. This is where it actually began to resemble stoicism a bit which I know much more about. Similarities include accepting things you can't control, know that you eventually will die and that this too shall pass.
At the end of the book Hanh provides some meditation exercises to help with fear and while I haven't done it, it sounds quite reasonable.
I like this book even if some Buddhism specific things did make me feel a bit perturbed. There are so many great things in this book though that doesn't have much to do with religion however so it's definitely worth reading.
There's also bonus points for namedropping Martin Luther King...
Favorite passage:
Everything is impermanent. This moment passes.