A review by olivia_piepmeier
Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are by Jack Kornfield

informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

This took me an ungodly amount of time to read because it was my pre-bed book but I really enjoyed it. Kornfield was recommended to me years ago by one of my first yoga teachers and this is my first time getting to him. I do think I'll read some of his other stuff, which I guess says a lot. Maybe I'm misremembering other Buddhist books I've read, but this seems to get into the roots of the practice a bit more, especially because it seems like he played a big role in bringing it to the west. I've often pondered on the level of cultural appropriation that happens with the "westernization" of Buddhism and Buddhism-derived practices, and he speaks to that a bit though I do take it with a grain of salt since he's a white dude that has financially benefited from the westernization of it (though I don't sense any financial incentives from him - he reads very genuinely invested in this!). His experience of majoring in "Asian Studies" in college and then spending years as a monk with several teachers across Asia gives him a certain level of insight that I don't think I've experienced yet. This book is just worth reading about his different experiences in monasteries in the 70s. It's interesting to hear about how someone so important to western Buddhism understands it, came to understand it, and started the centers that he did that adapted it to the west. Definitely worth a read for those interested in Buddhism.