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 - The Crack in Space

This is a fairly representative sample of Philip K Dick’s paranoia-fueled alternate universes at its best. The Crack in Space was published in 1966 and is an expanded version of the novella Cantata 140, which was published in 1964. Both are based on the short story Prominent Author.

The novel is set on Earth in the year 2080. The planet struggles with overpopulation when a portal to a parallel version of Earth is discovered, hidden within a vehicle known as a Jiffi-scuttler. There are a lot of moving parts to the story, and it can be a bit difficult to keep them all in mind while reading.

For one, it is an election year (how appropriate for me to read this in 2016), and one of the candidates believes that the alter-Earth can be utilized for moving 70 million people known as "bibs", who have been cryogenically frozen until the overpopulation problem has been resolved, to colonize the planet. However, it is later discovered that this alter-Earth is not uninhabited.

Since I don’t want to give to much of the plot away, I will leave the description of the novel at that.

I found the book to be extremely enjoyable to read. I hesitate to say that it’s one of Dick’s finest works, because there are some truly amazing pieces that I have read along with even more that I have yet to get to. But when it comes down to it, this particular novel really nails the paranoid explanation of alternate realities that Dick was excellent at creating and expressing in some of his novels. It verges on the line of being classified as a horror novel, rather than just a science fiction novel, because a lot of the book strikes a chord similar to that of HP Lovecraft—something utterly wrong and horrible has happened, but it isn’t clearly defined.

At any rate, I’d highly suggest giving this one a read. I’m not sure if I’d rate this in my “Top Ten” Philip K Dick novel’s list yet, but it seems to be a worthy contender at this point.

4/5 stars. 188 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.

Book Review - Counter-Clock World

Image of book cover taken by David Wilder.

In Counter-Clock World, Philip K Dick creates a world where time flows backward, resulting in various interesting environmental characteristics. For example, instead of inhaling cigarette smoke, smokers light up finished cigarette butts and exhale smoke into them to form brand-new cigarettes. People greet each other with "Goodbye" and end interactions with "Hello". Deceased folks wake up in their graves and shout until they are heard and rescued by "vitariums"—businesses that dig up "old-born" dead people and revive them.

One of the "deaders" who is pulled out of the ground happens to be a controversial religious figure named Anarch Peak. The novel centers around his coming back to life and how it affects the people involved. This is a pretty action-packed PKD book, complete with a lot of drama between the involved parties. Some are excited that Anarch has been revived, others are not, and still others are caught in between the two of them in some sort of paranoid fantasy—the likes of which only Dick can create.

The book was published in 1967 and combines the best of Dick's older writing themes with the more science fiction style approach used in his later works. I definitely enjoyed this one, although not as much as many other PKD novels. The story is engaging enough, and there were certainly parts that really gripped me. However, I rate PKD novels against one another, and this one comes out somewhere near above average. Regardless, a Dick book is consistently a great read, and I wouldn't hesitate to suggest Counter-Clock World to anyone new to his writing or science fiction in general!

3/5 stars. 222 pages.