Hard-boiled, sometimes irreverent look at the Buddha.
Noted American Buddhist teacher Levine (Against the Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries, 2007, etc.) takes a no-nonsense approach to the basics of the Buddha’s teachings in this practical volume geared toward an audience of unfamiliar seekers.
The author encourages the reader to become one of the “1%ers,” who seek to live and encounter life in a very different way—both for their own good and for the good of others. A key basis to this lifestyle is to embrace compassion, which the author defines as “the experience of caring about pain and suffering—ours and others’.” Levine writes of the difficulties he faced in learning compassion after a youth filled with violence, drug abuse and crime left him struggling with anger. But through the Buddha's teachings of forgiveness and kindness, the author gained inner peace and was able to transform his life. “There is hope for external transformation only if the internal revolution is firmly grounded in loving-kindness,” he writes. Levine touches on specific teachings such as karma and tonglen, and provides a step-by-step guide to meditation as further help to the reader. Despite his didactic approach, the author has a tendency to reinforce the stereotype of American Buddhism as a spinoff of hippie culture. Levine's narrative is earthy and gritty, but too often seems to devalue the Buddhist religion and its teachings.
Hard-boiled, sometimes irreverent look at the Buddha.Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-171124-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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