Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide @ richardeward.com

Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide
by Barry Magid
from Wisdom Publications

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

• Kind of Depressing
  This is a gem of a book, but it is brutally frank and honest. There are no sugar-coated solutions to the difficulty of being alive, no place to hide, no true refuge. Thus, this is definitely the best Zen book I've ever read. His experience as a psychoanalyst was fascinating, too, and gave me a new appreciation of this much maligned profession.
  But the sad fact is that the author busts our illusions and delusions. He ferrets out our "secret practice" which is always goal-oriented, usually towards some... more info

• Book is great, the author isn't
  Every single thing written on the reality of Zen since Alan Watts can be no more than an "Alan Watts" rehash. Alan Watts about said it all through audio books and written. Since the book is a lot of that, it is great. I got it at the library and was thinking of buying it, but now I will not. The author made one comment concerning Buddhists who believe that we return endlessly to help those who are unenlightened. The guy stated that there are "numberless sentient beings so to hell with them" This reminded me... more info

• Well written and modern
  I read this after having read "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" and "Everyday Zen". Those two books are collections of Dharma talks given at a zendo while this book is a consistent book in it's entirety.
  I found it very well written and reasoned. It doesn't fall back on "new age" type analogies that so much as some Zen books. It brings Zen into the modern western world while still recounting some of the tales and koans of early Buddhism. It also references Socrate's and more recent western philosophers.... more info

• Great Personal Insights
  Very good personal descriptions of his experience and the essence of Zen, not the sitting, but the meaning. Rondavous with Advita thinking in the end.

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