Seeing Clearly
A Buddhist Guide to Life
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Many of us, even on our happiest days, struggle to quiet the constant buzz of anxiety in the background of our minds. All kinds of worries--worries about losing people and things, worries about how we seem to others--keep us from peace of mind. Distracted or misled by our preoccupations, misconceptions, and, most of all, our obsession with ourselves, we don't see the world clearly--we don't see the world as it really is.
In our search for happiness and the good life, this is the main problem. But luckily there is a solution, and on the path to understanding it, we can make use of the rich and varied teachings that have developed over centuries of Buddhist thought.
With clarity and compassion, Nicolas Bommarito explores the central elements of centuries of Buddhist philosophy and practice, explaining how they can improve your life and teach you to live without fear. Mining important texts and lessons for practical guidance, he provides a friendly guide to the very practical goals that underpin Buddhist philosophy. After laying out the basic ideas, Bommarito walks readers through a wide range of techniques and practices we can adopt to mend ingrained habits.
Rare for its exploration of both the philosophy that motivates Buddhism and its practical applications, this is a compassionate guide to leading a good life that anyone can follow.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this uncomplicated, thoughtful introduction to Buddhism, Bommarito (Inner Virtue), an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Buffalo, puts a modern twist on a centuries-old religious tradition. Bommarito does not get bogged down in Buddhist terminology, history, or metaphysics; instead, he offers a fresh and relatable interpretation of Buddhist traditions such as karma and enlightenment, as well as Zen koans and altar offerings, by placing them within a modern and often clever context. This is particularly helpful when he uses everyday examples to unpack complex Buddhist principles, such as when he explain concepts like "emptiness" that nothing exists independently of other related things using a heap of eggs: "The indeterminate nature of heaps suggests that these are just made-up categories that we project onto the world... these aren't separate things, but just labels for the sake of convenience." He suggests that as readers take in the variety and vivacity of Buddhism's core tenets and key practices principally that one needs to wake up to reality and adjust one's life accordingly they should be able to reduce distraction and anxiety. A corrective to both overly complex presentations of Buddhist traditions and secularized versions that strip away the religion's supernatural elements, this useful work provides a happy harmony of temporal wisdom and transcendent habits for Buddhist beginners.
