The Bluegum Sangha

Books at Bluegum

On 7^th June we held a session at the Bluegum Sangha where people presented their favourite Dharma books or resources. This is a summary of some of these.

There are of course many sources of recommendations of Dharma books and materials, including the web site of the Beaches Sangha[1].

John Millard

Pema Chodron When things fall apart:  Heart Advice for Difficult Times  (the Book)

The description Heart Advice for Difficult Times  represents well the great usefulness of this warm and friendly book that is easy to read.

The words and wisdom which Pema shares are very easy to relate to and the true compassion with which they are offered makes her a great voice and companion  when we find we’re are challenged by our fears, anxieties, grief and loss.

She never talks from any height of authority but rather talks as if, as Gawaine remarked, she is waking beside you as an equal, because in her world too …  Things come together and they fall apart.  Then they come together again and fall apart again.  It’s just like that.  The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

There  is no book I have bought more often and share to so many as this one.  The response has always been so positive.

A CD of When Things Fall Apart … is also available.

This and other spoken word CD by Perma Chodron are highly recommended by Gabriell as her voice is part of the wisdom … her voice and manner is part of the healing.

Christopher McLean

If I were there, I guess I’d have to nominate Douglas Harding‘s tiny, little book, “On Having No Head,” because while reading it, I actually looked into voidness; and after that the question of who is seeing,
who is the “I,” became the most urgent (and just about the only) matter in my life.

That experience affected me so, that I went to England to meet Douglas. He graciously invited me to stay with him in Nacton and personally walked me through the inquiry. It took about twenty years
of plumbing it, before I found a significant measure of peace.

I love that word, “Plumb”: to determine the depth of [something] with a plumb; to sound – as in, to sound the depths of one’s being. The plumb is mindfulness-awareness, of course.

Anyway, much love to my friends at Blue-Gum.

Anna

I’d like to talk about Sarah Napthali’s book ‘Buddhism for Mothers’ as it is still my favourite Buddhism book and the reason I now come to Blue Gum!  Arthur’s still thinking…

Susan Anthony

As health issues prevent me from attending many group gigs and often even reading, I have been lucky in finding some excellent talks on the internet that i can listen to freely online or download, as well as online retreats I can participate in.

My favorite sites for talks are audiodharma.org and dharmaseed.org where there are talks by many of the major western Buddhist teachers – Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzburg, Stephen Bachelor etc – as well as some eastern ones.

In addition I am a member at Tricycle.com where there are often online retreats, plus great articles and a hardcopy magazine every few months.

I feel very fortunate that these resources are available and highly recommend them.

Betsy Faen

Yes. I have a few favourites:

Toni Packer: ‘The Wonder of Presence’

Joko Beck’s: ‘Nothing Special: Living Zen’ and ‘Everyday Zen’

Jack Kornfield: ‘The Path with Heart’

Thich Nhat Hanh: ‘Peace is Every Step’

Wes Nisker: ‘Budhha’s Nature’

Reginald Ray: ‘Touching Enlightenment’

Pema Chodron: ‘The Places that Scare You’, ‘Start Where You Are’, ‘When Things Fall Apart’ and ‘The Wisdom of No Escape’

Jason Siff: ‘Unlearning Meditation’

Stephen Batchelor: ‘Living with the Devil’, ‘Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist’, ‘Buddhism without Beliefs’

to name a few….

Sarah Naphthali

My book was “A life of one’s own” by Joanna Field (alias Marion Milner) written in 1926. My edition published by J.P Tarcher inc los Angeles (whoever they are) but I got my copy from Amazon.

Description: a young woman’s quest to sort out her muddled mind and find peace. No mention whatsoever of Buddhism yet all her findings, from direct and close observation of her own experience, chime perfectly with the Buddha’s (to my mind). I discovered this book through Chris Mclean who read from it one night at Bluegum.

Jonathan Page

One of my favourite Buddhist books is “The Psychology of Awakening”, ed. Gay Watson, Stephen Batchelor and Guy Claxton.

Subtitled “Buddhism, Science and Our Day-to-Day Lives”. Pub 2000 by Samuel Weiser NY.

The book is a remarkably balanced, thoughtful, intelligent, academic (but not erudite) and, importantly, personalised anthology of important topics in Buddhist philosophy and individual experience. I spoke of Francisco Varela’s chapter “Steps to a Science of Interbeing : Unfolding the Dharma Implicit in Modern Cognitive Science”. I was particularly interested in his challenging discussion of Embodiment, notably the argument that “the mind is not in the head”, ie not simply a function of the brain, and that “cognition is “enactively embodied… and emergent”. He does answer the question: “then where the hell is it?  Furthermore the nature of emergence is vital to an understanding of the mind, consciousness and cognition. Varela argues that the mind is an emergent property (phenomenon) of mind/body as this entity interacts with others and the universe. There would be no mind related to a “brain in a bottle”. As others have stated the materialists have much to answer for, particularly in their very limited view of the mind, which in turn has impeded a “Western” understanding of the Dharma. Varela argues for further development of “first person”, experiential science (neurophenomenology) to further explore the mind. Interesting and vital work.

Other contributors include Christopher Titmus ( Inquiry into Awakening), Gay Watson (I, Mine and Views of the Self), Fred Pheil (Subjects Without Selves: Contemporary Theory Accounts for the “I”), John Welwood (Realisation and Embodiment: Psychological Work in  the Service of Spiritual Development), John Kabit-Zinn  (Indra’s Net at Work: the Mainstreaming of Dharma Practice in Society), James Low (The Structure of Suffering: Tibetan Buddhist and Cognitive Analytic Approaches) etc etc. I would also like to recommend Tricycle magazine (The Buddhist Review), published quarterly by The Tricycle Foundation and available on line: www.tricycle.com . This is an eclectic, enthusiastic, literary, creative and practical review (a review more than a magazine or journal, which by definition is daily; available with each new season). It is very easy to “get involved” – ordering daily Dharma, links, books, courses, online retreats, online film festivals etc. From the latest edition I particularly enjoyed “How to be in the World” by Henry Shukman, an American author, poet and Zen teacher, who analyses the works of J.D.Salinger and Eugene O’Neill through Buddhist eyes.  “Salinger’s work is full of incipient dharma – an apprehension of the truths…the troubled integrity of his characters…searching for a truer way of living” with many examples.

In Long Day’s Journey into Night, O’Neill writes of Edmund recalling an experience whilst crewing on a sailing ship:

“I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, full moon, with water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight…I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself – actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved into the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight…I belonged without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life…”.

Shukman himself experienced a transcendental moment then spent 20 years seeking an explanation (and another dose), only finding peace in the Zen tradition. This pattern of early life epiphany followed by decades of “seeking answers” seems not unusual.

There’s much more!

I hope this contributes to the BGS Corpus.

Gawaine Powell Davies

One of my favourite books is Buddhism is not what you Think, (Penguin), by Steve Hagen, a Canadian Zen teacher. It is made up of short chapters – probably individual dharma talks – that have the uncanny knack of pointing to direct experience poking through our concept-laded approach to life. It is as if he is saying: “What are you reading this book for? Put it down, go out and have a look around…”

Emma Pittaway

Great Disciples of the Buddha: Their Lives, Their Works, Their Legacy by Nyanaponika Thera and Hellmuth Hecker

This boook takes excerpts from the Pali scriptures to construct profiles of the Buddha’s disciples and prominent members of his Sangha. It is a wonderfully rich introduction to the Pali suttas and a fascinating and personal account of the life and circumstances of the early Sangha at the time of the Buddha.

Cave in the Snow by Vickie Mackenzie

This is a biography of Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, who was one of the fisrt Western women to ordain in India in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and famously spent 12 years in solitary retreat in a cave in the Himalayas. Very inspiring!

 A Map of the Journey by Sayadaw U Jotika

- a transcript of a beautiful series of talks given by Sayadaw U Jotika to Australian students on the path of insight meditation. Very warm and personal style, and a good description of the stages of the path that may be helpful to provide context for people’s current meditation experiences and an explanation of the insight path and goal. It is published in Burma but available at http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/mapjourney6.pdf

 Brilliant Moon (DVD)

- Incredibly moving and inspirational biography of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama who was trained in Tibet, exiled in Bhutan, and taught the Dharma in the West in his later life. There is also a book by the same name.

Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization

by Analayo

With painstaking thoroughness, Ven. Analayo marshals the suttas of the Pali canon, works of modem scholarship, and the teachings of present-day meditation masters to make the rich implications of the Satipatthana Sutta, so concise in the original, clear to contemporary students of the Dharma.

Unlike other popular books on the subject, he is not out to establish the exclusive validity of one particular system of meditation as against other’s. Rather, his aim is to explore the sutta as a wide-ranging and multi-faceted source of guidance which allows for alternative interpretations and approaches to practice. His analysis combines the detached objectivity of the academic scholar with the engaged concern of the practitioner for whom meditation is a way of life rather than just a subject of study. (Synopsis from windhorse.com.au) -

Life of the Buddha

by Bhikkhu Nanamoli

This unique biography presents the Buddha’s revolutionary solution for humanity that leads to the end of ill will, craving and delusion. Though born a prince surrounded by luxuries, Gotama the Buddha was transformed by realizing that no one escapes unhappiness. He spent the remainder of his life discovering, then imparting, the answer to the great question: “Is there a way out of the cycle of suffering?”

Light on Enlightenment

by Christopher Titmuss

Recommended by Subhana, and subtitled “Revolutionary Teachings On the Inner Life”, it provides an excellent overview of the structures (e.g. the Four Noble Truths, the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, the Five Hindrances) of the Buddha’s teachings. Available from Windhorse.

Clearing the Path

By: Nanavira Thera

Mentioned and recommended by Rena. A digital version is available at Buddhanet.

Embracing the Beloved

By: Stephen and Ondrea Levine

Mentioned by Winton.

Selling Spirituality

By: Jeremy Carrette and Richard King

One of Winton’s “favourite books”. From the cover blurb:

From feng shui to holistic medicine, from aromatherapy candles to yoga weekends, spirituality is big business. It promises to soothe away the angst of modern living, and to offer an antidote to shallow materialism. “Selling Spirituality” is a short, sharp attack on this fallacy. It shows how spirituality has in fact become a powerful commodity in the global marketplace–a cultural addiction that reflects orthodox politics, curbs self-expression and colonizes Eastern beliefs. Exposing how spirituality has today come to embody the privatization of religion in the modern West, Jeremy Carrette and Richard King reveal the people and brands who profit from this corporate hijack, and explore how spirituality can be reclaimed as a means of resistance to capitalism and its frauds.

Record of Awakening: practice and insight on the Buddhist path

By: David Smith

A RECORD OF AWAKENING is the remarkable fruit of more than twenty years’ immersion in Buddhist practice: a practice that has been both deep and far-reaching.

In this book David smith, ‘an ordinary working-class chap’ who came across Buddhism, shares his extraordinary inner experience. Taking us through his journey – from initial practice in the Zen tradition and three years as a Theravadin monk to his recent years as a lay practitioner in East London – he describes the basic principles of his practice and the process whereby the ‘tap root of ignorance’ is cut and the Awakened Mind is born.

His account reminds us that the Awakened Mind is within the reach of every one of us who is prepared to make the effort. (synopsis from windhorse.com.au).

Reading List:

• Alan B Wallace (ed.) (2003) Buddhism & Science (see intro chapter here)
• Alan B Wallace (2006) Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism And Neuroscience Converge.
• Stephen Jay Gould (2002) Science & Religion in the Fullness of Life.
• Pascal Boyer (2002) Religion Explained
• James H. Austin (2006) Zen-Brain Reflections.
• His Holiness the Dalai Lama (2005) The Universe in a Single Atom: How Science and Spirituality can serve our world. (see extract here)
• Susan Blackmore (2004) Consciousness
  • Ch 25 The View from Within.
    
  • Ch 26 Meditation & Mindfulness.
    
  • Ch 27 Buddhism & Consiousness

Effects of Meditation:

• The Physical & Psychological Effects of Meditation
• Meditation: Concepts, Effects and Uses in Therapy
• Research Demonstrating Harmful Effects from TM
• Does Mindfulness Meditation Improve Anxiety and
  Mood Symptoms? A Review of the Controlled Research