Wonderful, secular explanation of Zen ideas

The author describes his Zen experience of emptiness in an astoundingly clear way, given how intrinsically subjective the topic is. He compares it to many similar acccounts in various religions, and manages to clear a lot of the clutter orbiting it.

Writing style is fluid and maintains a comfortably secular viewpoint despite the estoricity and historical mystical baggage of the topic. Even when words like "god" were used, I had no trouble interpreting them in a metaphoric sense - much like Einstein's discussions on hypotethical ultimates of existence.

This helped me understand many Zen and Tao teachings and stories for the first time -- at times to the points of making them seem ridiculously convoluted way of pointing to the same direction! Just listening to the book even took me closest ever to actually experiencing the "void" subjectively. Highly recommended.

8 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Life Changing

I think I will never see the world or myself the same way after having listened to this book.

My meditation up to this point has been about "stilling the pool" as they say, but this book has made me go deeper. Now I'm asking, "wait a second, what's the pool made out of? Is this even a pool?"

Consise, compelling, and charming. I would recommend to anyone interested in Buddhism or any open-minded and philosophical person.

5 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Experience Void, Experience Causeless Joy

Most clear cut, experiential approach to seeing what One truly is. Language is crystal clear and he even makes sense of a dozen or so mystics and masters who’s advice finally makes sense in the first person present tense.

I practice this method every day, very obvious stuff once it sinks in. Everyone’s birthright is the joy of Being.

5 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Awesome

Great description of the event and process of enlightenment in everyday language and excellent references!

5 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Deeply well written journey into the hearts

Harding not only explain his journey to talk to friends about mysterios gems and how lowly rejected they may get even from the brightest. He also shows what may happen if you trust yourself and take your own steps into the deepest place of the heart. He tells it from the view of the ones that are often happy around us, the view from children and animals.

4 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Head Blown. Wow.

Intellectual yet humble account of headless ness and Ones journey towards liberation. Complex and simple.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Wonderful!

Narration could be so much better. But a second listening should clear up some of what was obscured by an untrained reader. Nonetheless, powerful content made accessible for the most part. I only wish there were more practical suggestions and instruction.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Great, inspiring.

If you’re interested in non-duality, advaita and such, you will enjoy this book. Is a must read/hear in this field of knowledge.

The narration by Richard Lang is nice and clear, specially knowing he’s probably the greatest expert alive on this philosophy -or rather, way of living- from Douglas Harding.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Headline-less

Changed my life, and I've only finished it days ago. Suggested reading only after one has completed Sam Harris' 50 day intro course via the Waking Up app. (May need to do twice, as I did).

2 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Exceptional

I thought that this was brilliant and truly original. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and plan to re read it again today or tomorrow. I read the first two chapters a while ago, but wasn’t ready for it at that time.