Wisdom Is Bliss
Four Friendly Fun Facts That Can Change Your Life
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
"Robert Thurman is a living treasure, one of today's most provocative spiritual thinkers." - Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence
Robert Thurman, the preeminent scholar and interpreter of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy for the modern world, leads us on a joyful exploration into the nature of reality through Buddha's threefold curriculum of "super-education."
"Buddha had to be an educator, rather than a prophet or religion founder, since he had achieved his goal of exact and complete understanding of reality by using reason, experiments to open his own mind, and vision to do so," Thurman writes. "From his own experience, he could help [others] as a teacher by streamlining the process. He could not just transplant his realization into their minds. They could not get their own realizations just by believing whatever he said. He could only provide them with a prospect of full realization along a path of learning and experiencing they could follow-they would have to travel on their own."
This book is your invitation to travel that same road. Deeply felt and bracingly direct, it doesn't teach about the teaching-it is the teaching. Get ready to get real, and have fun along the way, as you chart a path to reliable, lasting happiness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this galvanizing guide, Buddhist scholar Thurman (Infinite Life) explores Buddhist axioms in order to help readers create a more lasting happiness. In presenting the Buddha as a scientist and calling The Four Noble Truths "the four friendly facts," Thurman makes the concepts at hand digestible to lay readers. He divides "a buddha's threefold super-education" (science, ethics, and meditative mind-power) into four key areas—love, compassion, joy, and equanimity—and uses his own life experiences and the Buddha's teachings to explain how to obtain "the full experience of this real world." For instance, Thurman recommends readers strive for realistic speech ("speaking the truth and avoiding falsehoods" and "senseless chatter"), realistic evolutionary action ("the realization that actions are evolutionary in their causal impact on oneself and others"), and realistic livelihood (choosing one's "calling or profession with the intention of maximizing evolutionary progress") in order to reject egoism and connect to fellow humans, resulting in "the wisdom of nirvana." Best suited for those already familiar with Buddhist concepts, Thurman's inviting advice will appeal readers of Pema Chodron.
