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davefilkins's review
5.0
A very broad perspective on a very complicated subject - the mind. Thich Nhat Hanh brings his gentle language to explaining what brings about mental turmoil and how to alleviate that suffering in a detailed and thorough manner.
funeraryarts's review
5.0
Very engaging exposition of the psychic apparatus as understood by the buddhist tradition, the book takes a verse and expands on it for each chapter delving deeper into it while adding insight from the mind of a truly impressive practitioner.
This book is fantastic in many ways: it has a logical structure and goes systematically trough each of the parts of our mind in a way that each chapter remains clear while furthering understanding of what follows. The style of writing betrays TNH's mastery at teaching, showing a great use of metaphors and examples,keeping his chapters succint enough not to lose your attention but profound thanks to his perspective to set the mind on fire. Just like on buddhist sutras TNH's uses gentle repetition to make buddhist understanding as clear as it can be and he does it in a way that it's not annoying or intrusive; he rephrases absolute key points a few times to make sure a seed is firmly planted in the reader.
The absolute best quality of this book is that it reads like wisdom and not simply a dry psychological exposition of religious thought. The insights in this book give the impression of a great intelligence filtered trough a loving soul, there's open mindedness and compassion here. I wouldn't consider it a beginners introduction to buddhism and it's not aimed at that kind of audience. Everyone can learn something from this book but they will certainly get more out of it after having some general idea of the buddhist tradition.
If that weren't enough TNH's has poetry in his soul as well and some of the verses are genuinely beautiful specially after you've rumminated on the explanation of the chapter and can read them again with a new understanding, particularly some of the more abstract ones. At times it feels like another layer of meaning that was always there but incomprehensible is now open, this type of experience just serves to impress even more and leaves an unforgettable imprint on the mind. Outstanding work.
"The arms of perception embrace all, joining life to death..."
This book is fantastic in many ways: it has a logical structure and goes systematically trough each of the parts of our mind in a way that each chapter remains clear while furthering understanding of what follows. The style of writing betrays TNH's mastery at teaching, showing a great use of metaphors and examples,keeping his chapters succint enough not to lose your attention but profound thanks to his perspective to set the mind on fire. Just like on buddhist sutras TNH's uses gentle repetition to make buddhist understanding as clear as it can be and he does it in a way that it's not annoying or intrusive; he rephrases absolute key points a few times to make sure a seed is firmly planted in the reader.
The absolute best quality of this book is that it reads like wisdom and not simply a dry psychological exposition of religious thought. The insights in this book give the impression of a great intelligence filtered trough a loving soul, there's open mindedness and compassion here. I wouldn't consider it a beginners introduction to buddhism and it's not aimed at that kind of audience. Everyone can learn something from this book but they will certainly get more out of it after having some general idea of the buddhist tradition.
If that weren't enough TNH's has poetry in his soul as well and some of the verses are genuinely beautiful specially after you've rumminated on the explanation of the chapter and can read them again with a new understanding, particularly some of the more abstract ones. At times it feels like another layer of meaning that was always there but incomprehensible is now open, this type of experience just serves to impress even more and leaves an unforgettable imprint on the mind. Outstanding work.
"The arms of perception embrace all, joining life to death..."
sterrepetra's review
3.0
These 50 Verses are truly beautifully written! Multiple times I've quoted some simple but clever analogy Thich Nhat Hanh uses to let you understand a concept. For example:
"Clouds are the past life of rain. Rain is a continuation of the clouds."
However, in each verse there's quite some repetition and because of that it gets a bit boring at the end of the book. At other times though, I came across a verse that required much effort to understand it. But once you do, you see the interconnectedness of it with the other verses. So, in short, Understanding Our Mind is a beautifully written work, but sometimes falls into repetition of already explained concepts or requires a lot of your concentration.
One thing after reading this book is clear though: it's all about mindfulness :)
"Clouds are the past life of rain. Rain is a continuation of the clouds."
However, in each verse there's quite some repetition and because of that it gets a bit boring at the end of the book. At other times though, I came across a verse that required much effort to understand it. But once you do, you see the interconnectedness of it with the other verses. So, in short, Understanding Our Mind is a beautifully written work, but sometimes falls into repetition of already explained concepts or requires a lot of your concentration.
One thing after reading this book is clear though: it's all about mindfulness :)
funeraryarts's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
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