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A review by funeraryarts
Understanding Our Mind: 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology by Thích Nhất Hạnh
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..."