The Zen Path Through Depression - Hardcover

Martin, Philip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060654457 ISBN 13: 9780060654450

Publisher: HarperOne, 1999

Synopsis

This book is a guide to the wilderness that is depression, written by someone who knows the territory and has seen that a map alone is not enough. It is a guide to using our own inner resources, and to learning how to read and listen to the signs around us. It is ultimately a guide to growth, insight, and realization.

The Zen Path through Depression is a practical, clear resource that approached depression in an entirely new way. Philip Martin tells us that "depression is an illness not just of the body and mind, but also of the heart." The heart, the spirit, is where the key to healing lies. Philip Martin, a psychiatric social worker and a longtime student of Zen, shows us, through the spiritual practice of Zen Buddhism, how we can heal depression and look fearlessly at our live.

He takes us through the realities of depression, the fears and doubts that are so intrinsic to this condition. We are shown the fundamental choice that we face: Do we run, or do we confront ourselves and or fear directly? In brief, inspiring, and instructive chapters, Martin shows how we can incorporate Zen ideals and practices into our everyday lives. Through a step-by-step recovery process, we are offered true help and guidance by which we are able to discover a new path to health and contentment.

This beautiful, simple book relates the basic practices and ideas of Zen Buddhism to the process of healing depression. Extremely accessible to people with little or no Zen experience as well as to longtime students of Buddhism, The Zen Path through Depression is a compassionate and spiritual approach to healing this debilitating condition.

Exploring the many issues and often difficult questions surrounding depression, author Philip Martin turns to his personal battle with this disease to show is how we, too, can heal ourselves through the Eastern practice of Zen. The Zen Path through Depression reveals a spiritual path we can travel to get through depression--a path that not only eases the pain but mends the spirit. This groundbreaking guide reveals how to cope and rebuild our lives and even how to view the experience as an opportunity for spiritual learning and growth.

About this title

Review:

Since depression sometimes responds well to drugs, it's natural to think that, without medicinal intervention, we're helpless in the face of it. Like John Tarrant's groundbreaking Light Inside the Dark, Philip Martin's The Zen Path Through Depression offers a powerful alternative. A psychiatric social worker having recovered from depression himself, Martin is a sympathetic voice, urging the reader not to escape from depression or fight against it but to face it and work through it. He says that the mindfulness exercises appended to each short section of his book are optional, but they seem essential. It's true that the book could stand alone with its one- and two-page sections devoted to trenchant explorations of fear, death, sufficiency, choice. But the exercises bring you through the quagmire of depression and back into life. They are true experiences that untie knots impervious to thought alone. Instead of thinking your thoughts, you watch them, and where they can take you finally is back into joyful living. --Brian Bruya

About the Author:

Philip Martin has practiced Buddhism for more than thirty years. He has worked as a social worker and case manager for twenty-five years, and is also a workshop leader. He lives in Red Wing, Minnesota.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0060654457
• ISBN 13: 9780060654450
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160