Why Is the Buddha Smiling? : Mindfulness As a Means of Bringing Calm and Insight to Your Life - Softcover

Mark Magill

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841811963 ISBN 13: 9781841811963

Publisher: Godsfield Press, 2003

Synopsis

This text offers readers the chance to explore ways of bringing clarity and insight to their everyday lives using the Buddhist principle of mindfulness. Mindfulness involves a re-examination of every aspect of life, from our relationships with ourselves and others to our behaviour and thought patterns in every situation - the workplace, at home and in the outdoors - in a way that shows us things clearly as they are and frees us from habitual reactions. The book includes exercises and practices that should help readers to live life with awareness of the present moment and to increase their connection with life. This awareness offers freedom from the grip of negative emotions, which lead to suffering. Mindfulness helps to steady, stabilize and strengthen the power of our attention and increases our "centre of gravity" so we are less easily distracted. In learning this practice, we will realize that the Buddha is smiling because he has discovered that there is a path to freedom from suffering. The path begins with mindfulness and it is open to everyone.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Magill is the co-author of the best-selling Good Life, Good Death: Tibetan Wisdom on Reincarnation (Riverhead Books, 2001). He has served on the board of advisors of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. He is also a filmmaker whose work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He lives in New York.

From Publishers Weekly

Tricycle contributing editor Magill offers here a heartfelt but nebulous musing on the crucial Buddhist practice of mindfulness. The answer to Magill's titular question seems simple: in order to attain the state of bliss that the Buddha achieved, we need only "not to cower from death, but to learn to appreciate life" by "returning again and again to the sensations of the moment," after which we eventually will "come to taste what it means to be aware." While this distillation of the path to enlightenment may be accurate, Magill might lead readers who are unfamiliar with Buddhist teachings into thinking that it is relatively easy to discover "the unobstructed view" of their "real nature." Readers may find it relatively simple to "begin and end each day with a moment of stillness," which Magill suggests as part of a process of cultivating mindfulness, but they might be confused by his directive to "contemplate the nature of your delusion." Though Magill's suggestions for practice ask much of the beginning student-admitting that one mistakes attachment for love or takes pleasure in a delusion is something few can bravely and honestly do-his reminders that suffering can be beneficial should be comforting and inspiring to those who are enduring great hardship ("When we are happy and comfortable, we are apt to be complacent. When we are suffering and experiencing firsthand the nature of life and death, we begin to realize that we must do something to help ourselves"). Magill's well-meaning ruminations and suggestions show that the Buddhist way of life offers much in the way of overcoming suffering and realizing joy, although supplemental resources will be necessary to provide readers with the guidance to do so.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Godsfield Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1841811963
• ISBN 13: 9781841811963
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160