Buddhism Without Beliefs

This book was really incredible. It really made me contemplate things that I had assumed to be true and forced me to evaluate the world based on what is known rather than what is indoctrinated. That said, some things in this book are in themselves assumptions. It's important to criticize every word in a book such as this and understand that what should be taken as advice (because there is a lot of wisdom in these pages) and what is unnecessary (it's hard to sell a book unless you have certainty that you're right and in a subject such as this, there can never really be certainty).

This review can also be found on my blog.

This was not a complete waste of time, but was close to it. The book detaches buddhism from religion and formats it not as a belief system, but a certain way of living. At first, I was really impressed with the ideas presented and felt I was getting a lot out of it. According to Dealing with “anguish” seems to be hinged on creating a perspective in which all is temporary: our “cravings” have not always existed, thus they will not always exist. It is turning our feelings into things we can watch ebb and flow rather than something that will overtake us entirely. Action is repeatedly emphasized as the key to dharma practice.

The formatting of the book seems to be without logical flow; it felt more like a general rambling than something coherently laid out. The chapters themselves confused me, as I felt like the author was talking himself around ideas and as soon as he began to approach what I thought was the point, the chapter would end unceremoniously. It was frustrating, since it started out explaining so many interesting ideas only to turn into something unstructured and unhelpful. It seems this may have made a better essay than an entire book. Also, the author is weirdly obsessed with someone they call S, who they refer to as their enemy and who apparently riles them up often. It was strangely distracting.