Awakening the Buddha Within,
Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World
Lama Surya Das
Broadway Books, New York
© copyright 1997, ISBN 0-553-06695-1
395 pp
Book review By Jennifer Sassani
“What did the Dalai Lama say to the New York hot dog vendor?
Make me one with everything.”
A Buddhist joke found online and reprinted in Awakening the Buddha Within.
But, don’t get me wrong, this book is not just filled with Buddhist humor.
On the contrary, it’s full of Buddhist history, teaching, precepts and
“lifelihood” as well as the bardo’s “deathlihood” presented in an easy to
manage straightforward manner.
Lama Surya Das manages to congenially relate his own initiation into the
Tibetan Buddhist way of life and present a condensed guide to enlightenment
in all of his book’s 400 fast moving pages. His accessible writing moves
along through a veritable course in beginning Tibetan Buddhism. It provides
you with an actual human voice prodding you, instructing you and urging you
to find your “natural mind.” “The natural mind is intrinsically beautiful,
buoyant, free, and tranquil. This is our pure original being, which existed
before we saw ourself as a self, before we perceived others, and before we
started to think others were the source of our pleasure and our suffering.”
The three factions of Buddhism include the Buddha, Dharma (teachings) and the
Sangha (spiritual community). There is a Buddha in each of us who can
practice the Dharma in order to enrich the Sangha. It offers a viable plan to
incorporate enlightened Buddhist concepts into the routines of everyday
living. The end product equals enlightened living.
Have you ever read almost one hundred pages in what seemed to be no time at
all? Expect it if you pick up this book. Have you ever looked forward to
reading a book as you would to visiting a good friend? Expect as much from
Awakening the Buddha Within. Even its physical entity exudes a certain grace
and bountiful spirit. Broadway Books of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing
produced a book of beauty here. The binding is sturdy yet malleable to your
own intimate bendings of it with the reading experience. Its own bodily
presence justifies the bound pages of writing.
Are you the sort of person who appreciates quality quotes, posting them at
eye-level for daily inspirational motivation? Look inside here. They’re all
over the place within these pages. I’ll even include some in this review.
Buddhism forces us to look realism in the face and accept it. But it also
encourages us to look inside ourselves, empty everything out and live
absolutely in the present moment. Mantras are empowering words or phrases
that coax your mind back into awareness and can be used as benedictions or
blessings for any kind of activity. Das recounted that in a Nepalese
monastery where he stayed, there were mantras for walking through doors or
eating a meal as well as using the toilet.
The book is divided into two major parts. The first part, Discovering
Ancient Wisdom in a Modern World, is composed of three sub-sections, We Are
All Buddhas, A Tibetan Prophesy and Deconstructing the House That Ego Built.
It sets the reader up to discover the innate Buddha nature, as it’s called,
that we all possess and it urges us to find it and use it as soon as possible
in order to attain enlightenment.
Until you reach the path,
You wander in the world
With the precious Buddha
Completely wrapped up inside
As in a bundle of rags
…you have this precious Buddha. Unwrap
it quickly!
—From The Sutra Of The Holy Buddha
The Tibetan Prophesy briefly relates the history and evolution of Tibetan
Buddhism as well as describes the migration of this religion from the East to
the West.
Deconstructing the House that Ego Built identifies some of the blocks that we
encounter on our journey to enlightenment, three sources of unhappiness. In
Buddhism, these are termed the Three Poisons and consist of Ignorance of the
Truth, Attachment and Aversion.
Part Two, Walking the Eight-Fold Path to Enlightenment-The Heroic Journey,
is the bulk of the book. Here we learn such things as the Facts of Life from
a Buddhist Perspective, the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-Fold Path.
The eight steps to enlightenment on the Noble Eight-Fold Path are as follows:
Wisdom Training (Right View, Right Intentions),
Ethics Training (Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood) Meditation
Training (Right Effort, Right Mindfulness,
Right Concentration)
They are all lessons in forming yourself into a more enlightened being,
bringing yourself full circle to a complete you in a complete world.
Wisdom training introduces us to Right View and Right Intention.
The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings…
As the shadow follows the body,
As we think, so we become.
—The Dhammapada
(Sayings of the Buddha)
Wow. Such a quote can knock you off your feet. That’s exactly what Buddhism
can do.
Ethics Training consists of Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood.
Do not do anything harmful; do only what is
Good; purify and train your own mind: This
Is the path to enlightenment.
—The Buddha
Meditation is a fundamental aspect of Buddhism, as most people know. Das
provides several guided meditations to perform throughout the day, some of
which even children would enjoy doing. It is an activity that can assist us
in such mundane activities as standing in lines, waiting at red lights or the
doctor’s office. You can transform daily opportunities for headaches into
daily opportunities for self-awareness and peace.
The whole thrust of the Buddha’s teaching is to master the mind. If you
master the mind, you will have mastery over body and speech…Mastery of the
mind is achieved through constant awareness of all your thoughts and
actions…Maintaining this constant mindfulness in the practice of tranquility
and insight, you will eventually be able to sustain the recognition of wisdom
even in the midst of ordinary activities and distractions. Mindfulness is
thus the very basis, the cure for all samsaric afflictions.
—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche,
Journey to Enlightenment
One exciting aspect of Tibetan Buddhism is called Dream Yoga. Its teachings
illustrate how to participate in your dreams consciously and actively. You
can actually learn how to manipulate the course of action that you take while
in your dreaming state of sleep. This aids in spiritual progression because
our dreams shed insight into our own subconscious minds. In dreams our fears
and insecurities surface. By utilizing the Dream Yoga and controlling our
dream state actions, we can learn to confront and conquer our fears in waking
life.
So, if you are searching for that book to read while sitting poolside this
summer, go get Awakening the Buddha Within. It’ll help you deal with the
heat and those times when everything is wrong with your life. Although the
Buddha does say that everything is perfect exactly as it is.
How wonderful!
How wonderful!
All things are
Perfect
Exactly as they are!
—The Buddha
Even if you cannot aspire to be the perfect Buddha, it’ll give you some idea
of why he’s smiling so much.
