continual awareness

Flip past the creepy cover and READ this book. Batchelor delivers a somewhat unique point of view on Buddhism and life in general. 

“Ironically, we may discover that death meditation is not a morbid exercise at all. Only when we lose the use of something taken for granted (whether the telephone or an eye) are we jolted into recognition of its value…by meditating on death, we paradoxically become conscious of life.”

“There is nothing thinglike about me at all. I am more like an unfolding narrative…Instead of clinging to habitual behavior and routines as a means to secure this sense of self, we realize the freedom to create who we are…Instead of taking ourselves so seriously, we discover the playful irony of a story that has never been told in quite this way before.”

“More than just a philosophical view of the world, Buddhism represents a path of transforming the mind, with the aim of freeing ourselves from suffering and its causes. Transforming the mind involves first learning to know it, then identifying how it functions so as to eliminate the three main mental poisons, which are ignorance, desire, and hatred.”

This is a 3-part book. I really enjoyed the first 2 parts. Definitely a good read with insights on how to live a more peaceful and unselfish life. The self is the root of mental poisons. Also, emphasizes key Buddhist principles such as interdependence and compassion. 

What I take away from this well-developed book that offers a feasible solution to end extreme poverty by 2025:

1. Clinical economics. Making a differential diagnosis for each impoverished country and customizing an aid package accordingly.

2. The caste system is fleeting in the urban labor market in India. It seems to me that the idea that “money makes the world go ‘round” is not entirely evil. Money can empower the lowest of the caste system as they start to earn more and, as in Half the Sky, empower oppressed women in the Middle East (i.e. as with microloans). Since these women are the new breadwinner, the husband has less of a “right” to abuse/restrict her.

3. To fight terrorism, we need to fight poverty and deprivation as well.

4. Ending extreme poverty is possible, but requires “a global network of cooperation among people who have never met and who do not necessarily trust each other.” More needs to be done by both sides. Richer countries need to give more support and poor countries need to make a committed, passionate effort to build their country up.

“We sometimes think that Westerners invest too much effort in changing unjust laws and not enough in changing culture, by building schools or assisting grassroots movements.”

READ this book: great source of information, personal stories, and ways to help women around the world.

I definitely recommend reading this. I love the parts when he talks about his sister. And a couple favorite quotes:

“Kids always have to meet their friend. That kills me.” (true; contrasts the loneliness of adulthood he feels and I suspect most people feel as they grow older, to varying degrees)

“He didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, so all he said was “Oh” and took me up. Not bad, boy. It’s funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to do.”

This book was, for lack of a better word, eh. I liked the first half much more than the second. Nonetheless, there are at least a few passages that stay with me. Point in case:

“These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defense, not God’s, that the self-righteous should rush.”

“The central point of the world is the point where stillness and movement are together. Movement is time, but stillness is eternity. Realizing how this moment of your life is actually a moment of eternity, and experiencing the eternal aspect of what you’re doing in the temporal experience—this is the mythological experience.”

A must read in my opinion. Philosophical and fascinating. 

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. 

This book consists of a series of short stories. I liked all the them and loved the first one. Her writing is so wonderfully descriptive. You feel like you are there and experiencing everything the character does. And there is something about the Indian culture that I am drawn to. I usually don’t read much, but not having much to do over the summer has allowed me the time to start. The thing about books that I love is the inner dialogue we never get to hear within others, is now accessible. And the author’s insights can be profound when relevant to your life. It broadens your perspective. 

I use a post it for a bookmark and write down pages that stand out to me for whatever reason. Page 54. I can later look at it and know why I had written it down. “He couldn’t help thinking, on those occasions, how young they’d once been, how helpless in his nervous arms, needing him for their very survival, knowing no one else. He and his wife were their whole world. But eventually that need dissipated, dwindled to something amorphous, tenuous, something that threatened at times to snap. That loss was in store for Ruma, too; her children would become strangers, avoiding her.”