The Meditator's Atlas: A Roadmap to the Inner World [Paperback]

I just finished this book, and wow, it was fabulous. What I liked in this book apart from other books I've read on meditation is the focus on how we can use meditation to see things as they really are, to see impermanence, to see how the mind and consciousness create an illusion of a self, and how to eventually get past that and to enlightenment. This book also addresses the fears we face, the apprehensions we experience as reality is revealed. I found this especially helpful, as I am facing some of those fears myself. Lastly, the author gives wonderful descriptions of how enlightened beings view the world and live out the rest of their lives. This book is small, but it's a must read! I've ordered the author's meditation workbook Journey to the Center, and am looking forward to using it. Though, I don't believe you need the latter. There are several chapters in this book that give really great step by step instruction for insight meditation. This is a book I will reread several times.

With so many books coming out these days about the benefits of meditation and how to approach the path using Buddhist teachings as a map, here comes one more that reflects not Buddhist teaching but a sect of Buddhist thought. The title is very misleading.
Few westerners realize that there are as many sects, branches of Buddhism as there are in Christianity. While I have no problem with this personally, I do with authors that represent thier particular style as being representative of Buddhist teachings as a whole. So if you come from the popular Western-influenced - Sayadaw-Goenka style of Buddhism you should say that clearly in your writings.
As Vipassana, if one reads the suttas, is not a body scan method, but a reference to a style of attaining insight into the nature of phenomena that comes after developing samatha (samadhi). Read Thanissaro Bhikku's article, "Vipassana; one tool among many".
This book is only sharing a Theravada view. And Theravada is no longer homogeneous. There are numerous Theravada sects in places like Sri Lanka. Views on Vishuddhimagga are also myriad in Asia. This said, I would hardly call this book a roadmap to inner states, much less to enlightenment. While I have a lot of respect for the authors teacher, I would call it another good western, psychologised exposition on the authors particular preferences of Buddhist practice. But calling his preferences Buddhism generally is like, teaching someone in Asia pentacostal style of Christianity and then claiming that Pentacostals represents what Christianity is as a whole. That it IS Christianity.
This book is useful if you are looking for exposition on specific meditation methods sculpted through the authors own personal experiences; and an authors speculations on what enlightenement looks like based upon his own experiences with some teachers.
It is NOT however a roadmap of the inner world. It is not even near the Visshudhimagga. My main criticism is this:
One of the main problems that few Buddhist teachers will acknowledge with Abhidhamma, though Jack Kornfiled has done so, is that, while there is a broad map of inner states within the Visshudimagga, it does not come with any presciptions on how to enter into those inner experiences once you have mastered jhana.
The author of this book doesn't even know how to teach his readers how to enter jhana (the Buddhas own practice, mentioned in over 32 sutras).
I have spoken with a few western jhana masters who have admitted privately that they did not even know how to access thier previous lives in jhana, much less investigate the consciousness of others in jhana. Having had a different set of teachers I have to admit that while I understand the good intentions of the author, he's just one more person talking about the visshudhimagga wihtout really knowing how to use it. Because any of us could have read it and come to the same conclusions as Flickstein. But he doesn't actually shed any more light on the lack of prescriptions than anyone else. He could have shown the reader, i.e. like my own teacher, "when you go up to the 8th jhana then you come back down to the 5th and from there you concentrate on..... to arrive at this insight as mentioned in the Visshudhimagga". As many of these types of gnosis can be arrived at in just this manner, but Flickstein didn't. In my view, because the author does not understand experientially what he is claiming in the title. How can an author like flickstein not even explain how to do jhana and claim all he does about enlightenment. All in all another very un-useful and unpractical American Buddhist book filled with more intellectual speculations.
If your looking for a good book on doing jhana-try Shaila Catherine's, "Focused and Fearless" or Ajahn Brahm. If your looking to awaken the siddhis and use them for deeper insight in your vipassana practice read Samael Aun Weor's "Fundamental notions of endocrinology and criminology" or "Revolution of the Dialectic".

This book is the same book as Swallowing The River Ganges only with a new chapter at the end. Both books are fine books for learning meditation, particularly Buddhist Vipassana (Insight) meditation. Not one of my favorites, and not a keeper, but a fine book, nonetheless.

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