The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: Satipatthna: A Handbook of Mental Training Based on the Buddha's Way of Mindfulness: Amazon.ca: Thera Nyanaponika: Books

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In the present era after two world wars, history seems to repeat its lessons to humanity with a voice more audible than ever, because the turbulence and suffering that, alas, are generally equivalent with political history, affect increasingly larger sections of mankind, directly or indirectly. Read the first page

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
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4.3 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to read; too academic and non-relevant, April 5 2004

By

Christopher Ellis (Ottawa, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: Satipatthna: A Handbook of Mental Training Based on the Buddha's Way of Mindfulness (Paperback)

I was unhappy the moment I started to read this book. I don't know if its an awkward translation at fault or if the writer is too academic, but try this sentence on for size: "These latter casual remarks of ours point to another contribution to mind-knowledge of a more theoretical character concerning those aforementioned age-old philosophical attitudes which arise from false factual premises, with vast theoretical superstructures framed to fit those premises." ...huh? And these we-will-twist-your-arm-to-become-a-believer statements offend me: "To this sick and truly demented world of ours, there comes an ancient teaching of eternal wisdom and unfailing guidance, the Buddha-Dhamma, the Doctrine of the Enlightened One, with its message and power of healing." Overall, I found sentences too awkward, and paragraphs too cryptic. I kept skipping pages trying to find a good "starting" place but alas, never found one. This book might be (emphasis on might be) a great fit for an advanced yogi/yogini, but for someone looking to start his or her understanding of meditation and perhaps the relationship between Dharma and meditation, this is not the book. Chris/

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4.0 out of 5 stars An inspiration, April 21 2011

By

Kieran Fox (Alam al-Mithal) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: Satipatthna: A Handbook of Mental Training Based on the Buddha's Way of Mindfulness (Paperback)

This book has been reviewed in-depth by a number of highly competent critics on this page already, so I won't attempt the same. But I do want to say that the heart of this book is an inspirational and indeed beautiful account of Buddhist meditation, subtly and expertly interwoven with personal accounts of (presumably) the author's own meditation experiences. It is at once detailed and precise in defining its terms and the scope of contemplative inquiry, and a highly enjoyable read.

The second part of the book features many (usually short) translations from various Buddhist texts on meditation, the vast majority taken from Theravada/Pali (that is, old school) sources, with a few Mahayana discourses thrown in as well. I take off one star here (not for the first part, which is fantastic) simply because I found the selection of translations rather poorly chosen, overall. Not that they're bad per se, but I feel the Buddhist corpus has so much more to offer, and taken out of context as little one-liners, many of the otherwise valuable messages in these various texts come off as mere platitudes.

Overall though, I could see immediately why this book is considered a classic, and I recommend it to anyone with more-than-superficial interest in Buddhism generally, and in particular Theravada views on vipassana/satipatthana/mindfulness meditation.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Bare Attention !!!, May 31 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: Satipatthna: A Handbook of Mental Training Based on the Buddha's Way of Mindfulness (Paperback)

Wherever you go , there you are.
It is a Bare Attention,
It works !!
This is a best book for Insight Development or Meditation.
Pali Canon contains many hidden psychotherapy methods.
One of them is bare attention.
it's simple , though most effective at all time.

When You See it, Just See it !!
Insight Meditation needs Master to take care your progress.
You have to find one nearby your area.
Use any search engine to find proper place to practice
and you won't regret

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