The sequel to one of my first posts is here. Unfortunately, this year was mired in personal obligations, a lot of them on a scheduled basis, so I did not have as much time to read (much less to meditate) as I would have liked. I'll also note that this list comprises the books that I finished this year, so some of the early ones were started in 2021.
The Phoenix on the Sword – Robert E. Howard
For Christmas 2021, a friend was nice enough to purchase me a handsome volume of all the Conan stories. In addition to this story, I also read the Scarlet Citadel and the Elephant's Tower later in the year; however, as my comments are mostly in regards to Howard's style, not the plots, I'm lumping all of them into this segment.
I've been a fan of the Conan series since about middle school. I loved (and still do love) the much-maligned 1982 film, and I was driven to read the short stories through most of high school. Howard's highly descriptive, almost cinematic language brings the stories and characters to life in a way that I find few writers really do. As I mentioned last year, I really don't care for prose fiction all that much, but Howard was one of the great exceptions for me. Now that I've started rereading him, I believe I understand why. The main "draw" of most prose fiction is the inner development and outer drama of the characters. It may be that I'm shallow or that I'm a bit autistic, but interpersonal drama by itself doesn't draw me in. I'm able to watch dramatic TV and movies just fine, and I believe that's because the acting, scoring, cinematography, etc. create a strong enough pull to get me invested in matters I'd otherwise regard as dull. Words can be very powerful, but I find that there isn't much vocabulary that can really carry character drama all that well. In contrast, English seems to have a great many words for describing action and environment. This is where Howard excels as a pulp writer: he uses his pen like a paintbrush, conjuring lurid and dazzling imagery in every sentence.
The more popular, opposing view is that literature is no more than drama between characters, and that their setting (domicile, technology, etc.) is just so much window-dressing—see, for example, how often Shakespeare's plays get re-done as present-day gang wars and such. Taking the Spenglerian view that art expresses one's interpretation of the world as a whole, we might say that this view of literature sees the world as no more and no less than society itself. Everything else amounts to so many vehicles and instruments for executing interpersonal drama; we might consider this a holdover from the old Classical paradigm of the body (σῶμα), and indeed even the ancient Greek and Roman plays consisted almost entirely of nearly statuesque characters talking out their conflicts, with no reference to the non-human world around them. And I believe, right there, that's the key word for authors like Howard: non-human. Howard's prose almost always centers around the non-human, both in the sense of the environment (the forests, the dungeons, the temples, the towns, the taverns, etc.) as well as the creatures (orcs, demigods, giant snakes, demons, etc.). Heck, most of the descriptions of Conan himself make him out to be a beastly force of nature, much more than a mere mortal. Not to mention, he strongly disdains socialization, regarding all the aristocratic politicking and peasant debauchery as a waste of time when there's adventure to be had (I suspect Howard himself of this attitude). From these stories, one gets the same sense as the viking and celtic views of the world as filled with invisible yet very much real beings like elves, faeries, trolls, etc., as well as of the early European landscape artists, who sought to capture every last detail of their subjects while still capturing a strong mood therein. In these regards, we might say that Howard fits much more with the Faustian view of the world, though I hesitate to categorize him there, since Spengler ascribed to Faustianism the symbol of Infinite Space, something I can't really find in the Conan stories, at least not very explicitly.
In short, what makes these stories worth reading, beyond what might seem like cheap thrills, is the deep sense of something beyond mere humanity in this world. I think the only other author of note to really express this worldview is H. P. Lovecraft, though in a far more pessimistic fashion than Howard's heroes.
The Fullness of God – Frithjof Schuon
I wrote up some thoughts on this book here after I finished it. I don't have much more to add at the moment.
In the Buddha's Words – Bhikkhu Bodhi (ed.)
This was an anthology of suttas from the pāli canon, arranged in increasing order of profundity. Bodhi's preface indicated that he meant for this to be a sort of overview using original texts; he recalls many students asking for a text, canonical or not, that does the same, and he decided that he needed to fill that void himself. It starts off with basic texts on ethics and such, and gradually proceeds on to renunciation, contemplation, etc. until a final section on nibbāna. Bodhi also prefaces each chapter with comments on the texts that prove quite helpful, both to orient oneself in regards to historical peculiarities of ancient India, as well as in regards to the actual doctrine. Overall, this seems like a useful book to keep on hand as a Buddhist; even if one already owns the full canon, it's good to have some selections from the canon arranged as an outline, so that one can more easily refer to the big-picture perspective of Dhamma.
The Decline of the West, Volume I – Oswald Spengler
I had quite a lot to say about this book here shortly after I finished it. As with Schuon, I don't have much more to add at the moment.
True Love – Thích Nhất Hạnh
This was a tiny book, really pamphlet-sized, of advice on the everyday practice of loving-kindness. This is my first encounter with Hạnh's writing; previously I had no plans to read any of his work, as I had only known him to be the sort of Buddhist who presents Dharma as a mundane social movement. The reason I picked this up was that, since I had recently decided to focus more on practicing mettā, I figured a work with this title would be good; not to mention, I was aware of Hạnh's Thiền lineage (Thiền being the Vietnamese equivalent of Chinese Chán and Japanese Zen, all of which are readings of the same character: 禅), so I figured he must have something worthwhile to say. He just about succeeds on both fronts, but that's about it. Being a small book, there isn't much depth to his teaching; though this may be a consequence of the taciturn nature of Thiền.
By "both fronts" I mean that Hạnh successfully presents the integration of the loving attitude (though he seems to lean a little hard into "love" as opposed to "good will" or "kindness") into everyday life. Since Thiền is characterized by integrated Dharma into everyday life—flower arrangement, music, combat, sports, driving, etc.—it makes sense that Hạnh would be well-disposed to provide such guidance. The problem is that he does just that and no more. He provides "mantras" which are no more than plain-speech formulas such as "dear one, I am here for you", as well as guidance on such things as answering the phone or working out a disagreement, and that's it. This gives the impression that Thiền, rather than being about elevating the mundane through transcendent practice, is just about handling mundane affairs satisfactorily. Nothing in his book is really wrong, it's just very lacking is all.
I will mention one other thing. In one chapter, Hạnh criticizes the institution of therapy on the grounds that, when a family sends its members to a therapist, it is deferring important familial duties (love, attention, etc.) to the domain of private enterprise. In other words, this represents a failure on the part of the family to properly take care of each other. I absolutely agree with this assessment, but I think an important takeaway is that, given how widespread this problem is, it is a good reason to de-emphasize the lingering Christian bias towards unrestricted childbirth. Growing up, I knew a lot of people who either went to therapy or else direly needed it, and I can confirm in most cases that their parents simply lacked the discipline and patience to deal with their children's problems directly. This is not to argue for antinatalism (I have criticized it more extensively here), but rather to say that we should perceive parenting more like a career that needs some personal qualification. The phrases "so-and-so would be a great parent" and "so-and-so would be a terrible parent" should have the same currency as "so-and-so would be a great lawyer" and "so-and-so would be a terrible lawyer". And in the same spirit, those who have great virtue and wisdom, the kind from practicing Dharma (or Stoa, Tao, etc.), should be the models for those interested in parenthood. But here I am engaging in some political fantasy, so I shall cease at once.
Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse
This was a short novel about a wandering brahmin named Siddhartha, who lived at the same time as the historical Siddhartha Gautama (who, remember, was a kṣatriyah). The protagonist is born and raised a brahmin, but as a young adult he sets out with his friend Govinda as a wandering ascetic. They encounter Gautama giving a sermon to many other wanderers, after which the majority of the present company takes refuge and goes forth as Buddhists, including Govinda, but not the protagonist. Siddhartha talks to Gautama privately for a bit, and then wanders on his own for a while, lives with a courtesan, gets a job in the slums, has a kid out of wedlock, etc. He stumbles through many episodes, but eventually settles as a humble ferryman, having reached a kind of enlightenment where his realization is some life-affirming optimism. The occupation of ferryman of course encapsulates this; "the stream (saṃsāra) provides everything, the stream is perfect".
If it's not up by the time I publish this, I am drafting a diatribe against this whole "life-affirming" nonsense, but for now, I say that Hesse fails to make a coherent response to Buddhist teaching because he fails, nay, refuses to look beyond the bounds of mere life. Apart from some passing mention of the brahman doctrine, there's hardly a measure of transcendence to be found, which is a fatal flaw for any work treating of religion. Even once Siddhartha "rediscovers" the original oṃ and brahman he learned of as a young priest, his conclusion turns out to be a load of trite Nietzscheanism:
With body and soul I have experienced my own great need to sin, to seek pleasure, to strive for possessions, to be indolent, and a need for the most shameful despair, in order to learn to cede my resistance, to learn to love the world, to learn no longer to compare it to a world I desired and imagined, to some preconceived sort of perfection, rather to leave it as it is, to love it, and to enjoy belonging to it. (p. 113)
Basically, Siddhartha's reaction to the First Noble Truth is a lazy shrug and a flippant rejection of the remaining Noble Truths, even going so far as to reject the notion of perfection altogether. My question to people like this—who jump into the midst of religious discussion about living the good life and say that actually, all life is the good life—is, why do you bother? You add less than nothing to the discussion by saying that the baseline "f*ck b*tches, get money" lifestyle is actually all there really is to life.
Tao: The Watercourse Way – Alan Watts
This was a fairly simple introduction to Taoism by perennialism's most mainstream posterboy, Alan Watts. This was my first time reading anything by Watts, and to be honest, I feel lukewarm about him. His hippie attitude is old hat by now, some 50 years after his death, but I wouldn't say that it distorts his reading of traditional religion all that badly. I would say that, as with Hạnh, he limits himself to simple introductions and thus lacks in profundity. In contrast to my experience with Hạnh however, I didn't know much about Taoism going into this book, so Watts was at least more informative to me. I would say my expectations are set a little high, as my first foray into religious doctrine proper was Julius Evola's Doctrine of Awakening, and I've recently come to the conclusion that the real advantage Evola had was his experience with hermetic and tantric practice. So even though he didn't practice dhamma itself, he had plenty of experience with supra-human states of consciousness, so he was able to better elucidate the nature of things ranging from the basic forms of sati to the higher jhānas. Whereas Watts and Hạnh don't demonstrate any sort of experience with what is beyond this mere life (between Conan, Siddhartha, and these two, it seems this mundane-supramundane dichotomy has been a theme for this year).
In any case, I have one comment about Taoist doctrine per sé, at least as Watts presents it, in the form of a correspondence with Dhamma. The summum bonum of Taoism is wu wei, 無為, which is typically translated literally as "non-action", but I think Watts presents the meaning better by rendering it "non-artifice". Watts indicates that 為 is acting or desiring against the natural unfolding of the world's pattern or li, 理, and that the True Man (zhenren, 真人) just lives in accordance with the pattern. To me, this seems to be similar to the Second Noble Truth: the root of suffering (dukkha) is desire (taṇhā). The similarity between taṇhā and wei is that they come from a delusional mind that only perceives the world after a good deal of processing; in Buddhism, this processing is described in the first few links of paṭicca-samuppāda prior to taṇhā (they are, from latest to earliest: sensation, contact, sense-doors, name-and-form, sense-consciousness, volitional formations, and ignorance). Whereas the adept, in either system the arahant or the zhenren, has a pure mind that perceives without any processing or distortion, and is thus able to act "without disturbing the world"; in Taoism this means acting in accordance with li, and in Buddhism this means acting without generating kamma. I do not mean to say that Taoism and Buddhism are identical; there's no Taoist equivalent of dukkha, nor a Buddhist equivalent of li. And on an interesting note, Watts claims that some Taoists advise against seated meditation, that it's a form of wei, whereas it's utterly essential to Buddhism. Nonetheless, I think this correspondence is the means by which adherents of either religion can learn from one another.
Esoteric Theravada – Kate Crosby
This was an overview of the esoteric doctrines in Theravāda known as borān kammaṭṭhāna ("old practices"). Some Mahāyānists like to claim that Theravāda is not the original school of Buddhism, and the subject of this book is probably the most extreme form of evidence for that camp. Though, Crosby emphasizes at length the fact that these are old practices that were close to eliminated by the Western imperialists, who, at least among those sympathetic to Buddhism, thought it was a perversion of the Buddha's original rational, anti-superstitious teachings (or at least, what they perceived as such). This verges on complaints from Crosby that she has a hard time collecting good evidence as to the actual teachings and practices of this school.
The actual subject matter of this book seemed interesting at first glance, but two things caused me to lose interest. One: Crosby is first and foremost (if not exclusively) an academic researcher. Her purpose in this book was to gather evidence and report findings, and not much more. The result is that the book is extremely dry, even for my own tastes; this proved to be a problem both here and in the next two books. The subject matter really deserves treatment by an actual practitioner who can convey the actual substance of the teachings here—though I suppose that would somewhat defeat the purpose of having "esoteric" teachings. Two: whether by coincidence or by exposure, much of the esotericism here—alchemy, magic, mantras, yantras, etc.—is found in other right-hand-path magical systems with far better elaboration and more abundant sources. So this branch of Buddhism seems little more than a curiosity; anyone wishing to revive it would really do better to just ordain under Tibetan or Japanese Vajrāyāna, then switch everything over from Sanskrit and Siddhaṃ script to Pāli and Khom script.
Winged Stallions and Wicked Mares – Wendy Doniger
This was a collection of stories from all throughout Indian history, stretching from the Vedic period to modern times, all of which revolve around horses. As mentioned above, this was really just a cut-and-dry exposition: the myths are presented in purely documentary style. About the only interesting part was an introductory chapter on Aśvaśāstra, the ancient Indian art of horse-breeding, as well as climatic and geographic considerations about raising horses in India (TL;DR: India is not ideal for raising horses compared to the Aryan homeland of Central Asia). I wound up selling the book almost immediately after finishing it.
Japanese Religion in the Modern Century – Shigeyoshi Murakami
The third and final book in a row to finish out the very dry, expository run this year. This was an assessment of Japanese societal developments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with specific reference to religious developments. It starts with the Meiji period and ends with the decades following World War II. Murakami is a materialist historian, somewhat in the Marxist vein (though his conclusions are ultimately liberal-democratic), and boils the history of religion in Japan down to chiefly political and economic factors. I'm not terribly interested in disputing the materialist-idealist split in the philosophy of history, though if my high praises for Spengler aren't an indication, I'm definitely more of an idealist there. The problem with Murakami's book, at least for me, is that he treats religion as no more than an economic good: some peculiar set of beliefs and practices that just satisfies the masses' need for it, and perhaps even teaches them to be ethical citizens. That may be well and good for nerds of his strain, but my interest in religion is diametrically opposite. First, for me, religion is an almost totally solitary experience, not a social one (and for that matter, it's not some curiosity to put under an academic microscope). Second, the experience of religion is meant to reach beyond this mere life, not to wallow in it with the masses.
But speaking of the history of religion, I have a brief remark that's not long enough for a full blog post. Often it comes up in dialogues between different religions that such-and-such group declined in popularity or was stamped out by a rival group, and that these are somehow indicators of which religion is supreme. What this comes down to, fundamentally, is again what the meaning of religion is. If, like Murakami, you treat religion as a largely social experience, with its purposes extending only to goals in this life like national prosperity or the health of "the people", then sure, whoever came out on top of each struggle is probably of interest to you. Of course, the problem with this Hegelian attitude of "the world's history is the world's tribunal" is that you must affirm the present-day victors at all times; and I don't think many people truly believe that the good life is simultaneously outlined by Western liberalism, Chinese communism, Middle Eastern Islamism, and Russian etatism. But more to the point, for religion to have any meaning, it must be ultimately solitary and transcendent in orientation; and anyone of such a disposition would surely disregard historical rises and falls as mere curiosities. "One would no longer be virtuous, thinking that pieces of wood and stone and, by Zeus, the deaths of mortals are great matters" (Plotinus, First Ennead 4.7).
The Essential Epicurus – Eugene M. O'Connor (ed.)
This was a collection of extant fragments from the philosopher Epicurus. I had only ever heard of Epicureanism in "History of Philosophy" courses, usually paired with Stoicism. As far as I knew, the two fundamental doctrines were an atomistic physics and a quasi-hedonic ethics. On the latter point, the summum bonum in Epicureanism is ἀταραξία, or freedom from stress and pain. I was curious to what extent this would parallel the Buddhist ideal of cessation of dukkha. From what I could tell, Epicurus' system only reaches up to the Buddhist virtue of upekkha, or equanimity, which is of critical importance, but nonetheless is just a stepping stone to ever higher states of mind. Epicurus seemed to utterly reject anything supernatural, either flatly denying the existence of spirits and the afterlife, or, at best, admitting the existence of gods but claiming they were far-off beings totally uninterested in humanity (something which is true for only very high gods, in the Buddhist view). So as a result, Epicurus wrote only on the physical dimension of achieving equanimity: eating a mild diet, having few possessions, abstaining from politics, learning natural sciences, etc. That's all well and good, but the result is Epicurus doesn't say anything more profound than those modernists who repackage Eastern religion for therapeutic and dietetic self-help books. Perhaps if Epicurus had covered his writings in rainbows and stars like those fellows, his works would have had more staying power!
On a less flippant note, I would say that someone who follows the Epicurean lifestyle would be very healthy of body and mind, and indeed for one who follows a religious path to enlightenment, those are essential. But since Epicurus has no regard for what is beyond mere life, a strict Epicurean would do no more than live out an adequate life. And for that matter, anything of value in Epicurean writings is already contained in other, much more profound systems.
The Upanishads – Eknath Easwaran (ed.)
This was a collection of passages from the ten major Upaniṣads, plus a few minor ones, with introductory commentary by an interesting fellow named Easwaran. While it doesn't seem he was ever ordained nor initiated, Easwaran's writing indicates that he did practice and study very deeply, and that he was oriented beyond this mere life. He translated three major Indian texts (the other two were the Bhagavadgīta and the Dhammapada—one of these things is not like the other), considering them to be the most critical handbooks for any spiritual person. He likened them to documents from explorers of consciousness: the Upaniṣads are like an album of photographs, the Dhammapada is like a field guide, and the Bhagavadgīta is like a guidebook with a map. He, like Gandhi, regarded the Gīta as the most valuable of the three, being the most systematic and comprehensive. Thus his outlook was markedly Hindu, as he regarded the depths of consciousness as a universal homeland of sorts:
We are not cabin-dwellers, born to a life cramped and confined; we are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our potential as human beings. The world of senses is just a base camp: we are meant to be as much at home in consciousness as in the world of physical reality. (p. 10)
Contrast that with the Hesse quote from earlier; what a breath of fresh air!
Anyway, Easwaran's commentary was good, but it was not the star of the show here. As with the Bhagavadgīta last year, I found the Upaniṣads edifying and brimming with wisdom, even despite the gap between it and orthodox Buddhism. The selections here were all beautiful poems and dialogues treating of the heights of reality (brahman) as well as the individuated states thereof (atmān), the nature of life and death, the phases of consciousness covering the atmān, the subtle currents emanating from it, etc. Nonetheless, per Easwaran's analogy of the traveler's documents, these are like a slideshow—certainly useful and delightful to review, but they are not nearly so systematic and didactic as other works in the Indian canon. But then, system-building can be a weakness, as one can get lost in the weeds of discriminatory knowledge, whereas such ecstatic visions and experiences as contained here can be a good reminder of the goal. "Don't miss the forest for the trees", as the saying goes.
East and West – René Guénon
This was a basic, very early manifesto of the Traditionalist™ School by its posterboy, René Guénon. As I've discussed on this blog many times, I have read a lot of Evola and a little bit of Schuon, but until this year, nothing from Guénon. To be honest, this was an underwhelming work to start with. Guénon diagnoses all the problems with the modern West: secularism, individualism, democracy, metaphysical materialism, economic materialism, etc. At time of writing (1924), the East still retained a lot of Traditional™ trappings, so he held up Chinese Taoism and Indian Vedanta as living models for the West to emulate during the RETVRN™. In the same respect, Guénon also emphasizes Christianity as the basis for a revived Traditional™ West, since Christianity is still somewhat alive in the West, and was the main current in Western culture for most of its lifespan. I think it's horribly ironic that he tightly circumscribes his Traditionalist™ project so tightly by the limits of what's still "alive" to be learned from, because, as I understand it, one of the key concepts in traditional (non-trademarked) thought of any kind is that the permanent (Being, Heaven, etc.) is much more important in anything from metaphysics down to politics than the impermanent (Becoming, contingent details, Chaos, etc.). So it cannot be that the only objects of consideration are what's alive right now, because right now constitutes Becoming. This is something I think Evola handles much better, because he extends his considerations to ancient, long-dead civilizations like Egypt, Rome, and Greece, and likewise he understands that in studying them, it's important to penetrate the essence, and not to get tied up in just bringing back the old rituals and aesthetics as verbatim facsimiles.
Nonetheless, Guénon still has a transcendent orientation at heart, and so this issue, despite my whinging, just sets limits on the scope of the book. The heart and soul of the Traditionalist™ critique of Western degeneracy is still there. The real issue, as far as I'm concerned, is that it's already done much better and more thoroughly by Evola in all of his works, but most especially Revolt Against the Modern World. I'll keep my eyes out for other works by Guénon, in the hopes that they'll be more profound than this one.
Dream Yoga – Andrew Holecek
Pagan Mysteries of Halloween – Jean Markale
This was a history and discussion of the Celtic origins of Halloween (fittingly, I read this in October). It begins with the original pagan holiday of Samhain, then proceeds into the Christian era when it was morphed into All Hallow's Eve, and concludes with an assessment of the modern holiday of Halloween. I was pleasantly surprised by the author's insights into the esoteric meanings of the many stories and practices surrounding this holiday. Markale's general thesis is that, since the holiday has historically heralded the darker half of the year, it has acted as a literal and spiritual boundary between light and shadow. The two prevalent themes in Samhain stories are travels to and from the Underworld and violent deaths followed by victorious resurrections. Markale uses these, along with similar themes of helping the spirits of the deceased along on All Hallow's Eve (whether through Christian prayer or modern candy-giving), to portray Samhain festivities as a symbolic "victory over death". His references to contemporary Grail stories as well as alchemical practice indicate that he had an eye for the transcendent, practical element in these matters.
While his orientation certainly sets him above most authors (especially the ones I've read this year), Markale's work isn't quite so serious as I would like. Consider this excerpt:
Is it necessary to be "initiated" in order to cross through the stages of this "death and resurrection"? The question can be raised, but it cannot be answered. Certainly, the Bardo Thodo [sic], the Tibetan Book of the Dead, insists on this slow process of initiation that allows the soul, at the moment it takes flight from the body, to avoid the vexing and terrifying ghosts who persistently strive to throw off balance the newly deceased upon the paths of the Other World. And the Bardo Thodo prescribes remedies against the phantoms of all sorts who assail the soul emergent from a physical body and still arrayed in the deceptive powers of the illusion of existing. . . . But here again, Celtic tradition reveals itself to be much more prudent in this regard, going so far as to say that contact with the invisible can be made in a completely natural fashion with no necessity of prior preparation. (p. 104)
This lack of caution towards occult matters indicates a flippant, perhaps whimsical attitude. Markale attempts to illustrate the above point with a reference to Nera crossing into the underworld without realizing it. My reply is: Nera wasn't any old slouch! Nera was already a trained warrior, and he set forth on his quest (knowing or not) after driving a bunch of ghosts out of his land. If Markale meant that the difference between this World and the Next was so thin that one could fail to notice it, I could accept that much—that's adequately illustrated by Bardo and Dream Yoga, as I learned one book ago—but his specific mention of initiation, to me, means Markale meant to diminish the vocational requirements of the spiritual life (the courage of the warrior, the austerity of the monk, etc.).
Having said all that, this book was very valuable as a kind of "case study" (or a palate-cleanser) for one who's already read a general morphohistorical work like Revolt Against the Modern World or Decline of the West. Rather than run the whole gamut of metaphysics and politics with references to diverse cultures and eras, this work focuses on one aspect of Tradition™ (the Afterlife) in one civilization (the Celts), though granted across most of their known history.
Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire – Thích Nhất Hạnh
This was an overview of Vietnamese history leading up to the Vietnam War of the 20th century (it was published shortly before the actual breakout of war). I spotted this in a bookstore, intrigued to find Hạnh's face on the cover of a book in the History section. After skimming it and reading the blurb, I was interested to see what Hạnh had to say about more concrete matters as war and statecraft. As this isn't a political blog, I will keep my comments brief here.
The book in general is a call for peace. Western imperialism brought three deadly C's (my term, not Hạnh's) to Vietnam: Christianity, in the form of Ngô Đình Diệm's brutal regime, Capitalism, in the form of American soldiers crowding out the Vietnamese markets and making the locals destitute, and Communism, in the form of rampant guerrilla warfare. Hạnh argued that all the native peasants of Vietnam wanted was simple and inoffensive, yet denied to them by the Western incursions; respectively: to practice their Buddhist faith unmolested, to make a simple agrarian living, and to stay clear of any violent factionalism. Thus, Hạnh called for the United States to lighten up on the three fronts: stop supporting repressive puppet states, clean up the economic damage to the Vietnamese people, and seek peace with the communist militants. If I'm honest, this all sounds like standard anti-war talking points regarding the contemporary American interventions in the Middle East. Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Middle Length Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment – Jé Tsongkhapa
This was an in-depth treatment of the practices to be undertaken as a Buddhist, written by the teacher of the first Dalai Lama. These range from the virtues and contemplations to be cultivated by those of low capacity (that is, those who are very much ensnared by worldly matters) all the way up to the analyses and mind-states to be practiced by those of high capacity (dedicated bodhisattvas). Tsongkhapa was obviously a brilliant and accomplished monk, as he has both an expert command of the scriptures and commentaries to illustrate each point on the path, as well as a wealth of experience with each stage that allows him to elucidate every point in a way that is both comprehensive and succinct (fitting for the middle-length version of a larger work: Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment). As this is work is an expositional summary, it is also of great value to Buddhists of any school, even Theravādins if you set aside the bodhicitta chapters. More philosophically minded Buddhists might also find disagreement with his specific Prāsaṅgika-Madhyamaka exposition of emptiness toward the end. I myself found that section quite helpful in clarifying the meaning and nature of emptiness, something which many writers try and fail to make comprehensible.
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