{"id":54,"date":"2011-06-14T23:44:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-14T23:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2011\/06\/review-enlightenment-by-david-bognar\/"},"modified":"2013-06-14T01:16:26","modified_gmt":"2013-06-14T00:16:26","slug":"review-enlightenment-by-david-bognar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2011\/06\/review-enlightenment-by-david-bognar.html","title":{"rendered":"Review: Enlightenment by David Bognar"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div style=\"text-align: left;\" dir=\"ltr\">I was sent this book last year by the author and quickly lost it in a sea of to-do and travel prep. I wish now that I had paused to read it, or taken it with me (it\u2019s a bit heavy though, printed on sturdy paper to support the beautiful photographs found ever seven or eight pages). But alas, now on the eve of new travels, I finally have the time (just a bit) to give it a proper looking-over and review.What is it?\n<p>It\u2019s hard to categorize this book exactly. Obviously it\u2019s about spirituality or religion in some form. The back matter suggests \u201c<em>Spirituality \/ Self-Help<\/em>.\u201d Its square cut, lovely photography, and pithy chapters make it a good coffee table book. By diving into the great questions of spirituality it makes good reading for anyone out there who would consider themselves a \u201cseeker.\u201d And the no-nonsense tone makes it equally palatable to folks who are pretty tired of the whole self-help genre, which seems to recycle the same superficial nonsense over and over and over (and OVER) again.<\/p>\n<p>But it IS a self-help book. It has chapters on <em>Fear<\/em>\u00a0and <em>The Ego<\/em>\u00a0and <em>Forgiveness,<\/em>\u00a0and it even comes with appendices with tests and tools to help change your life. In the chapter on <em>Manifesting <\/em>(Ugh.) Bognar refreshingly begins, \u201cPop spirituality is selling what people want to hear. While technically true, the fine print is usually omitted. If creating your own reality was as simple as advertised, most of us would have won the lottery by now.\u201d Good. So I\u2019d say Bognar is working <em>within <\/em>the self-help genre in order to <em>change <\/em>it. If you know someone (or it\u2019s you!) who reads a lot of self-help and seems to spin in the same circles, this book may be the one to fix that.<\/p>\n<p>Buddhist scholar nerds, too, will delight when they come across the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2012\/09\/fake-buddha-quotes-2.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">fake Buddha quote<\/a> on page 70:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cAll that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Loosely based on the first verse of the Dhammapada.)<\/p>\n<p>And again, the photography is really gorgeous. So for those caught in the cycle of dead-end self-help literature and for folks who would like an appealing coffee table conversation starter, this is a great book. Bognar comes across in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Enlightenment-David-Bognar\/dp\/1929860064?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=montanafreethink&amp;link_code=btl&amp;camp=213689&amp;creative=392969\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Enlightenment<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=montanafreethink&amp;l=btl&amp;camp=213689&amp;creative=392969&amp;o=1&amp;a=1929860064\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\">\u00a0with direct simple advice which is neither trite nor esoteric. He writes like a regular guy who has put a lot of thought and energy into these questions and has some real wisdom to share. Part of that wisdom manifests in his actions, donating ten percent of profits to the Heifer Project and Amnesty International. As he says \u201cEven if the world is a strikingly realistic movie, it still helps to have compassion for those suffering in a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Find out more at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/enlightenmentmadesimple.com\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/enlightenmentmadesimple.com\/<\/a>\u00a0(photos <a href=\"http:\/\/enlightenmentmadesimple.com\/photos\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7907151-3137600963570428893?l=americanbuddhist.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was sent this book last year by the author and quickly lost it in a sea of to-do and travel prep. I wish now that I had paused to read it, or taken it with me (it\u2019s a bit heavy though, printed on sturdy paper to support the beautiful photographs found ever seven or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Review: Enlightenment by David Bognar<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I was sent this book last year by the author and quickly lost it in a sea of to-do and travel prep. I wish now that I had paused to read it, or taken it\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2011\/06\/review-enlightenment-by-david-bognar.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review: Enlightenment by David Bognar\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was sent this book last year by the author and quickly lost it in a sea of to-do and travel prep. I wish now that I had paused to read it, or taken it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2011\/06\/review-enlightenment-by-david-bognar.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Buddhist Perspectives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-14T23:44:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-06-14T00:16:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=montanafreethink&amp;l=btl&amp;camp=213689&amp;creative=392969&amp;o=1&amp;a=1929860064\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Justin Whitaker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Justin Whitaker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2011\/06\/review-enlightenment-by-david-bognar.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2011\/06\/review-enlightenment-by-david-bognar.html\",\"name\":\"Review: Enlightenment by David Bognar\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-14T23:44:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-06-14T00:16:26+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#\/schema\/person\/abfb8f851f671638c4c7536b963f9da9\"},\"description\":\"I was sent this book last year by the author and quickly lost it in a sea of to-do and travel prep. 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