![](\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-YgPhXdBa40Y\/TXBaO1eh1zI\/AAAAAAAABcE\/ruYWK36IW30\/s1600\/Living%2BAs%2Ba%2BRiver%2B%2BFinding%2BFearlessness%2Bin%2Bthe%2BFace%2Bof%2BChange%2BBodhipaksa.png\")
<\/a><\/div>\n*For full disclosure I\u2019ll mention that Bodhipaksa was my first meditation teacher, \u201cway back in the day,\u201d as they say (in the fall of 2000 in Missoula, MT). However, since he got his business degree and his website became wildly successful, he\u2019s managed to avoid me well for quite some time and even waited for me to be safely in India before returning to Missoula on his recent book tour.<\/span><\/p>\n The book unfolds as an offering (d\u0101na<\/i>). What is offered is an alternative to our unhappiness, our mere fleeting happiness, and our chasing of ever more happiness. The alternative is framed around the Buddhist<\/a> Six Element Practice. But as Bodhipaksa says, this is not \u201ca \u2018Buddhist book.\u2019\u201d While the traditional Buddhist Six Element Practice forms the spine of the book, the heart is as fresh and modern as the many psychology experiments and quantum physics theories you will read about in its pages. It consists of fifteen chapters, plus an introduction, filled with philosophy, mythology, science, poetry, and the author\u2019s own experiences, all winding a common path toward the destruction of our habitual, and false, idea that we have an unchanging self. <\/p>\n In fact \u201cLiving Like a River\u201d begins with a psychology experiement in which a professor asked subjects to imagine the death of their partner. The result? The subjects, \u201creported feeling more positive about their relationships and less troubled by their significant others\u2019 annoying quirks.\u201d This makes the point that, more often than not, the things that we think will make us happy, do not \u2013 and the things that we think might make us unhappy \u2013 or be simply morbid, like imagining death \u2013 can actually improve our lives. <\/p>\n For the Buddhist, this can be an obvious fact. Most philosophers as well, East and West, have noted that human suffering is rooted in our incorrect understanding of ourselves and the world. But these days, neither Buddhist teachings<\/a> nor philosophy have managed to penetrate deeply into the Western psyche. That is why Bodhipaksa\u2019s use of psychology and other sciences so important. Science, especially the natural sciences such as physics, chemistry, and biology (all discussed in the book), has a special place in the minds of educated Westeners as the major, if not final, arbiter of truth. So if science can \u201ccatch up,\u201d so to speak, with these important truths of the Buddha and certain other philosophers, there\u2019s a chance that the rest of us also might get it. <\/p>\n And so the book marches forth, beginning at times with a bit of poetry, a story from Bodhipaksa\u2019s life, or an interesting fact from recent scientific research, all woven together around the key insights first elucidated by the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, some 2500 years ago. The purpose of the book isn\u2019t to be \u201cabout Buddhism\u201d as the quote mentioned above makes clear. It is about a way of thinking, a way of seeing clearly (or cultivating \u201cinsight\u201d as the Buddhist meditation<\/a> vipassan<\/span><\/i>\u0101<\/i>\u00a0is commonly translated) ourselves and the world. For all readers, it should be a joyful jorney through a hand-picked series of scientific articles and discoveries, poetry, and anecdotes. It is lucidly written, and even consistently funny (a nice change of pace for some of us!). <\/p>\n As I re-skim it now to write this, I find quote after quote and story after story that I\u2019d love to recount for their simple and direct teaching power. But alas, I\u2019ll spare you all of that and just suggest you get the book yourself. You\u2019ll be glad you did. (available at Soundstrue<\/a> or Amazon<\/a>)<\/p>\n