Profound and amusing, this book provides a viable approach to answering the perennial questions: Who am I? Why am I here? How can I live a meaningful life? For Asma, the answers are to be found in Buddhism.
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Profound and amusing, this book provides a viable approach to answering the perennial questions: Who am I? Why am I here? How can I live a meaningful life? For Asma, the answers are to be found in Buddhism.
Read Less
Add this copy of Why I Am a Buddhist: No-Nonsense Buddhism With Red Meat to cart. $3.28, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Hampton Roads Publishing Company.
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Very good. Worn bind. Pages are clean! The dust jacket shows normal wear and tear. This is a hardcover copy Fast Shipping-Each order powers our free bookstore in Chicago and sending books to Africa!
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Add this copy of Why I Am a Buddhist: No-Nonsense Buddhism With Red Meat to cart. $6.39, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Emerald rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Hampton Roads Publishing.
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Add this copy of Why I Am a Buddhist: No Nonsense Buddhism With Red Meat to cart. $7.50, good condition, Sold by The Parnassus BookShop rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport, WA, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Hampton Roads Pub Co Inc.
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Good in Good jacket. Size: 8vo-over 7? "-9? " tall; Hampton Roads Pub Co Inc, 2010. First Edition. Hardcover Ex-Library Book and Dust Jacket in Good Condition. Philosophy professor and author Stephen Asma decodes the often confusing and contradictory impressions that crowd together under the umbrella of "Buddhism" to show the beneficial wisdom that Buddhism offers for the challenges of modern life. Minimal library marks on ednpaper and top edge stamp, otherwise in Very Good Condition. Pages as new. 179 pages.8vo. ISBN10: 157174617X, ISBN13: 9781571746177.
Add this copy of Why I Am a Buddhist: No-Nonsense Buddhism With Red Meat to cart. $7.99, very good condition, Sold by Half Price Books Inc rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Hampton Roads Publishing.
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The reasons for a person's religious belief, or lack of belief, are highly personal, especially for individuals who adopt a religion other than their birth religion. Much can be learned too from a religion without becoming a formal adherent. Thus, I was eager to read Stephen Asma's new book "Why I am a Buddhist". I have been studying Buddhism for many years, mostly in adult life, and was eager to compare my experiences with Asma's. In addition, I am aware of the diverse nature of the appeal Buddhism presents to many Americans, as this diversity is suggested in the subtitle of Asma's book, "No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey."
Asma is professor of philosophy and interdisciplinary humanities at Columbia College in Chicago. He has written extensively on Buddhism and taught it at the university level. Asma makes a great deal of the difference between what he terms "Chicago" Buddhism and what he sees as a more New Agey form of California Buddhism. Asma also is a musician who has played jazz and blues on the guitar for many years. My background in philosophy and in music (playing classical music on the piano) further attracted me to this book.
Asma writes in a colloquial, punchy style that will probably be of greatest appeal to young people. The book wears its learning lightly with many references to popular American culture as well as to scientific literature and to Buddhist texts. The books' style results in a mixed feel. Portions of it didn't seem especially useful to me, but much of the book spoke with insight. I attend a Buddhist Sutta studies course, and found Asma useful to our ongoing discussion of detachment and sexuality as it related to a specific Buddhist text. Asma's comments on sexuality and on Buddhism and art seemed particularly good, and much of the rest also was valuable. Thus, I found the book helped explain the attractions of Buddhism, for Asma and for others and for myself. In the rest of this review, I focus on those portions of Asma's discussion of Buddhism of most interest to me.
Well, what then is the appeal of Buddhism? Many Americans learn from Buddhism because they find themselves unable to believe in theistic forms of religion and yet seek a spiritual basis for their lives. This is the fundamental appeal of Buddhism to Asma as he recounts how he spent a rebellious adolescence moving from religious skepticism to a turn to Transcendentalism, and ultimately to Buddhism with its emphasis on change and on the here and now and its rejection of fixed transcendent entities such as God or gods and the soul. Asma views the Buddha as a philosopher, and this is certainly an important part of the attraction Buddha has for many Americans. (Asma also distinguishes American forms of Buddhism from the varying forms of cultural Buddhisms found in Asia.)
As Asma's understanding of Buddhism deepened, he came to learn from it a great deal of the nature of desire, its causes, and its control. This too is something I have tried to learn from Buddhism with, as in the author's case, limited success in putting it into practice. Asma developed an understanding of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism and of the value of meditation and concentration in curbing the passions to avoid being ruled by them. Asma teaches his own version of the Buddha's teaching of the "Middle Way" which for him involves accepting the passions without being overcome. He is particularly concerned, as most people probably are, with sexuality and erotic passion. I found what Asma had to say valuable and linked well to Buddhist teachings and my own experiences.
Other chapters of the book explore Asma's adventures as a single, divorced parent in raising his son, including the need to curb one's expectations and desires, to control one's own ego, and to let go. These are each valuably Buddhist lessons. Asma also finds in Buddhism a tolerant, accepting attitude towards the sciences which does not require the rejection of modern inquiry in the name of religious faith. Asma seems to qualify or reject Buddhist teachings that, in some form, may conflict with scientific teachings of with the Western mind. Thus he has critical things to say about Buddhist teachings of rebirth and karma. In these respects, his teaching owe a substantial amount to another contemporary Buddhist writer, Steven Bachelor, in his book "Buddhism without Beliefs". Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening
Asma appealed to me with his discussion of Jack Kerouac and with his analogies (which the Buddha also drew) between attaining religious insight and learning to play a musical instrument. The unhappy details of Kerouac's own life sometimes detract from the importance of his understanding of Buddhism as shown in his "The Dharma Bums" and his biography of the Buddha, "Wake up". Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha And Buddhism resembles playing an instrument, whether blues guitar or classical piano, in the long-term practice and devotion that each require, learning every step of the way. Asma concludes his book by developing his analogy: "In both ventures, my skills wane significantly if I don't practice... Sometimes I challenge myself and run headlong at stuff that's over my head, and other times I lay back and just find the groove. My goal is not extreme virtuosity in Buddhism or music, but well-rounded living." In other words, there is always more to learn in playing music and in practicing Buddhism. This is the case, of course, with any religion.
Readers interested in Buddhism and in the appeal it has to a diverse spectrum of Americans will enjoy reading Asma's fine and personal book.
