Synopses & Reviews
In his engaging, accessible, and often witty style, psychiatrist and Zen teacher Barry Magid helps us to understand challenging Zen ideas oneness, emptiness, no-self, and enlightenment and explores how they make sense within Western psychotherapeutic conceptions of mind. Magid examines how to best learn from these two systems of thought that address the problems of the human mind and of human suffering and shows that Zen practice, especially when united with the dynamic insights of psychoanalysis, offers a transformation that allows everything to be just as it is. Ordinary Mind gives an account of Zen practice and the search for meaning informed by the psychoanalytic theories of self psychology and intersubjectivity, zooms in on potential opportunities and pitfalls, and brings the reader to a clearer understanding of the path toward personal realization and fulfillment.
Review
"A fascinating thesis in an engaging storytelling style. This thoughtful book can inspire us to look at our own lives and our own paths."
Review
"Magid teaches a Zen of everyday, ordinary experience. He describes the upper reaches of human development as the embodiment of a great wisdom, the practice of 'everydayness' as a personal harmony with the order of that which is."
Review
"A wise and thought-provoking book that will have a significant impact on the way people think about the relationship between Zen and Western psychotherapy in the future."
Review
"A wise and insightful guide to living a saner life."--
Synopsis
Barry Magid, as both a certified psychotherapist and Zen lineage holder, is uniquely qualified to write a book that fills a critical gap in the growing canon of titles contrasting Western and Eastern theories of psychology. Buddhist meditation and practice have proven to be beneficial in the psychotherapeutic process and psychotherapy is helping many spiritual practitioners to work through underlying issues of identity, but a book that expertly examines this synthesis has not previously been available. A groundbreaking work. Ordinary Mind zooms in on potential opportunities and pitfalls and brings the reader to a clearer understanding of the path towards personal realization and fulfillment.
Synopsis
A groundbreaking work, Ordinary Mind zooms in on potential opportunities and pitfalls and brings the reader to a clearer understanding of the path towards personal realization and fulfillment.
Synopsis
Is meditation an escape from--or a solution to--our psychological problems? Is the use of antidepressants counter to spiritual practice? Does a psychological approach to meditation reduce spirituality to "self-help"? What can Zen and psychoanalysis teach us about the problems of the mind and suffering?
Psychiatrist and Zen teacher Barry Magid is uniquely qualified to answer questions like these. Written in an engaging and witty style, Ordinary Mind helps us understand challenging ideas--like Zen Buddhism's concepts of oneness, emptiness, and enlightenment--and how they make sense, not only within psychoanalytic conceptions of mind, but in the realities of our lives and relationships.
This new paper edition of Magid's much-praised book contains additional case study vignettes.
About the Author
Barry Magid is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City, and the founding teacher of the Ordinary Mind Zendo, also in New York. He is the author of the Wisdom titles Ordinary Mind and Ending the Pursuit of Happiness.Charlotte Joko Beck was an American Zen teacher, founder of the Ordinary Mind Zen School, and author of Everyday Zen: Love and Work and Nothing Special: Living Zen. She is remembered for teaching her students to work with the emotions of everyday life, rather than attempting to escape them, and produced many Dharma heirs who are practicing psychologists and psychiatrists. She passed away in 2011, at the age of 94.