Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Perhaps you were lucky enough, back in high school, to have one terrific, passionate English teacher who helped you fall in love with books. If your teacher had also spent years meditating with lamas and rishis, and had a droll sense of humor and a love of quirky, fascinating tangents, he might have written The Dharma Bum's Guide to Western Literature.
The great Western authors, it turns out, are surprisingly attuned to "Eastern" enlightenment. But that actually makes perfect sense. The light of awakening illuminates all the big human questions of birth and death, hope and despair, love and fear that literature explores. It's true not only of Blake, Dickinson, Whitman, and Salinger, but Shakespeare, Keats, Hemingway, Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, Toni Morrison. Whether deliberately or spontaneously, they all show us the infinite in the finite, the grace in the chaos. The Dharma -- the way of awakening -- is right there in the books that we read, or were supposed to read, in English class. Discovering it is big, enlightening fun.
This is, we could say, spiritual-literary entertainment. The award-winning author is a former classroom teacher who spent 33 years keeping squirmy teenagers engaged and inspired, and a Dharma guide whose lively, nonsectarian approach has made awakening accessible to seekers of all backgrounds, from CEOs to maximum-security prisoners.
Chapters will explore writers who focused overtly and fervently on the infinite (e.g., Blake, Hopkins, Kerouac). Others will deal with works that reflect the infinite unintentionally, just because they reflect so much of life (e.g., Macbeth, The Great Gatsby, Mrs. Dalloway, The Fire Next Time). And a few chapters will consider works that are not numbered among Great Literature's usual suspects but expound the infinite in ways that are irresistibly odd (Flatland, Oklahoma , The Cat in the Hat).
Synopsis
Reveals the wonderful and often surprising ways that the books we love intersect with the enlightenment we crave
Some of us were lucky enough to have one terrific, passionate English teacher who helped us fall in love with books. Most of us did not have a teacher who, like Dean Sluyter, had spent years meditating with lamas and rishis and had a droll sense of humor and a love of quirky, fascinating tangents. But it's never too late to take a great class with an amazing teacher. Sluyter's The Dharma Bum's Guide to Western Literature is just that.
Sluyter claims to have found his first guru on the cover of Mad magazine, but he has gone on to find the "Eastern" roots in the themes of birth and death, hope and despair, love and fear in the Western canon. With dazzling wit and often-irreverent wisdom, Sluyter unpacks the dharma -- the way of awakening -- in writers from Shakespeare to Seuss, Whitman to Wharton, Hemingway to Morrison. Sluyter's approach, honed in the classroom and refined in numerous retreats and workshops, invites the reader's own insights and experiences in ways that are as unexpected as they are revelatory.
Synopsis
Reveals the profound, often surprising ways the literature we love conveys the awakening we seek
Some of us were lucky enough to have one passionate, funny, inspiring English teacher who helped us fall in love with books. Add a lifetime of teaching Dharma -- authentic, traditional approaches to meditation and awakening -- and you get award-winning author Dean Sluyter.
Sluyter's habit of finding enlightenment in unexpected places started at the age of twelve, when Mad magazine triggered his first glimpse of deep transcendence. He went on to discover how "Eastern" spirituality -- the light of nirvana -- illuminates all the big questions of birth and death, hope and despair, love and fear that Western literature explores.
With droll humor and irreverent wisdom, the Guide unpacks the Dharma of more than twenty major writers, from Shakespeare to Dr. Seuss. It will inspire readers to deepen their own spiritual life and see literature in a fresh, new way: as a path of awakening.
Synopsis
Reveals the profound, often surprising ways the literature we love conveys the awakening we seek
Suppose we could discover enlightenment teachings in
Macbeth,
The Catcher in the Rye,
Moby-Dick,
The Bluest Eye, and
The Cat in the Hat . . . read Hemingway as haiku . . . learn mindfulness from Virginia Woolf and liberation from Frederick Douglass . . . see Dickinson and Whitman as Buddhas of poetry, and Huck Finn and Gatsby as seekers of the infinite.
Some of us were lucky enough to have one passionate, funny, inspiring English teacher who helped us fall in love with books. Add a lifetime of teaching Dharma -- authentic, traditional approaches to meditation and awakening -- and you get award-winning author Dean Sluyter.
Sluyter's habit of finding enlightenment in unexpected places started at the age of twelve, when Mad magazine triggered his first glimpse of deep transcendence. He went on to discover how "Eastern" spirituality -- the light of nirvana -- illuminates all the big questions of birth and death, hope and despair, love and fear that Western literature explores.
With droll humor and irreverent wisdom, the Guide unpacks the Dharma of more than twenty major writers, from Shakespeare to Dr. Seuss. It will inspire readers to deepen their own spiritual life and see literature in a fresh, new way: as a path of awakening.
Synopsis
HOW THE LITERATURE WE LOVE CONVEYS THE AWAKENING WE SEEK
Suppose we could read Hemingway as haiku . . . learn mindfulness from Virginia Woolf and liberation from Frederick Douglass . . . see Dickinson and Whitman as buddhas of poetry, and Huck Finn and Gatsby as seekers of the infinite . . . discover enlightenment teachings in
Macbeth,
The Catcher in the Rye,
Moby-Dick, and
The Bluest Eye.
Some of us were lucky enough to have one passionate, funny, inspiring English teacher who helped us fall in love with books. Add a lifetime of teaching Dharma -- authentic, traditional approaches to meditation and awakening -- and you get award-winning author Dean Sluyter. With droll humor and irreverent wisdom, he unpacks the Dharma of more than twenty major writers, from William Blake to Dr. Seuss, inspiring readers to deepen their own spiritual life and see literature in a fresh, new way: as a path of awakening.