Reviews and Comments

This is a practice manual for silent sitting meditation in the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism written by a Western lama, who is nonetheless traditionally certified (in other words, not some self-proclaimed ancient wisdom master out to rip you off and sell you feel good stuff you want to hear). It's exquisitely practical and accessible to the Western student without watering things down. The writer has a kind of wry sense of humor that might not work for some readers, who want their Buddhism more straight up and serious-sacred. I found it helped me stay real with my practice.

I recommend this book to people who want to learn or deepen their silent sitting meditation, including students outside of the Tibetan Buddhist style. I think people familiar with and into Zen meditation would get a lot out of it, for example, as might neo-pagans who are integrating silent sitting meditation into their daily practice.

It's a lucid practice manual for a psychologized adaptation of chod. My review is in a way more for the practice than the book. It's fine as a book, though a bit chatty. I understand the anecdotes are supposed to help a reader relate the practice to the every day life of a Western practitioner. I occasionally found them off-puttingly new-agey, in that they make claims to magical effects without just going out and saying yeah, magic is happening. Anyway as a book, it's trying to straddle the line between the psychological and the miraculous and I think it doesn't succeed. Claim your miracles and let me believe or not. Or don't claim them and be conservative. (I prefer you just claim the miracles, when you're basing your practice on something as outrageous as feeding a magical simulacra of your body to demons, but hey, not everyone comes to Buddhism from ceremonial magic).

Anyway, that's why it's four stars and not five. It's a wonderful practice, suitable for people with no meditation practice at all - no kidding! - and you can learn it from the book, I think. I took a course so it might be slightly better that way. But the point is, unlike traditional chod, you don't need a formal transmission, you can drive right in.

I would recommend this book and this practice especially to creative people. Your dark shit is where the gems of your creative potential are found, and this meditative practice literally lets you make friends with your demons.

Imagine if 120 Days of Sodom was consensual and had a happy ending, and was set in New York City. My rough estimate is that this books about half sex by volume, maybe more. There's a lot of philosophy, and also a murder mystery. If you don't have the stomach to read about explicit sex acts that focus on the dirty (as in unwashed, not immoral) aspects of human sexuality, then this is not the book for you. There's no way for me to really tell you about what the book is about without myself getting scatalogical, which is a sign of a really dirty porno book, which this is. But it's also a philosophy book. It's one long rebel cry against propriety. Actually it's probably more like Juliette, except for gay sex. I mean it's the happy story of a gay guy who does all the sex stuff that's immoral in the good gay guy next door who just wants to be married narrative. The story is queer as hell. It's not a book for everyone, but maybe it's a book for you. I guess this whole review is the literary equivalent of "smell this, it's disgusting!".

All that said, I enjoyed reading it.