Something we’ve both said to him is that it’s ok for him to move on. And we both mean it, because we don’t want him to suffer. But we also still feel attachment (quite naturally) and so we’re also in this process of letting go of him. We don’t want to let go of our memories of him, but we want to honor his passage and need to transition. So letting go for us is recognizing that need to let him move on and honor that passage without clinging to him and making him stay longer just because of us.

I’ve been doing some meditation and breath work on this as I’ve been letting go of my attachments to Caspian. I’ll admit that I’ve only known him for 8 months, since we first moved him up here, but in that time I’ve come to love him and consider him one of my furkids. Letting go has involved releasing that energetic connection to him, in part to give him some healing energy to aide in his passing, and in part to give myself closure to his place in my life. With each breath I’ve allowed myself to grieve and to release, To honor and to know.

In magical work it is urged that a person doesn’t become attached to their results. This is wisely done, because when we get attached, we can become obsessive about what we desire. Learning to let go can mean that you also let go of your need to have control and recognize that it can be just as powerful to step back.

I’m letting go of Caspian but I’m not forgetting him or his significance to my life. He’ll always be one of my cats, no matter where he goes…just as I’ll always be one of his humans. But by letting go of him in this moment, I can help him pass with peace.

When I do an invocation, I don’t always stick with traditional entities. I look for an emotional connection, a feeling of resonance, and attributes and characteristics that I can imitate and adopt. I suppose in some ways that my approach is derived more from observation and a desire to fit what I perceive is the mental and physical state of what I’m going to invoke. I’ve always found this information to be highly useful and effective for my workings.

The information you draw on for your magical work needs to be information that you understand and resonate with. I don’t know a lot about astrology, so drawing on that information wouldn’t work, unless I spent some time learning about it and integrating that information into how I do magic. On the other hand, I’m an avid student of human behavior and pop culture and find it easy to work with that information in my magical work.

The ability to personalize your magical workings is essential for really getting the most out of magical practice. This means that while you do make time to learn how others have approached magic, in order to develop a sound foundation, you also experiment with integrating other interests into your magical work, to make it more effective for you.

Book Review: Rebel Buddha (affiliate link) by Dzogchen Ponlop

Rebel Buddha is a guide to finding Buddha within you, as well as exploring the concept of the Rebel Buddha, which is the voice of your waking self reaching out to challenge you. The essays in this book explore Buddhism from a philosophical/lifestyle approach as opposed to a religious approach. I found that I really got a lot out of such an approach, because the author doesn’t use a lot of esoteric language. He strips Buddhism down to its core, and in the process asks the reader to do the same with him/herself. This is a book you’ll read multiple times and you’ll get something new out of it each time.

I’ll post further reports as I continue to integrate more steps in, but it always fascinates me to see how even doing one step of a process can produce changes, provided you’re consistent about doing it. I think that consistency is what makes anything you do effective. You can be a really powerful magician, but if you don’t exercise the magical muscle, it won’t mean as much as the person who diligently practices and follows through.

Book Review: The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

This book provides what I would consider to be the best practices of lucid dreaming and dream practice. The author doesn’t focus on the psychology of dreams, though he does provide some insights on what dreams can reveal about issues you’re working on. Instead the focus of this book is on how the techniques can be used to help you release attachment to those issues and achieve a state of connection with the universe, without being drawn back to samsaric existence. It’s a very good book to read, but an even better one to do the practices. I’ve started doing them and already noticed some positive results. I’d recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about Dzogchen and for anyone who wants to use dream yoga for spiritual and physical well being. You can purchase it at Amazon (Affiliate link) or Powells (Affiliate link)

I recognized this particular pattern of behavior recently when I started examining how I’ve used imagination to provide a feeling of control as it pertains to my sexual identity. And I’ve realized that this issue goes to the core of my sexual identity, back to when I was raped, because I had no control then. It’s replicated itself in the relationships I’ve been in, but until now I never fully acknowledged how much my tendency to fantasize has come about as a direct result of my initial experience, and a desire to have control as a safety mechanism to protect me from having such an experience again.

Yet no fantasy can really replace life or the experience of it…and there’s much less control in the experience of life, and under the right circumstances much less need as well for such control. In fact, it seems to me that the need for control is a result of the lack of self-control a person has (something which is his/her own responsibility), though it can also arise from a situation where a person was made to feel s/he had no control. As I continue to do my internal work and take responsibility for the different dysfunctions of my own life, I find that I need less control of anything else, because I have control of my responses and as long as I have that, then control of anything else ceases to matter. Or rather, more to the point, by taking control of my choices and actions, I can choose how to handle situations and be grounded in that, regardless of how things turn out. In the end the only control you do have is that which you exert over your actions, and your ability to consequently navigate through situations by understanding what you can choose to contribute or not to them.

What do you think?

Book Review: Wonders of the Natural Mind by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

I highly recommend this book as an excellent introduction to the Bon tradition of Tibet. In this book the author explains what the Bon tradition is and how it differs from Buddhist beliefs and practices. The author explores in depth the foundational beliefs and practices of the Bon tradition while also explaining how they can be meaningfully applied to the life of the practitioner. What I like is that its also clear that this tradition has its own perspective on emptiness, which I found useful for getting a new perspective on it. Overall, I recommend this book for anyone serious about doing internal work.

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Instead of repressing the monkey mind, which is ultimately a futile effort, it’s better to work with it. And by that I mean it’s better to start a dialogue with it. When it brings up a random issue, ask it why it brought up and start exploring it mentally. You’ll usually find that it leads you to a source of stress and concern in your life. So you can continue to try and ignore that source of stress or you can work with the monkey mind to resolve the source of stress. Mind you, the monkey mind will raise lots of questions and concerns, but that’s why it’s there. It’s a filter, an agitator, and it won’t go away until you’ve addressed its concerns.

When I work with my monkey mind, I use it as a detector of issues that are bothering me. Sometimes its helped me discover some really deep issues, such as my fear of emptiness and most recently a tendency to fantasize in order to fulfill intimacy needs. And that’s what makes the monkey mind so useful. It challenges me to be aware of my issues instead of trying to ignore them.  I like that because then I can proactively work on those issues via meditation instead of letting them build up and be acted out in my life. So the monkey mind is actually your friend, not your enemy. Make friends with it and find out what it can teach you.

Learning to sit with pain seems to go counter to every instinct we have, and yet by sitting with your pain, and feeling it, you can actually begin to undo the cause of the pain. I breathe in and as I do so, I bring my attention to a focal point. When I breathe out, I guide my attention to the stress point, and begin to massage it, visualizing whatever I needed to visualize to help me understand the tension I feel. I breathe in again, drawing more attention and energy to a focal point, and then breathe out, releasing it to that place of tension, where it continues to work to untie the tension I feel.

Within a few breaths I can feel the pain begin to loosen it’s hold as muscles relax and unclench. I feel the pain, but instead of letting it define me, I define its healing with my breath. It continues to loosen up because the breath work provides a rhythm to approach the feeling and releasing of it. Memories and emotions may arise with the release of physical tension and stress, and I will sit with them as well, acknowledging and feeling them, so that I can learn and let go.

This is how I undo physical and sometimes emotional/mental stress. I use my breath and consciousness as a tool. I choose to feel the pain, to embrace it, and thus release it, because I no longer feel compelled to be held down by it. Instead of avoiding it, which actually increases its hold on me, I surrender to it, and in surrender come to understand it, and thus come to peace with it. And all it involves is breathing and focusing your awareness on the tension you feel, so that you can gradually loosen it and let it go

9-28-09 There’s not really much to write. Unlike all the other months, what I really feel right now is anticipation, or being in the center of the eye of the hurricane. I can look around me and see everything I’ve been dealing, but also recognize where I am and know I’ve moved past everything. Now it feels more like making a choice and getting ready to move ahead, free of the rotting putrefaction I went through, because the refinement is here.

10-01-09 I’ve been playing the Force Unleashed recently. When I first started my emptiness working, I played that game a fair amount. It represented, for me, the feeling of emptiness at the beginning. It doesn’t really anymore because I no longer see emptiness as an antagonist. It’s something I can see as part of me, instead of against me.

10-02-09 I reflected today that to truly experience emptiness I’ve had, in one form or another, to really become empty, to really see everything I hold dear fall through in some form or manner, if only to convey to me the full depths of emptiness. Recognizing that everything could be taken away, that’s been hard, but useful as well.

10-06-09 On a really deep level I wonder how much this year’s working has really helped me. I’ve been exposed to what drives me toward feeling empty, come to a really good understanding of it, but I don’t feel like its really solved. There’s still a part of me that just wants to find someone, something that will somehow meet this very intangible need I have. It’s a very primal, emotive part, not something rational that can be reasoned with. And it’s likely always going to be there. I guess I’ve learned better strategies for handling it and recognizing it when it comes out…and maybe I feel a bit less driven than I did before, but I also feel like somehow I just haven’t really “solved” the core issue for me. I don’t know if I ever will. Maybe, all I’ll really come away is a better grasp of my emptiness and a better way of handling it, when it comes up in potentially unhealthy situations.

10-08-09 I woke up this morning thinking about D. D was someone I met when I was twenty. We became lovers. She was seventeen years older than I was, a gifted magician, and very experienced when it came to life, and for that matter sex. I never fully, consciously realized until now just how deeply she imprinted me, or how much the relationship not working out would affect me. The majority of women I’ve been attracted to have always had a connection to Babalon, Lililth, or a similar type of goddess, i.e. the sacred whore archetype and I think it’s because of that imprint from D. This person made a really strong impression and I never fully got to satisfy or see where that relationship would go. So I see it as the root of a lot of my longings and seeking when it came to possible partners and sex in general. I’ve been trying to find someone with this particular current for a long time but I never fully understood why that was the case. And now I do…I really understand some of my choices in a very different light now than I did before.

10-10-09 I’ve been thinking further about what I wrote above, about the person I contacted, etc. I look back at various activities, various sexual encounters and I see this particular need trace itself through most of my relationships in a manner that never fully addresses it in a satisfactory way. The two partners I ended up with in long term relationships never embraced that particular archetype of the sacred whore. And conversely I’ve put myself in situations where I could almost have that relationship with someone who embodied that archetype, but then would take it away from myself, too afraid perhaps of getting what I wanted, or perhaps just not ready. I’m tired of that pattern. I’m tired of the hurt it’s caused me and others. And while I do love my wife very much and take genuine pleasure and joy from her presence in my life, I also have to acknowledge that this current is in my life and likely always will be. It’s something I want to explore with someone, safely and sanely.

10-11-09 One of my problems or flaws is that I put expectations on a lot of experiences, people, etc. In a conversation with a friend this morning, I thought about that…really thought about how much those expectations have actually caused me to miss out on some good experiences. I know I’ve placed expectations on so much of my life, and I’m even relatively sure of where that pattern came from. I also know those same expectations create a lot of the emptiness I feel as well.

I’ve been reading the Doctrine of Awakening by Julius Evola. It looks at some of the earliest tenets of Buddhism. I’m finding a lot of it speaking to some of the struggles I’ve been experiencing for a long time. And I’ve been reminded that I’m not really drawing on all the tools available to me. But I’m not surprised by that either. I’ve needed to fall apart this year, to see my flaws up close and personal as well as understanding the cause. It’s when you know the cause that you can start at the beginning with awareness and readiness to move forward. So falling apart has been discovering the causes…and starting the healing. I’m just about ready to move forward.

She said: “all you have to do is look around you and really see, not the image of your life but the real life. When you can define yourself alone, all the emptiness goes away” The image of my life is the desires, the expectations, the fixations, everything that haunts me because it isn’t realized. The real life is accepting how little any of that matters and how much what does matter is less about expectation and a lot more about the experience.

10-12-09: Further discussion with D, as well as thinking about something written in The Doctrine of Awakening, which stated that when a person “needs” another person they are spiritually weak. Not need as in rely on a person to back you up, but need as in codependent need, trying to find someone to fulfill something within you. As we all know by now, my emptiness working has at its core been dealing with that very issue, and on a very primal level, sex as a shadow activity can be expressed that way. Sex becomes a connection, the intimacy a doorway…the problem is it can also be addictive…it’s a drug like any other. You become a junkie, looking for your next fix. And for me, sex, like so much else, has been a way to avoid emptiness, to try and fill it up, and otherwise shut it out, but it’s always been a temporary fix. And it’s always been more about a constructed reality than an actual acceptance of this reality.

I know that now. That’s really what this year has been about, is finally, finally tracing the emptiness to every single root event and coming away with a profoundly different awareness of my emptiness in the process, as well as myself. And always going away with the awareness that I have a choice, have always had a choice, but now have more awareness in making that choice.

10-16-09 I volunteered at a play party tonight, to help out with one of the communities I’m part. After finishing up volunteering, I watched some people play and was struck with a feeling of incredible loneliness, and later a feeling of anger at myself and others for the last few years. I feel really alone. I have for a while. And a lot of it’s my own making. Seeing the fun and intimacy others were experiencing tonight just brought it home to me.

10-18-09 I ended up writing a long post about how I was feeling the other night on another site and got some useful feedback. But it also seems that the last couple of days has conspired to put me in touch with some possible interests…and I kind of laugh about that, because it’s the end of the emptiness working…and that ending is going to be opening a lot up for me. Last night I had a dream of a silver web and in the middle was a glowing orb and cracks were starting to appear in it.

10-20-09 I went and got the tattoo for Xah. The artist, Alice Kendall did an excellent job . You can see a picture below of the sigil for Xah, as well as the saying “From 0 to 1″ Tonight, I went into my ritual room, and painted my body with the sigil of Xah, while vibratingh isn ame over and over again. Eventually, the fox lord came, eyes laughing, tongue lolling out. “You’ve been through a lot this year. What have you learned?”

“I’ve known myself at my weakest, all my faults, flaws, and reactions exposed to myself. I’ve known myself at my strongest, confident, secure in who I am, able to achieve anything. And I’ve known myself as a mixture, and I am humbled by everything I’ve experienced. And I’m ready to move from 0 to 1, from a place of reactions to the past and old wounds, to a place of conscious decision and acceptance of the consequences.”

Then I, for a while, just meditated on this last year, on what I’d learned about myself, and my choices. This has been the hardest year of my life, in terms of really facing myself, and fully coming to terms with my emptiness. I’ve had to dig up all my core wounds, come to terms with some different people and their effect on me and also more importantly come to terms with my choices and how those have really effected others. I can’t say I’m a better person, so much as I’m a much more aware person after this year, after, the last five years really…and that awareness provides me an opportunity to be much more mindful of my choices. This year has been the culmination of a lot of internal work. I don’t even recognize myself sometimes, because so much has changed…but I’m ready to embrace this person I’ve become, and let go the weight of the past.

At times I wondered if I could make it…I spoke for a while just to myself about this last year, about what I learned, about who I’ve decided to be. And then I told Xah I was ready to finish this year, and move into the next one. I decided to use a bit of sex magic and brought myself to ecstasy, and in that ecstasy gave myself to Xah again and felt him enter through the sigil I’d placed on my arm and then felt the zero crack open and from it came forth the direction I’ve chosen…then a shower to wash the paint off…and now it is the 21st my Birthday. And I’ve made it through this year of emptiness and found myself and found clarity and sanity and peace with myself. For yes, there is emptiness, but now I no longer need to fight it or run from it. Finally, finally, I have accepted it.

I read through my entries on emptiness…it’s about a good four pages worth Just re-read everything…from start to now. If you go to the categories dropdown, you can select emptiness and read every entry…go back four pages or so…start at the beginning…You’ll read a journey of this last year, of a person’s journey to find himself and find resolution and closure with an element that most of us in the West would rather ignore.

Below is a picture of the tattoo I got as a tribute to this last year.

Happy Birthday to me.

As always, I find myself intrigued by the depth of exploration that Evola brings to any of his books. In this book he discusses the earliest Buddhist texts and makes some persuasive arguments against how Buddhism is currently perceived. The analysis of the texts and techniques as well as instructions on the techniques makes for a very insightful read. I got a lot out of the book and undoubtedly will get even more when I re-read the book.

This book isn’t for the casual reader. Evola’s writing is very dense and heady. You will likely need to re-read some of his passages to fully grasp what he is conveying, but once you do grasp, your understanding will be solid. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Buddhist mysticism or meditational practices.

5 out of 5

6-22-09 Envy is one of the shadows of desire. Feeling envy is like feeling pointy, sharp knives being stabbed into you…Each stab is a fresh reminder of the pain you feel. Just one of those nights.

6-27-09 I’m alone this weekend. My wife is off with her boyfriend and I have our home to myself. In someways, though, I’ve felt fairly alone lately, because the emptiness working is intensifying and I’ve also been letting go of a lot of my cravings when it comes to wanting other relationships…letting go, but also feeling.

It is the act of feeling which allows for the letting go. I’ve never realized as much as I do now how much I sometimes have found value in myself through the relationships I have with others. I think some of that can be healthy, but can get unhealthy if the value is only because of those relationships.

I want to be involved with someone new…be dating someone…and I acknowledge that. But I also accept that if and when it happens, it will occur because it’s the right moment…which doesn’t mean I’m not looking…just means I’m less frantic about it.

And more appreciative of the relationships I do have with wife, family, and friends. It’s wonderful to have people hwo genuinely care about you and love you and want you in their lives. I appreciate that more than ever because having those relationships is what’s helping me get through this emptiness working.

6-29-09 As I’ve continued doing this emptiness working, something which has come into my consciousness more has been an awareness of other peoples’ emptiness. It’s consequently made me more aware of what I am comfortable dealing with and what I’m not comfortable dealing with. I think every person has some degree of emptiness in them and I think it’s not unhealthy to have it, but how it’s expressed can be unhealthy. When I’m around someone and that person wants something from me, in a way that tries to fill that person up, I know it’s a case of trying to fill up the emptiness. In some ways, it’s a kind of psychic vampirism. And until people get comfortable with their emptiness, and understand how they are reacting to it, it will cause them to act out in ways that involve trying to fill themselves up. I know this, because it’s been that way with me, most of my life. Only recently have I come to a place where I’m not acting out that emptiness…but because I’m aware of that emptiness in myself, I can also feel it in others, and see it in the behaviors they exhibit.

7-01-09 Sometimes an event will occur, which triggers issues for me from the past. Frex I give someone a gift and that person doesn’t exhibit as much enthusiasm or interest in said gift as I hoped (expected) s/he would. On the one hand, Lupa’s pointed out that I tend to build up some expectations as to how someone will act when I give that person something. And there’s some truth to her observation. I do sometimes build up an expectation on how I think someone will act or react to something I do and that can lead to disappointment and isn’t fair to the person either.

But in thinking about it, the root of this issue is in feelings of neglect. My honest feeling wasn’t so much disappointment, as a feeling of neglect, of not being noticeable enough, worth enough to be shown consideration to. And yes that issue can lead to high expectations, but when I trace it back to myp ast, I trace it to my childhood, where I was essentially an indentured servant. I was expected to do a lot of chores, and was rarely, if at all thanked for what I did. In fact, I was usually only acknowledged when I did something bad. Everything good I did wasn’t worth noticing or paying attention to. And sometimes…I still feel that way. Now, that isn’t the fault of anyone I know. It’s my issue to deal wih, my issue to own, but part of owning it is acknowledging it, being honest about it, and recognizing what triggers it. And also recognizing what I need to do, to decondition that trigger.

7-3-09 I recently added a new business to my entrepreneurial gig and in the midst of doing that got some real gems for my emptiness work: Humility is believing in yourself and in abundance. It’s believing you have everything in the world to offer and also believing that everyone else does too.” It’s an interesting definition of humility, and one I find compelling. And what does it have to with emptiness…Simply recognizing that everyone does have something to offer. It’s a shift in thinking that focuses on recognizing the value that each person has. And for me, this is a shift which has been occurring for a while, since the advent of my entreprenurial focus. And when I’ve come to this view, it’s changed some of my feelings about emptiness, because I recognize more and more what it has to offer to me as well.

7-03-09 There are times where I still find myself struggling with being completely open and upfront. I want to be open…but there’s also that part, which doesn’t want to be open. That part is the part that learned early on that being open was a bad idea, that it would be used against me.  And rationally I know I’m not in that place anymore…I’m not that child anymore, but emotionally my issues with the authority that someone could have with my life is one that makes me feel uneasy. That uneasiness brings its own contributions to how I handle situations where I want something, but might have to get someone else’s approval to get it. Sometimes I really have to muster up my courage to bring something up, because of that uneasiness. It’s gotten easier to deal with over the last year, but its still something I have trouble with occasionally.

7-06-09 This month so far has been quieter than all the other months. Sure some stuff has come up, and there is still an awareness of emptiness, but at the same time there’s also a quietness, a kind of calmness…and not the calmness before a storm, but more like a calm centeredness of knowing myself and knowing emptiness and feeling collected and grounded with both.

7-10-09 Sometimes I will catch myself in a stream of thought that is focused around desire and in that moment acknowledge just how much that desire occupies my thoughts. It’s useful for recognizing just how much I want something, as well as asking whether that focus is really helping or not. It’s showing me as well the place desire has in my internal landscape, and now I’m learning how to sit with that comfortably. It’s not always easy, because sometimes I feel overwhelmed by how much my thoughts can sometimes go toward desire, but learning to sit with it is teaching me a lot about how I feel when I feel desire and can’t act on it. I’m seeing what underlies desire, which sometimes is a feeling of emptiness and fear, and sometimes is a desire to connect.

Some further realizations. Some of my desires deal with taboo, the desire to do something forbidden. When I thought about that and traced it back, I found the root, of course, in my past. Because I lived in a very disciplined household, one of the things I did to get power in those situations was to go behind my parents back and to lie to them. If I could get away with something, I took it as a triumph. And I see that same behavior in my life, over and over again through my twenties, and to a lesser degree my early thirties. Never mind that the root situation is gone…there’s still this desire to do something forbidden, and the pleasure of getting away with it. I’m not acting on that desire now, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have fantasies about it. Today when I had such a fantasy, I spent a lot of time thinking about it, sitting with it, and figuring out where the desire originated from. And having done that, I can say that it makes a lot of sense to me, but it’s no longer needed. I’m not in a situation where I’m dealing with some authority over me restricting me from enjoying what I like. I’m in a situation where I have that authority and ultimately responsibility for what I do. Needless to say, that gives me a lot of incentive to continue working on this stuff, instead of acting out on it.

7-12-09 I’ve been re-reading Epstein’s works on Buddhism and psychotherapy. Seemed appropriate for the emptiness working. In one of the books, Epstein talks about realizing that the pain, anger etc., isn’t something you can remove, that instead you’ve got to sit with it and work through it. The same is true of desire. You can’t remove it, and you do need to work through it. It’s something which needs to be experienced, but in a manner that allows you to know that you are truly at peace with how it makes you feel. You can’t eliminate the emptiness, the desire, the anger, because it’s something which is part of you. We treat it as the other, because we don’t want to deal with it. But it’s only in sitting with those feelings, that we can find peace with them.

7-13-09 I am simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable with my desires. I am comfortable in the moments I express them, but uncomfortable with having them…and it’s fairly easy for me to figure out the root and where it all came from…but sitting with it and being present with is something else I’m still learning to do.

7-17-09 Sitting with my desires today, I realized just how important it is sit with them and be silent in that sitting. And by silence, I don’t mean not talking, so much as I mean really listening. I still don’t feel any more comfortable with it, but I do feel like I’m finally ready to listen as opposed to frenetically acting.

I have to admit my emptiness working has perhaps caused some of this feeling of stagnation. To some degree everything in my life feels empty at times and it can be hard to face that.

At Heartland, I ended up doing a fair amount of energy work with one of the people I met there and it reminded me of some of the practices I’ve done in the past with energy work, so today while having a conversation with Lupa, I asked her to run energy with me. We both noted that the energy between us felt strong and steady, speaking to a strong connection between us. I’d run energy with other people and found different variations, which seemed to speak to the connections I felt with each person. I may be trying more of this as a way to ground my awareness into the connection I have with a given person.

Also at Heartland, I ended up picking up some clothing, which included Hakama pants and a black vest with colorful patterns on it. When I combined the vest and pants with a mesh shirt and my black hat I found I’d created a ritual garb for myself, which very much invoked my connection with Xah. I’ve already got some ideas on how I can enhance that ritual costume further, which I’ll be trying out soon…both for magical work and also for another type of scene. I want to play to my roots as a ceremonial magician more, albeit with my own flair and imagination. It’s been a while since I’ve used some of the more ceremonial aspects of my magical practice, but I think it will be a fun challenge for me.

Book Review: Mapping the Dharma by Paul Gerhard

I found this book to be very readable and easy to follow. I really appreciated how it was set up to explain Buddhism in a very approachable manner, with clear and concise explanations of what Buddhism is about. While I’m already familiar with Buddhism, the author’s way of explaining the core concepts and different components of it really helped me understand a lot more about Buddhism. I came away with a much more solid understanding of Buddhism, its practices and how I could incorporate it into my life.

5 out of 5 meditators

When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals by By Jeffery Masson and Susan McCarthy

This was a thought-provoking book about the emotional lives of animals and how much we take for granted by trying to assume that only humans can feel emotions. The authors provided a wide variety of anecdotes from their own experiences as well as the experiences of others. They show that animals can feel emotions and also interact in a variety of ways that go beyond traditional scientific reports on them. This book also raises some important questions about how we treat animals. My only complaint would be that at times the authors are very biased about how they feel, which consequently tones down some of what they attempt to convey to readers.

4 out of 5 animals