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The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World
A Buddhist meditation teacher offers a new path to transformation—within ourselves and within the wider world—that integrates spiritual wisdom and social action
By the time Donald Rothberg was in his early twenties, he knew he had two vocations. He wanted to dedicate himself to justice and social change, and he wanted to commit himself to exploring the depths of human consciousness—to an awakening of our deeper spiritual nature. It has been his life's work, as an activist, organizer, writer, and teacher, to bring these two paths together and to reveal how deeply they require one another.
The Engaged Spiritual Life is the fruit of this work. Skillfully weaving together basic spiritual teachings, real-life examples, social context, and exercises, Rothberg provides a clear, thorough, and compelling guide for those interested in connecting inner and outer transformation. At the core of the book are ten spiritual principles and associated practices that will enable readers to engage all the parts of their lives—whether personal, interpersonal, or political—into a seamless whole.
By the time Donald Rothberg was in his early twenties, he knew he had two vocations. He wanted to dedicate himself to justice and social change, and he wanted to commit himself to exploring the depths of human consciousness—to an awakening of our deeper spiritual nature. It has been his life's work, as an activist, organizer, writer, and teacher, to bring these two paths together and to reveal how deeply they require one another.
The Engaged Spiritual Life is the fruit of this work. Skillfully weaving together basic spiritual teachings, real-life examples, social context, and exercises, Rothberg provides a clear, thorough, and compelling guide for those interested in connecting inner and outer transformation. At the core of the book are ten spiritual principles and associated practices that will enable readers to engage all the parts of their lives—whether personal, interpersonal, or political—into a seamless whole.
256 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2006
33 people are currently reading
150 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 30, 2010
I had the great fortune of going on a meditation retreat at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA this past summer and my Dharma teacher was Donald Rothberg. What incredible luck that I was able to sit through his teachings and at the end of the retreat, found out he had a book! That was a pleasant surprise so I ended up making the purchase.
It is extremely well written and goes through how one can lead both an engaged and fulfilling spiritual life. You, certainly, don't have to be religious and there are many universal themese he touches upon that go beyond the Buddhist tenents. Either way, I think he may convince you that it is possible to lead such a life but you would have to read the book and decide for yourself. It's definitely a thoughtful and contemplative read if you are wondering how you change your day to day.
It is extremely well written and goes through how one can lead both an engaged and fulfilling spiritual life. You, certainly, don't have to be religious and there are many universal themese he touches upon that go beyond the Buddhist tenents. Either way, I think he may convince you that it is possible to lead such a life but you would have to read the book and decide for yourself. It's definitely a thoughtful and contemplative read if you are wondering how you change your day to day.
September 20, 2024
I've been reading a lot of books about mindfulness and Buddhism lately. This one differed with the "engaged" aspect of it as mentioned in the title. At times the book felt energizing and at other times it felt overwhelming but that probably says more about me than the book. Worth reading!
Want to read
August 22, 2012The Engaged Spiritual Life adresses the common separation between religious/spirituality and engagement in the world. In many ways, Rothberg is writing about a spirituality based activism. Although, as the subtitle indicates, he draws primarily from Buddhism, the book is relevant far beyond Buddhism. Additionally, Rothberg draws from many world religions in developing his ideas.
Religious and spiritual traditions often get so caught up in their own agenda that they do not heed the calling of service to the world. Yet, within all the world religions, this is an important calling. The world is deeply suffering and needs people from various spiritual and religious traditions to attend to the wounds.
Rothberg also addresses the problem of self-focus and social-focus. Many, it seems, attend primarily or exclusively to one or other other. However, Rothberg illustrates their interdependence. If we truly want to transform the world, we must take care of ourselves. We must attend to our own spiritual needs, personal needs, emotional needs. If we do not care for ourselves, our ability to push for positive social change is greatly diminished. Yet, if we focus to much on ourselves and our own inner transformation, the world is left suffering. A balance is needed.
This is a high practical and useful book. For those not familiar with Buddhism, it provides a nice introduction to many core concepts. If not interested in Buddhism, it still provides many useful ideas that can be adapted within other religious and spiritual contexts with relative ease.
Religious and spiritual traditions often get so caught up in their own agenda that they do not heed the calling of service to the world. Yet, within all the world religions, this is an important calling. The world is deeply suffering and needs people from various spiritual and religious traditions to attend to the wounds.
Rothberg also addresses the problem of self-focus and social-focus. Many, it seems, attend primarily or exclusively to one or other other. However, Rothberg illustrates their interdependence. If we truly want to transform the world, we must take care of ourselves. We must attend to our own spiritual needs, personal needs, emotional needs. If we do not care for ourselves, our ability to push for positive social change is greatly diminished. Yet, if we focus to much on ourselves and our own inner transformation, the world is left suffering. A balance is needed.
This is a high practical and useful book. For those not familiar with Buddhism, it provides a nice introduction to many core concepts. If not interested in Buddhism, it still provides many useful ideas that can be adapted within other religious and spiritual contexts with relative ease.
August 31, 2016
The first third wasn't anything new, but the last 2/3rds dealt a lot of with a lot of the issues I've been struggling with lately, namely how to fight injustice and not be a big jerk or consumed by self-righteous anger. Great book with a lot to think about.
May 3, 2025
A manual for life
This is an important and accessible work that calls practitioners of mindfulness to take the focus and awareness they cultivate into the world. The books is filled with wisdom, invites reflection, and suggests ways we can impact those with whom we are in relationships, our communities, and the world.
This is an important and accessible work that calls practitioners of mindfulness to take the focus and awareness they cultivate into the world. The books is filled with wisdom, invites reflection, and suggests ways we can impact those with whom we are in relationships, our communities, and the world.
February 3, 2018
"Here Come the Crucifiers" -- This article’s title comes from my favorite song of an all-women punk band in Minneapolis about 25 years ago, originally recorded by Exene Cervenka. With a little imagination and creativity we could have had a Women’s Equality Day total eclipse celebration August 26-27th 2017 at the (Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) Civic Center Park; a music, peace and prayer weekend overshadowing “greed, hate and delusion;” but we were too caught up in fear and rage instead. Now we’re all being watched carefully by Homeland Security and each other to see who’s a “terrorist” and who’s not. The wheel of suffering.
Donald Rothberg and Kazu Haga gave a “Buddhist Practice & Gandhian/Kingian Nonviolence Training” over Labor Day weekend. They focused on the tools of those disciplines, the principles and steps towards “Conflict Reconciliation.” What a difference it would have made if counter-demonstrators had gone through the same kind of year-long disciplined training as the Fisk University students had in Nashville before the game-changing lunch counter sit-ins!
In Berkeley resident and Bay Area teacher Donald’s The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, he explains the teachings of “distinguishing the experience of anger from what we do with our anger” and “separating the intelligence and energy of anger from its blindness and reactivity.” Ah! I often pause before I react. I am not the same person I was at two, or even 28. I know we are all capable of violence and hate. I wrestle with my desire to “go nuclear” myself.
Whole groups, communities and even nations could be changed with nonviolent practice awareness, if not the world, but can we persist? Will we be allowed to? In Berkeley-educated Maria Hsia Chang’s, Falun Gong: The End of Days, she outlines the rise of qigong practitioners generally based in 2,600-year old healthy exercise, Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism; transformed into a vast movement promulgated by founder and “master” Li Hongzhi, then suppressed violently by the Chinese state. Hongzhi’s moral theories of “Truth, Benevolent Compassion and Tolerance” eventually contained his dominant prejudices, threatened the Chinese government and misled his followers.
He fled to the U. S., but at least 10,000 of his practitioners were imprisoned in China and 4,000 more sent to work camps and “reeducation centers” by the time Hsia Chang published in 2004. Amnesty International concluded the “crackdown is intended to convict people on politically driven charges… to further curb the fundamental freedoms of the Chinese people.” “Women in particular seem to have been singled out” for torture and the “organ harvesting” murders still being investigated as international human rights violations.
Hsia Chang follows the history of the sect, Chinese religious and millenarian movements, explicates specific practices and outlines the persecution of other faiths in China; but the pattern of misunderstanding for “political” purposes is oddly familiar.
We are all capable of violence and hate; and also of community solidarity, nonviolent resistance and love.
Wyndy Knox Carr lives south of campus. Her previous articles are on her LinkedIn page in extended versions.
Cervenka, Exene, (1989) "Here Come the Crucifiers" (song) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGfeW... (14 September 2017)
Chang, Maria Hsia, Falun Gong: The End of Days, 2004, Yale University Press, New Haven and London.
Rothberg, Donald, The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, 2006, Beacon Press, Boston.
Alt title: Momentary Eclipses, Transformational Practices
Donald Rothberg and Kazu Haga gave a “Buddhist Practice & Gandhian/Kingian Nonviolence Training” over Labor Day weekend. They focused on the tools of those disciplines, the principles and steps towards “Conflict Reconciliation.” What a difference it would have made if counter-demonstrators had gone through the same kind of year-long disciplined training as the Fisk University students had in Nashville before the game-changing lunch counter sit-ins!
In Berkeley resident and Bay Area teacher Donald’s The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, he explains the teachings of “distinguishing the experience of anger from what we do with our anger” and “separating the intelligence and energy of anger from its blindness and reactivity.” Ah! I often pause before I react. I am not the same person I was at two, or even 28. I know we are all capable of violence and hate. I wrestle with my desire to “go nuclear” myself.
Whole groups, communities and even nations could be changed with nonviolent practice awareness, if not the world, but can we persist? Will we be allowed to? In Berkeley-educated Maria Hsia Chang’s, Falun Gong: The End of Days, she outlines the rise of qigong practitioners generally based in 2,600-year old healthy exercise, Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism; transformed into a vast movement promulgated by founder and “master” Li Hongzhi, then suppressed violently by the Chinese state. Hongzhi’s moral theories of “Truth, Benevolent Compassion and Tolerance” eventually contained his dominant prejudices, threatened the Chinese government and misled his followers.
He fled to the U. S., but at least 10,000 of his practitioners were imprisoned in China and 4,000 more sent to work camps and “reeducation centers” by the time Hsia Chang published in 2004. Amnesty International concluded the “crackdown is intended to convict people on politically driven charges… to further curb the fundamental freedoms of the Chinese people.” “Women in particular seem to have been singled out” for torture and the “organ harvesting” murders still being investigated as international human rights violations.
Hsia Chang follows the history of the sect, Chinese religious and millenarian movements, explicates specific practices and outlines the persecution of other faiths in China; but the pattern of misunderstanding for “political” purposes is oddly familiar.
We are all capable of violence and hate; and also of community solidarity, nonviolent resistance and love.
Wyndy Knox Carr lives south of campus. Her previous articles are on her LinkedIn page in extended versions.
Cervenka, Exene, (1989) "Here Come the Crucifiers" (song) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGfeW... (14 September 2017)
Chang, Maria Hsia, Falun Gong: The End of Days, 2004, Yale University Press, New Haven and London.
Rothberg, Donald, The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, 2006, Beacon Press, Boston.
Alt title: Momentary Eclipses, Transformational Practices
June 29, 2008
...started this last night--the first 50 pages moved me so! while i'm hesitant to start emailing everyone i know exclaiming, "you simply must read this book," i have a feeling such sentiment will be flowing from me soon.
perhaps each of you will be recieving this as a solstice gift from me in the near future!
*smiles*
donald's writing is approachable, pragmatic, and his praxis of spirituality and activism resonates with my heart these days.
so far, this book is presenting one of those experiences where i keep asking myself as i flip each page: "where was this text five years ago?!?! why did it take so long for us to meet!?!"
fantastic read thus far, and i'm sure i'll be sharing more reflections soon...
...a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful read~
i found hope here.
perhaps each of you will be recieving this as a solstice gift from me in the near future!
*smiles*
donald's writing is approachable, pragmatic, and his praxis of spirituality and activism resonates with my heart these days.
so far, this book is presenting one of those experiences where i keep asking myself as i flip each page: "where was this text five years ago?!?! why did it take so long for us to meet!?!"
fantastic read thus far, and i'm sure i'll be sharing more reflections soon...
...a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful read~
i found hope here.
November 4, 2021
A couple valued pieces that I was able to take away from this book however, I felt that it lacked the connection I wanted when I read about a Buddhist approach to transforming ourselves and the world.... Basically what was discussed has been dicussed in every other Dharma book out there just in a differnt pattern.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews