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Becoming Your Own Therapist; An Introduction to the Buddhist Way of Thought by Lama Yeshe
This book contains public talks by Lama Yeshe on the general topic of Buddhism and mind. Each lecture is followed by a question and answer session. Lama presented one of the talks to a group of psychiatrists who were delighted to meet and question Lama. This historic exchange underscores the difference between Western and Buddhist concepts of mental health.This is an expanded edition and contains both of the very popular Lama Yeshe booklets, Becoming Your Own Therapist and Make Your Mind an Ocean .Becoming Your Own TherapistFirst published in 1998, this booklet contains three public talks by Lama Yeshe on the general topic of Buddhism. Each lecture is followed by a question and answer session. Lama and his audiences always enjoyed the give and take of these lively exchanges, and pretty much anything went. Although these talks were called lectures, Lama would have each of us use them as a mirror for our minds and look beyond the words, find ourselves, and become our own psychologist.Make Your Mind an OceanThe talks in this booklet are on the general topic of the mind. Two were lunchtime lectures at Melbourne and Latrobe Universities. One was an evening lecture given to the general public. Perhaps of greatest interest is the lecture entitled "A Buddhist Approach to Mental Illness." Lama presented this talk to a group of psychiatrists at Prince Henry's Hospital who were delighted to meet and question Lama, and this historic exchange underscores the difference between Western and Buddhist concepts of mental health.This book is made possible by kind supporters of the Archive who, like you, appreciate how we make these teachings available in so many ways, including in our website for instant reading, listening or downloading, as printed and electronic books and with our social media communities. Our website offers immediate access to thousands of pages of teachings and hundreds of audio recordings by some of the greatest lamas of our time. Our photo gallery and our ever-popular books are also freely accessible there.Please help us increase our efforts to spread the Dharma for the happiness and benefit of all beings. You can find out more about becoming a supporter of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive and see all we have to offer by visiting our website at LamaYeshe.com.Thank you so much, and please enjoy!
Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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About the author
Thubten Yeshe
66 books94 followersLama Thubten Yeshe was a monastic teacher of Tibetan Buddhism most closely associated with the Gelug school of the Dalai Lamas. He established the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and was succeeded in leadership of that organization by his heart-disciple Lama Thubten Zopa in 1984.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
February 8, 2024
This volume is combined with Make Your Mind an Ocean. Edited from Lama's talks in Melbourne, Australia, in 1979, this is another lesson in analytical (checking) meditation and knowing your own mind. Highly recommended.
June 2, 2014
Advice: skip the Questions and Answers sections with the general public - they are irrelevant entertainment - but read the (sophisticated) dialog between Yeshe and the psychologists.
Oh, and read every single word Yeshe speaks. He speaks beautifully. What a book.
This is the best introduction to Mahayana Buddhism, in many ways, because it is non-intellectual, methodical, and direct. The path is laid out directly as wisdom itself.
Yeshe lights up this book.
Oh, and read every single word Yeshe speaks. He speaks beautifully. What a book.
This is the best introduction to Mahayana Buddhism, in many ways, because it is non-intellectual, methodical, and direct. The path is laid out directly as wisdom itself.
Yeshe lights up this book.
July 28, 2018
This was one of the first Buddhist books I'd ever read and, by far, one of the best. Along with Make Your Mind An Ocean (The two titles came together in one book) are so precious! Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche quite skilled at communicating complex Buddhist ideas in a way that's both relevant and relatable. You're gonna wanna read this many times for years to come because each time you do, you will learn something new, or understand something deeper. Very practical.
March 28, 2023
كتاب المعلم ياشي عبارة عن تجميع سلسلة من المحاضرات واللقاءات له في الغرب يتكلم فيها عن السايكولوچي من وجهة النظر البوذية.
الكتاب من جزئين أو كتابين تم جمعهما مؤخرًا.
الأمر الذي يحاول توصيله اللاما أو المعلم هو ان كل شيء مرتبط بالعقل ويجب على الإنسان أن يفهم عقله أولًا قبل كل شيء وأن سبب المشاكل و المعاناة والاضطرابات يقع في العقل بسبب الجهل والغرور والكراهية والأنا.
الكتاب يستفيض في التأكيد على تلك النقطة مع تنوع الشروحات البوذية للأمر؛ يسأل الحاضرون عن أمور كثر متعلقة بالبوذية مثل الكارما والنيرفانا والتنور وآراء البوذية في بعض الأمور الحياتية أو الأفكار الشائعة، وبالرغم من ان الاسئلة كلها تبدو بعيدة إلا أن اللاما كان قادرًا على توصيل كل النقاط ببعضها البعض والوصول إلى المركز وهو العقل.
العقل عند البوذية له تعريف مختلف فهو يشمل كل شيء يمكننا أن نسميه روح أو نفس أو عاطفة.
فالوجود الإنساني هو شقين جسد وعقل فقط. يمكننا أن نسمي هذا العقل روح أو نفس أو غيره لكنه نفس الشيء.
الحل لكل معاناتنا هو أن نعرف عقلنا من خلال تمارين التأمل ومراقبة عواطفنا وانفعالاتنا و فحصها وتمحيصها.
بعض الاقتباسات التي أعجبتني من الكتاب:
* Buddhism is a method for controlling the undisciplined mind in order to lead it from suffering to happiness.
* when we study Buddhism, we are studying ourselves, the nature of our own minds. Instead of focusing on some supreme being.
* Buddhism always accentuates experiential knowledge-wisdom rather than some dogmatic view.
* Buddhist psychology describes six basic emotions that frustrate the human mind, disturbing its peace, making it restless: ignorance, attachment, anger, pride, deluded doubt and distorted views. Buddhism emphasizes that to overcome these delusions, the root of all suffering, belief and faith are not much help: you have to understand their nature. And the solution is the meditation.
* Meditation is an alert state of mind, the opposite of sluggishness; meditation is wisdom. You should remain aware every moment of your daily life, fully conscious of what you are doing and why and how you are doing it.
* every human being has the ability to understand his or her own mind. When you understand your own mind, control follows naturally.
* To become your own psychologist, you don’t have to learn some big philosophy. All you have to do is examine your own mind every day.
* Buddhist practitioners always try to understand their own mental attitudes, concepts, perceptions and consciousness.Those are the things that really matter.
* True religion should be the pursuit of self-realization, not an exercise in the accumulation of facts.
* Anyway, whether you are a religious person or not, if you can’t separate yourself from your ego, you’re completely misguided; you’ve created for yourself a totally unrealistic philosophy of life that has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.
* the most important aspect of any religion is its methods: how to put that religion into your own experience. The better you understand how to do that, the more effective your religion becomes.
* if you understand spiritual principles correctly and act accordingly, you will find much greater satisfaction and meaning in your life than you will by relying on the sense world alone. The sense world alone cannot satisfy the human mind.
* We often feel miserable and our world seems upside-down because we believe that external things will work exactly as we plan and expect them to. We expect things that are changeable by nature not to change, impermanent things to last forever. Then, when they do change, we get upset.
*
* Agitated mental states are a major obstacle to your gaining of wisdom. So too is the misconception that your ego and your mind’s nature are one and the same. If that’s what you believe, you’ll never be able to separate them and reach beyond ego. As long as you believe that you are totally in the nature of sin and negativity you will never be able to transcend them.
* If you lose your ego you’ll be happy—you should be happy.
* The actual ego is within you: it’s the wrong conception that your self is independent, permanent and inherently existent. In reality, what you believe to be “I” doesn’t exist.
* The human mind is like a mirror. A mirror does not discriminate but simply reflects whatever’s before it, no matter whether it’s horrible or wonderful. Similarly, your mind takes on the aspect of your surroundings, and if you’re not aware of what’s going on, your mind can fill with garbage. Therefore, it is very important to be conscious of your surroundings and how they affect your mind.
* Karma is your experiences of body and mind. The word itself is Sanskrit; it means cause and effect. Your experiences of mental and physical happiness or unhappiness are the effects of certain causes, but those effects themselves become the causes of future results. One action produces a reaction; that is karma.
* When you develop your powers of concentration such that you can integrate your mind into single-pointed concentration, you will gradually diminish your ego's emotional reactions until they disappear altogether. At that point, you transcend your ego and discover an everlasting, blissful, peaceful state of mind. That is what we call nirvana.
* A simple way of checking up on your own mind is to investigate how you perceive things, how you interpret your experiences. Why do you have so many different feelings about your boyfriend even during the course of one day? In the morning you feel good about him, in the afternoon, kind of foggy; why is that? Has your boyfriend changed that radically from morning to afternoon? No, there's been no radical change, so why do you feel so differently about him? That's the way to check.
* Lord Buddha never put much emphasis on belief. Instead, he exhorted us to investigate and try to understand the reality of our own being. He never stressed that we had to know what he was, what a buddha is. All he wanted was for us to understand our own nature. Isn't that so simple? We don't have to believe in anything. Simply by making the right effort, we understand things through our own experience, and gradually develop all realizations.
الكتاب من جزئين أو كتابين تم جمعهما مؤخرًا.
الأمر الذي يحاول توصيله اللاما أو المعلم هو ان كل شيء مرتبط بالعقل ويجب على الإنسان أن يفهم عقله أولًا قبل كل شيء وأن سبب المشاكل و المعاناة والاضطرابات يقع في العقل بسبب الجهل والغرور والكراهية والأنا.
الكتاب يستفيض في التأكيد على تلك النقطة مع تنوع الشروحات البوذية للأمر؛ يسأل الحاضرون عن أمور كثر متعلقة بالبوذية مثل الكارما والنيرفانا والتنور وآراء البوذية في بعض الأمور الحياتية أو الأفكار الشائعة، وبالرغم من ان الاسئلة كلها تبدو بعيدة إلا أن اللاما كان قادرًا على توصيل كل النقاط ببعضها البعض والوصول إلى المركز وهو العقل.
العقل عند البوذية له تعريف مختلف فهو يشمل كل شيء يمكننا أن نسميه روح أو نفس أو عاطفة.
فالوجود الإنساني هو شقين جسد وعقل فقط. يمكننا أن نسمي هذا العقل روح أو نفس أو غيره لكنه نفس الشيء.
الحل لكل معاناتنا هو أن نعرف عقلنا من خلال تمارين التأمل ومراقبة عواطفنا وانفعالاتنا و فحصها وتمحيصها.
بعض الاقتباسات التي أعجبتني من الكتاب:
* Buddhism is a method for controlling the undisciplined mind in order to lead it from suffering to happiness.
* when we study Buddhism, we are studying ourselves, the nature of our own minds. Instead of focusing on some supreme being.
* Buddhism always accentuates experiential knowledge-wisdom rather than some dogmatic view.
* Buddhist psychology describes six basic emotions that frustrate the human mind, disturbing its peace, making it restless: ignorance, attachment, anger, pride, deluded doubt and distorted views. Buddhism emphasizes that to overcome these delusions, the root of all suffering, belief and faith are not much help: you have to understand their nature. And the solution is the meditation.
* Meditation is an alert state of mind, the opposite of sluggishness; meditation is wisdom. You should remain aware every moment of your daily life, fully conscious of what you are doing and why and how you are doing it.
* every human being has the ability to understand his or her own mind. When you understand your own mind, control follows naturally.
* To become your own psychologist, you don’t have to learn some big philosophy. All you have to do is examine your own mind every day.
* Buddhist practitioners always try to understand their own mental attitudes, concepts, perceptions and consciousness.Those are the things that really matter.
* True religion should be the pursuit of self-realization, not an exercise in the accumulation of facts.
* Anyway, whether you are a religious person or not, if you can’t separate yourself from your ego, you’re completely misguided; you’ve created for yourself a totally unrealistic philosophy of life that has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.
* the most important aspect of any religion is its methods: how to put that religion into your own experience. The better you understand how to do that, the more effective your religion becomes.
* if you understand spiritual principles correctly and act accordingly, you will find much greater satisfaction and meaning in your life than you will by relying on the sense world alone. The sense world alone cannot satisfy the human mind.
* We often feel miserable and our world seems upside-down because we believe that external things will work exactly as we plan and expect them to. We expect things that are changeable by nature not to change, impermanent things to last forever. Then, when they do change, we get upset.
*
* Agitated mental states are a major obstacle to your gaining of wisdom. So too is the misconception that your ego and your mind’s nature are one and the same. If that’s what you believe, you’ll never be able to separate them and reach beyond ego. As long as you believe that you are totally in the nature of sin and negativity you will never be able to transcend them.
* If you lose your ego you’ll be happy—you should be happy.
* The actual ego is within you: it’s the wrong conception that your self is independent, permanent and inherently existent. In reality, what you believe to be “I” doesn’t exist.
* The human mind is like a mirror. A mirror does not discriminate but simply reflects whatever’s before it, no matter whether it’s horrible or wonderful. Similarly, your mind takes on the aspect of your surroundings, and if you’re not aware of what’s going on, your mind can fill with garbage. Therefore, it is very important to be conscious of your surroundings and how they affect your mind.
* Karma is your experiences of body and mind. The word itself is Sanskrit; it means cause and effect. Your experiences of mental and physical happiness or unhappiness are the effects of certain causes, but those effects themselves become the causes of future results. One action produces a reaction; that is karma.
* When you develop your powers of concentration such that you can integrate your mind into single-pointed concentration, you will gradually diminish your ego's emotional reactions until they disappear altogether. At that point, you transcend your ego and discover an everlasting, blissful, peaceful state of mind. That is what we call nirvana.
* A simple way of checking up on your own mind is to investigate how you perceive things, how you interpret your experiences. Why do you have so many different feelings about your boyfriend even during the course of one day? In the morning you feel good about him, in the afternoon, kind of foggy; why is that? Has your boyfriend changed that radically from morning to afternoon? No, there's been no radical change, so why do you feel so differently about him? That's the way to check.
* Lord Buddha never put much emphasis on belief. Instead, he exhorted us to investigate and try to understand the reality of our own being. He never stressed that we had to know what he was, what a buddha is. All he wanted was for us to understand our own nature. Isn't that so simple? We don't have to believe in anything. Simply by making the right effort, we understand things through our own experience, and gradually develop all realizations.
January 2, 2017
"To purify your mind, you don’t have to believe in something special up there– God, or Buddha. Don’t worry about that.When you truly realize the up and down nature of your everyday life, the characteristic nature of your own mental attitude, you’ll automatically want to implement a solution."
I really like Buddhism.
I really like Buddhism.
April 4, 2010
Mindfulness isn't just for silent meditation; it is really for activity. You just always have to be asking your mind what you are really doing and why.
June 11, 2019
Read this book.
The teachings of Lama Yeshe are simple and straightforward. He offers a lot of wisdom that you can integrate into your life, regardless of whether you are a practicing Buddhist.
One of his main messages is that mental disease comes from dissatisfaction of the mind. You must know your own mind in order to address your mental health. You have to analyze your mind. "Check up", he always says; question yourself, question your actions, question your motivation.
Know your mind. Once you know your mind, you can care for yourself. Other people can't change you; you have to change yourself.
The teachings of Lama Yeshe are simple and straightforward. He offers a lot of wisdom that you can integrate into your life, regardless of whether you are a practicing Buddhist.
One of his main messages is that mental disease comes from dissatisfaction of the mind. You must know your own mind in order to address your mental health. You have to analyze your mind. "Check up", he always says; question yourself, question your actions, question your motivation.
Know your mind. Once you know your mind, you can care for yourself. Other people can't change you; you have to change yourself.
October 9, 2023
This wasn't quite what I expected, but it gave me some things to think about.
I picked this up pretty randomly and figured it was more of a practical psychology kind of book, but it's actually a series of Buddhist lectures with question and answer sessions.
Some of the information was a bit repetitive and I didn't find it informative enough to really put anything mentioned in the book into practice, but the question and answer sessions are a good resource for understanding some of how Buddhism works and what it does.
I probably wouldn't recommend this as an introduction to Buddhism, but it has left me with the desire to look more into Buddhist meditations.
I picked this up pretty randomly and figured it was more of a practical psychology kind of book, but it's actually a series of Buddhist lectures with question and answer sessions.
Some of the information was a bit repetitive and I didn't find it informative enough to really put anything mentioned in the book into practice, but the question and answer sessions are a good resource for understanding some of how Buddhism works and what it does.
I probably wouldn't recommend this as an introduction to Buddhism, but it has left me with the desire to look more into Buddhist meditations.
May 26, 2025
Clear, direct, and short introduction to Mahayana buddhism. Lama Yeshe does a great job using simple language and getting to the core concepts. It may be repetitive, but it's foundational material worth reviewing until more fully understood. If I were to summarize the particular angle these 7 lectures take, it's that the cause of suffering in life is due to ignorance of what your mind is and how it works.
I found this book worth reading, even though the Q&A sessions are mostly uninteresting, and I've gotten the message a million times before. It's that important, and Lama Yeshe's great at bringing it to life.
I found this book worth reading, even though the Q&A sessions are mostly uninteresting, and I've gotten the message a million times before. It's that important, and Lama Yeshe's great at bringing it to life.
March 10, 2018
I dig Lama Yeshe's style. He didn't shy away from confrontation and though he was sure of his version of the truth (even when it contradicted itself at some points) he demonstrated that open Buddhist mind that knows there are many different ways of reaching the truth. In the lectures and Q&A presented, Lama Yeshe made the concepts of Buddhist psychology very accessible. This was not a dull read and will continue to be a helpful bit of reference material.
May 28, 2017
Great deep dive on the mind
I loved this book because it totally covered the introductory idea of mind. I like its combination of lecture and q and a. The one dislike I had was it was pretty repetitive. Finally, I also got the audible version of this book and that really was wonderful to listen to:
I loved this book because it totally covered the introductory idea of mind. I like its combination of lecture and q and a. The one dislike I had was it was pretty repetitive. Finally, I also got the audible version of this book and that really was wonderful to listen to:
December 16, 2018
Learning the basics of controlling the monkey mind
Very good read. A good beginning on learning how to train the mind from all it's chatter. Teaches introspection and how to look at one's own thought processes. Good analogies on learning to let go of the emotions and rely on intellect. As a therapist, I found it to be of good help to help others.
Very good read. A good beginning on learning how to train the mind from all it's chatter. Teaches introspection and how to look at one's own thought processes. Good analogies on learning to let go of the emotions and rely on intellect. As a therapist, I found it to be of good help to help others.
February 20, 2022
As a collection of his speeches I enjoyed the Q & A sections the best. I found it overall to be quite repetitive. While there were a fair amount of interesting points his theories do not quite align with my view of life. However I’m sure if you were more committed to the Buddhist way of life you would find it compelling.
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April 14, 2024Introduction to author: https://www.lamayeshe.com/
If you feel like switching things up and trying a new way of living, Lama Yeshe has some practical suggestions on how to engage the society of your own mind.
This is a pretty awesome read if you're open to exploring your own mind and letting go of preconceived ideas.
If you feel like switching things up and trying a new way of living, Lama Yeshe has some practical suggestions on how to engage the society of your own mind.
This is a pretty awesome read if you're open to exploring your own mind and letting go of preconceived ideas.
January 24, 2017
This book consists of a few talks by Lama Yeshe and related Q&A sessions. It's a small book, but quite comprehensive and just what I needed to deepen my spiritual and scientific understanding of Buddhism at this point.
September 22, 2018
Very helpful knowledge and written in an easy-to-understand format.
The wisdom in this book has helped me to find peace of mind. Buddhist dharma is the only way to overcome suffering/dukkha. Other religions have misconceptions that lead to suffering.
The wisdom in this book has helped me to find peace of mind. Buddhist dharma is the only way to overcome suffering/dukkha. Other religions have misconceptions that lead to suffering.
November 10, 2021
Wasn't expecting the question and answer format, but was still good. The questions asked were important ones, with satisfying answers from a Buddhist perspective. I enjoyed this easy listen while braiding my hair.
May 3, 2025
To live with clarity, we must first understand our own minds
Lama Yeshe’s teachings are profound, yet accessible, encouraging each of us to observe the mind, uncover its true nature, and walk the path of wisdom.
Lama Yeshe’s teachings are profound, yet accessible, encouraging each of us to observe the mind, uncover its true nature, and walk the path of wisdom.
August 17, 2025
Lama offers a perfect experience. I dont feel the religiously narcissistic tone in his texts and he doesnt drown me in the waters of unnecessary and niche jargon. My path is to understand my own subjective reality and he is one of the few thinkers who could get as nearer as a inner talk.
October 5, 2020
worth several rereads.
July 31, 2021
There is a lot of wisdom in this book.
August 19, 2021
I've read a few intro to Buddhism books by Lama Yeshe and I really enjoyed the Q&A portion of this in particular, it answered questions I've been thinking about even after doing an FPMT
November 10, 2021
Becoming your own therapist and make your mind an ocean
This book will awake you to the reason that the mind is very important in order for you to have a calm and abiding life.
This book will awake you to the reason that the mind is very important in order for you to have a calm and abiding life.
December 15, 2021
A great read. Lama Yeshe starting point in Buddhism is the mind. A great beginners book as an introduction to Tibetan Buddhism.
March 28, 2022
Lots of wisdom, and another perspective. (Usually read Pema Chodron & Thich Nhat Hanh)
June 18, 2022
Reflective e informative. Made me rise some more questions.
August 4, 2022
Loved it 😁😁😁
June 29, 2023
The clarity of the teaching is impressive.
January 7, 2024
Aaaawwwww, Lama make my mind happy.
March 19, 2025
A beautiful book to read to understand the dharma. Couple it with the silent introduction to Buddhism course at Tushita in Dharamshala. You will learn what you are yearning to.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews