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The Trauma of Everyday Life
Trauma does not just happen to a few unlucky people; it is the bedrock of our psychology. Death and illness touch us all, but even the everyday sufferings of loneliness and fear are traumatic. In The Trauma of Everyday Life renowned psychiatrist and author of Thoughts Without a Thinker Mark Epstein uncovers the transformational potential of trauma, revealing how it can be used for the mind’s own development.
Western psychology teaches that if we understand the cause of trauma, we might move past it while many drawn to Eastern practices see meditation as a means of rising above, or distancing themselves from, their most difficult emotions. Both, Epstein argues, fail to recognize that trauma is an indivisible part of life and can be used as a lever for growth and an ever deeper understanding of change. When we regard trauma with this perspective, understanding that suffering is universal and without logic, our pain connects us to the world on a more fundamental level. The way out of pain is through it.
Epstein’s discovery begins in his analysis of the life of Buddha, looking to how the death of his mother informed his path and teachings. The Buddha’s spiritual journey can be read as an expression of primitive agony grounded in childhood trauma. Yet the Buddha’s story is only one of many in The Trauma of Everyday Life. Here, Epstein looks to his own experience, that of his patients, and of the many fellow sojourners and teachers he encounters as a psychiatrist and Buddhist. They are alike only in that they share in trauma, large and small, as all of us do. Epstein finds throughout that trauma, if it doesn’t destroy us, wakes us up to both our minds’ own capacity and to the suffering of others. It makes us more human, caring, and wise. It can be our greatest teacher, our freedom itself, and it is available to all of us.
Western psychology teaches that if we understand the cause of trauma, we might move past it while many drawn to Eastern practices see meditation as a means of rising above, or distancing themselves from, their most difficult emotions. Both, Epstein argues, fail to recognize that trauma is an indivisible part of life and can be used as a lever for growth and an ever deeper understanding of change. When we regard trauma with this perspective, understanding that suffering is universal and without logic, our pain connects us to the world on a more fundamental level. The way out of pain is through it.
Epstein’s discovery begins in his analysis of the life of Buddha, looking to how the death of his mother informed his path and teachings. The Buddha’s spiritual journey can be read as an expression of primitive agony grounded in childhood trauma. Yet the Buddha’s story is only one of many in The Trauma of Everyday Life. Here, Epstein looks to his own experience, that of his patients, and of the many fellow sojourners and teachers he encounters as a psychiatrist and Buddhist. They are alike only in that they share in trauma, large and small, as all of us do. Epstein finds throughout that trauma, if it doesn’t destroy us, wakes us up to both our minds’ own capacity and to the suffering of others. It makes us more human, caring, and wise. It can be our greatest teacher, our freedom itself, and it is available to all of us.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published August 15, 2013
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5322 people want to read
About the author
Mark Epstein
63 books743 followersMark Epstein, M.D. is a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City and the author of a number of books about the interface of Buddhism and psychotherapy. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University and is currently Clinical Assistant Professor in the Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis at New York University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
November 1, 2014
Meditation is great, and I've played around with it. Buddhism seems worth learning lots about. But I found myself disagreeing with quite a few things in this book (which is all about Buddhism and the author's use of it to get through life). I simply cannot accept the author's repeated assertion that everyday life is 'full of trauma which in my own understanding of things, I find to be a severe misuse of the word (for instance - in one passage on page 39, he refers to his friends going to the wrong airport and narrowly making his flight as trauma averted. Is that really trauma?) By describing pretty much everything in life as a trauma to somehow endure, he waters the word down to make equal to 'annoyance' - this book would be better called 'the annoyances of everyday life' (in another example, he talks about how he misplaced his toast at a Buddhist retreat as he explored his mind and how this upset him. Not trauma, not even worth recording your diary, and certainly not a teaching moment, despite what he says).
He also must spend a clear fourth of this book talking about mother - infant relationships, which to me only served to mirror something going wrong with himself and got old fast. And when you check his popular writing (NYT, elsewhere), sure enough, all he does is talk about his mother and 'all the trauma' there. With what I've read, I doubt the author has ever experienced true trauma as many of us would define it: gone hungry for days, been cold in winter, been homeless, been penniless, experienced murder or incredible violence, had to endure incredibly difficult circumstances, etc. And for those reasons, the book comes across as a touchy-feely, 'life is so hard' tract that annoys rather than inspires new thinking. In other words, the author seems to be very troubled that there is no immediately obvious purpose to our existence, and describes the resulting thinking as trauma rather than simply 'life' which we all wonder about.
Two stars instead of one because I did learn a bit I didn't know about this Buddha character, and those sections were very accessible.
He also must spend a clear fourth of this book talking about mother - infant relationships, which to me only served to mirror something going wrong with himself and got old fast. And when you check his popular writing (NYT, elsewhere), sure enough, all he does is talk about his mother and 'all the trauma' there. With what I've read, I doubt the author has ever experienced true trauma as many of us would define it: gone hungry for days, been cold in winter, been homeless, been penniless, experienced murder or incredible violence, had to endure incredibly difficult circumstances, etc. And for those reasons, the book comes across as a touchy-feely, 'life is so hard' tract that annoys rather than inspires new thinking. In other words, the author seems to be very troubled that there is no immediately obvious purpose to our existence, and describes the resulting thinking as trauma rather than simply 'life' which we all wonder about.
Two stars instead of one because I did learn a bit I didn't know about this Buddha character, and those sections were very accessible.
August 7, 2015
Meh. Not sure why I read this in the first place. It's 'Buddhism 101' with a few little soap bubbles added. I'm sorry, but to assume everyday life (in the minds of most of its readers) to be traumatic is a contradiction in terms, and diminishes the genuine suffering of people with actual PTSD. In other words, this book may only be suitable for people who love Woody Allen and have never visited a third-world country or had anything really bad happen to them. This is not to say there are no insights (particularly related to disassociation and integration). There are indeed, and tenderness, and some good suggestions. But it only touches the surface, 'everyday' aspects of life. Guess maybe I should have caught the clue in the title...
November 10, 2013
I assumed this book would be an expansion on this wonderful essay Epstein wrote for the NYT: http://ow.ly/qFOEJ
Instead it should be called "Buddha and Winnicott", because that is the content. The Buddhist parts sound like a Focus on the Family preacher trying to squeeze as much extrapolation out of a passage as possible to the point where it is no longer credible. The psychoanalytic parts are so outdated. I really was hoping he would talk about traumas we consciously experience in life, but it's mostly a focus on infant-mother issues before consciousness develops. And, yes, it's mother only, and biological as well. Apparently the Buddha was so traumatized by his mother's death in the first week of his life, despite the fact that his equally doting and loving aunt took over, that it was the crux of his existential crisis. So Winnicott is given A LOT of space, but without updating to what we now know about infants, i.e. that loving cargivers, be they fathers, grandparents, or others are important. The mother is not the be-all, end-all person with the weight of child success on her shoulders in modern psychology, neuroscience, pediatrics, whatever.
I know that Sonali Deraniyagala, author of Wave, who lost her entire family in the 2004 tsunami, credits his help as her personal therapist in helping her face the pain. His clinical approach must be much more up to date if he can tackle that level of crisis. I wish he would have focused more on that type of trauma-the concrete losses almost everyone experiences throughout our lives-seems much more practical and necessary than the nebulous "trauma" of existence.
Instead it should be called "Buddha and Winnicott", because that is the content. The Buddhist parts sound like a Focus on the Family preacher trying to squeeze as much extrapolation out of a passage as possible to the point where it is no longer credible. The psychoanalytic parts are so outdated. I really was hoping he would talk about traumas we consciously experience in life, but it's mostly a focus on infant-mother issues before consciousness develops. And, yes, it's mother only, and biological as well. Apparently the Buddha was so traumatized by his mother's death in the first week of his life, despite the fact that his equally doting and loving aunt took over, that it was the crux of his existential crisis. So Winnicott is given A LOT of space, but without updating to what we now know about infants, i.e. that loving cargivers, be they fathers, grandparents, or others are important. The mother is not the be-all, end-all person with the weight of child success on her shoulders in modern psychology, neuroscience, pediatrics, whatever.
I know that Sonali Deraniyagala, author of Wave, who lost her entire family in the 2004 tsunami, credits his help as her personal therapist in helping her face the pain. His clinical approach must be much more up to date if he can tackle that level of crisis. I wish he would have focused more on that type of trauma-the concrete losses almost everyone experiences throughout our lives-seems much more practical and necessary than the nebulous "trauma" of existence.
February 17, 2014
This is a book to be savored--read and reread. Taking off from the event of the Buddha's mother's early death, Mark Epstein expounds on the wisdom of going through the pain of loss instead of defending against it. He gives many examples, both from his own and others' experiences, showing how facing one's pain opens one up to a fuller and richer life experience. His instruction during a retreat he led to allow participants' cell phones to be on, so they might deal with the feelings that arose and illustrative of his belief that "emotional life could be part of the meditative experience," yielded surprising results.
December 14, 2015
This book was mistitled. It should have been called The Dukkha of Everyday Life: Buddhist Myth and Psychoanalysis. I picked it up expecting to learn something about trauma, but all I learned about it is that Epstein's idea of it is very trivial. I won't deny that everyday life is full of suffering and things that "don't fit" or are "hard to face"(explanations Epstein offers for what dukkha means), but trauma is that which causes injury, and we are not injured every day.
This book is also very orthodox in quite a few ways, and religious orthodoxy just bugs me. With one exception so grotesquely misogynist he can't avoid addressing that misogyny, Epstein takes Buddhist myth at face value. Rather than interrogate these myths as metaphor, he applies them as metaphors in very clumsy ways. The major instance of heterodoxy is that Epstein treats the death of the Buddha's mother seven days after he was born as the most important trauma in the Buddha's life. That's a deviation from Buddhist orthodox, but pretty orthodox in Freudian psychiatry, where everything is viewed through the lens of an infant's relationship with its mother.
I will acknowledge that even with those flaws, it's not really a bad book--it's not stupid, just mistitled and blind to the limits of its orthodoxy. At another time, I might have been looking for it and reasonbly pleased had I found, since it does have a nice discussion of the fire sermon and some useful insights into dukkha. But I wasn't looking for it now. I was looking for a book with insight into trauma, and this isn't it.
This book is also very orthodox in quite a few ways, and religious orthodoxy just bugs me. With one exception so grotesquely misogynist he can't avoid addressing that misogyny, Epstein takes Buddhist myth at face value. Rather than interrogate these myths as metaphor, he applies them as metaphors in very clumsy ways. The major instance of heterodoxy is that Epstein treats the death of the Buddha's mother seven days after he was born as the most important trauma in the Buddha's life. That's a deviation from Buddhist orthodox, but pretty orthodox in Freudian psychiatry, where everything is viewed through the lens of an infant's relationship with its mother.
I will acknowledge that even with those flaws, it's not really a bad book--it's not stupid, just mistitled and blind to the limits of its orthodoxy. At another time, I might have been looking for it and reasonbly pleased had I found, since it does have a nice discussion of the fire sermon and some useful insights into dukkha. But I wasn't looking for it now. I was looking for a book with insight into trauma, and this isn't it.
July 12, 2014
My sense of this book is that it's one man's attempt to understand Buddhism and integrate it with his very Western Psychodynamic world view. It was intersting from that standpoint, but didn't resonate with me and didn't feel helpful to my relationship with Buddhism. There were a couple of positive things I took away from the work, but I also found quite a bit to criticize.
The positive bits were that Epstein discusses how Samsara can be better translated as "hard to face" rather than as suffering. This makes so much more sense to me. When we say that everything is samsara, and that good events are samsara because we are fearful that they will end, that doesn't seem like suffering per se to me. But hard to face... that I can buy.
It is interesting that Epstein focuses so much on early trauma. Trauma so early that there is no conscious memory of it. He says explicitly that this allows people to separate from the shame or distress of experiencing that emotion and examine it more objectively, more mindfully. It strikes me that whether or not he is right, this ability to rid oneself of the secondary emotions related to distress is a useful narrative.
My first criticsm is really about how Epstein defines trauma. For him it is all encompassing. Any difficult experience in our lives, particularly unprocessed experience is labeled as a trauma. this is very different from mainstream psychology's definition of trauma (which I happen to agree with). For mainstream psychology, trauma has to be something that directly or indirectly threatens a persons life or sense of physical integrity. The reason for this is that researchers have found that the brain processes information very differently to the point that it does not get processed, when someone is in sufficient stress that they fear their life or physical wellbeing is threatened. That is trauma. Having your dog run away is not trauam.
My second criticism is that Epstein chooses to make the Buddha's psychological journey into something that is about the Buddha's mother. How cliched is that for a psychodynamic psychotherapist. Additionally, Epstein attempts to use psychodynamic ideas to interpret stories about the Buddha. The even deeper problem with this is that the Buddha was not writing down these stories and in most cases they were written down many years after the death of the Buddha so that rather than analyzing the Buddha, Epstein is analyzing the culture through which the Buddhist stories have been filtered. Not a valid (if psychodynamic ideas at valid at all) object for analysis.
The positive bits were that Epstein discusses how Samsara can be better translated as "hard to face" rather than as suffering. This makes so much more sense to me. When we say that everything is samsara, and that good events are samsara because we are fearful that they will end, that doesn't seem like suffering per se to me. But hard to face... that I can buy.
It is interesting that Epstein focuses so much on early trauma. Trauma so early that there is no conscious memory of it. He says explicitly that this allows people to separate from the shame or distress of experiencing that emotion and examine it more objectively, more mindfully. It strikes me that whether or not he is right, this ability to rid oneself of the secondary emotions related to distress is a useful narrative.
My first criticsm is really about how Epstein defines trauma. For him it is all encompassing. Any difficult experience in our lives, particularly unprocessed experience is labeled as a trauma. this is very different from mainstream psychology's definition of trauma (which I happen to agree with). For mainstream psychology, trauma has to be something that directly or indirectly threatens a persons life or sense of physical integrity. The reason for this is that researchers have found that the brain processes information very differently to the point that it does not get processed, when someone is in sufficient stress that they fear their life or physical wellbeing is threatened. That is trauma. Having your dog run away is not trauam.
My second criticism is that Epstein chooses to make the Buddha's psychological journey into something that is about the Buddha's mother. How cliched is that for a psychodynamic psychotherapist. Additionally, Epstein attempts to use psychodynamic ideas to interpret stories about the Buddha. The even deeper problem with this is that the Buddha was not writing down these stories and in most cases they were written down many years after the death of the Buddha so that rather than analyzing the Buddha, Epstein is analyzing the culture through which the Buddhist stories have been filtered. Not a valid (if psychodynamic ideas at valid at all) object for analysis.
January 31, 2014
I read this book on a recommendation. The Buddhism angle took me a bit by surprise and finally after reading a good way into it, I realized that wasn't just an element of the book, but rather the basis of it. I suppose I was conditioned to a Western approach by the title of the book and, well, how about that--judging a book by its cover. The content was a bit dense throughout. I'm capable of understanding it, and I did, but I think it could have been a bit more engaging and effective ready if it was more approachable, more relational. The parts that were grounded in real world and contemporary stories stood out. I picked up a few interesting points from the book and it served as a nice introduction to some new ideas and a different perspective.
June 4, 2017
Through exploration of stories of the Buddha, Epstein allows us to recognize, acknowledge, and accept the inherently traumatic nature of our everyday experience. With these stories of the Buddha's journey to enlightenment, he weaves in philosophy, psychoanalysis (e.g., Winnicott, Stolorow), developmental psychology, and brain science. The result is a lucid explication of the inherently intersubjective nature of existence and the value of implicit relational knowing. The latter has perhaps been referred in the Buddhist cannon as the golden wind. The golden wind seems to be emblematic of the necessity of bringing of attention, acknowledgment, and acceptance to our experience, across the positive and the negative, the painful, the pleasureful and the neutral, in order to discover self as well as other. The golden wind may be in psychoanalysis the essence of the healing relationship between therapist and client; in developmental psychology the good-enough mother-child relationship, and in meditation the open-awareness evoked in mindfulness meditation. As I read this book, I could not help but be drawn to see his argument as an excellent portrayal of recent calls to honor our "right brain" way of "being" and to quiet the "left brain" way of "doing, grasping and manipulating" as described by the neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist ("The Master and his Emissary"-another must read). Thank you Mark Epstein for this lovely book
May 10, 2014
Every once in a while, as a reader, you got walloped by a book you're reading on a whim. I've read one of Epstein's earlier books, and I can tell you he has gotten better and better. Don't let the title scare you off, it's really not as dire of a book as it sounds. It has such a nice thoughtful mix of psychotherapy and Buddhist philosophy.
I feel like I should add one side note on all the discussion of the Buddha's mother in this text: could it be that since the stories all say he was 'born from her side' that it had been an early form of caesarian birth, and that she died a week later simply from the surgery site becoming infected? As i read this part of the book, it seemed obvious to me and the discussion seemed tempest/teapot. But it was interesting to hear all the excuses the ancient philosophers came up with to explain it away. Funny that.
For me the bonus was I got blindsided by the same story he tells that blindsided him many years ago, and it was totally delayed reaction. When it hit, my first thought was ....oh!.. nice! i totally needed that, i had no idea that was what i needed, and it sucks but is great at the same time. I suspect this will be one to reread in the future.
I feel like I should add one side note on all the discussion of the Buddha's mother in this text: could it be that since the stories all say he was 'born from her side' that it had been an early form of caesarian birth, and that she died a week later simply from the surgery site becoming infected? As i read this part of the book, it seemed obvious to me and the discussion seemed tempest/teapot. But it was interesting to hear all the excuses the ancient philosophers came up with to explain it away. Funny that.
For me the bonus was I got blindsided by the same story he tells that blindsided him many years ago, and it was totally delayed reaction. When it hit, my first thought was ....oh!.. nice! i totally needed that, i had no idea that was what i needed, and it sucks but is great at the same time. I suspect this will be one to reread in the future.
January 3, 2016
Such a disappointing muddle. What was introduced as an exploration of the universal experience and aversion to illness, aging, and dying somehow got stuck in the quicksand of Winnicott’s theories about good enough mothering. Epstein is trying to work something out, very attached to reconciling Buddhism with western psychology, and published before he could resolve his intellectual struggle. Some good reminders about meditation creating a supportive container to deal with difficult feelings but otherwise too meandering, messy and obsessed with western ideas about infantile pre-conscious imprinting. Reminds me of the Buddhist warning to worry less about determining the whys of how you ended up pierced by arrows and to focus more on removing the actual arrows to relieve the suffering.
January 31, 2023
A fascinating read that helped me think of my own trauma, the Buddha’s, and those closest to me. Epstein has a wonderful knack for looking at things from a Buddhist perspective, while also being able to hold some of the more dogmatic aspects within Buddhism loosely. He wrestles with the Buddhist texts which is quite exhilarating to read. I loved this book!
May 19, 2015
I've had this book on my list to read ever since hearing it praised in 10 % Happier. I've recently been going through quite a personal ordeal, so it seemed a good time to step back into thinking about Buddhism in hopes it could give me insight into my own situation. I figured if it helped Dan Harris so much, it certainly couldn't hurt me.
The Trauma of Everyday Life is a wonderful step into the notion that combines psychiatry and Buddhism. Mark Epstein is a psychiatrist known for using Buddhist practices in treating his patients, and this book served as a good overview of how the two intertwine. Epstein gives examples of different "traumas" some of his patients experienced, and then references one of the Buddha's teachings that applied to that circumstance. There is quite a bit of retelling of stories from the Buddha's life and what they taught the people of his time, but Epstein always ties it back into our modern lives. The biggest focus is the concept of, "The only way out is through." It is only by allowing ourselves to experience our emotions, no matter how unpleasant, that we can overcome them.
This book is full of really wonderful quotes, several of which I wrote down to help me remember. I thought they would be worth sharing, so here goes:
"Enlightenment does not mean getting rid of anything. It means changing one's frame of reference so that all things become enlightening."
"When we stop distancing ourselves from the pain in the world, our own or others, we create the possibility of a new experience, one that often surprises because of how much joy, connection, or relief it yields. Destruction may continue, but humanity shines through."
"Awakening does not mean a change in difficulty, it means a change in how those difficulties are met."
I highly enjoyed this book. The more I delve into Buddhism, the more respect I have for the concepts it teaches. I am a much more confident person having learned just what I have in the past 6 months, and this book certainly helped me on that path. I would caution that this probably wouldn't be the best book for a complete newcomer to Buddhism - maybe read one of the other books I've read this year first - but this will absolutely help to show how practical a Buddhist frame of mind can be when it comes to our emotional lives. I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.
The Trauma of Everyday Life is a wonderful step into the notion that combines psychiatry and Buddhism. Mark Epstein is a psychiatrist known for using Buddhist practices in treating his patients, and this book served as a good overview of how the two intertwine. Epstein gives examples of different "traumas" some of his patients experienced, and then references one of the Buddha's teachings that applied to that circumstance. There is quite a bit of retelling of stories from the Buddha's life and what they taught the people of his time, but Epstein always ties it back into our modern lives. The biggest focus is the concept of, "The only way out is through." It is only by allowing ourselves to experience our emotions, no matter how unpleasant, that we can overcome them.
This book is full of really wonderful quotes, several of which I wrote down to help me remember. I thought they would be worth sharing, so here goes:
"Enlightenment does not mean getting rid of anything. It means changing one's frame of reference so that all things become enlightening."
"When we stop distancing ourselves from the pain in the world, our own or others, we create the possibility of a new experience, one that often surprises because of how much joy, connection, or relief it yields. Destruction may continue, but humanity shines through."
"Awakening does not mean a change in difficulty, it means a change in how those difficulties are met."
I highly enjoyed this book. The more I delve into Buddhism, the more respect I have for the concepts it teaches. I am a much more confident person having learned just what I have in the past 6 months, and this book certainly helped me on that path. I would caution that this probably wouldn't be the best book for a complete newcomer to Buddhism - maybe read one of the other books I've read this year first - but this will absolutely help to show how practical a Buddhist frame of mind can be when it comes to our emotional lives. I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.
September 28, 2014
Epstein makes some excellent points about the Buddha's teachings on suffering and enlightenment-- recommending acceptance and metabolism of the ups and downs of life rather than seeking peak meditative experiences. The book had two major foci: a psychoanalytic approach to understanding the Buddha's life and interweaving Winnicott and Eigen (and a few others) into Buddhist teaching. Epstein has explored object relations and Buddhism before--so there didn't seem to be a lot new there for me. (I've read all his other work.). I appreciated the psychoanalysis of the Buddha, and wished Epstein had explored his whole life more-- not just a few aspects. Most of the focus is on the consequences of losing his mother so early in life. Epstein has a calm, slow, meticulous way of making his points. I feel that his work is a bit too derivative for me--too many stories from the works of others-- especially Goldstein and Salzberg. I found the book a bit too basic on principles of Buddhism- but others might not. It's a good book to introduce a psychotherapist to Buddhist practice. It's not a bad book, I just wish it had more depth.
July 16, 2022
So this is the fourth book by Mark Epstein I read and while there is definitely some repetitiveness, I think that's pretty understandable. After all he can't assume the reader has read his other books.
The focus of this book is TRAUMA. The message is that "Life is inherently traumatic so don't be shocked when something tragic happens to you".
Like many things it's intellectually hard to deny but it's hard to truly accept!
Some things that stood out to me:
(1) "Everything is on fire"
I love this image. I just found out that this came from one of the Buddha's earliest sermons, aptly titled "The Fire Sermon":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ādittap...
I also just found this great summary: "The Buddha said that the world is like a house being consumed by flames, and that we are inside it. "
https://www.booksandculture.com/artic...
(2) "The Absolutism of Daily Life"
Most of us go from day to day assuming that everything will be OK. Our house won't burn down, people we love won't die, our company will not unexpectedly go bankrupt, etc. But these assumptions are completely unjustified! Bad stuff can happen at any time. We literally can't handle the truth. This is what Epstein calls "The Absolutism of Daily Life". He advocates stripping ourselves of these comforting illusions and really trying to accept that life can be random, cruel and unforgiving.
(3) "Life is Bliss"
This was one of the hardest teachings to accept. I interpreted this to mean that once we accept the true nature of things and that suffering is inevitable we will experience a blissful state of connection with the universe and boundless compassion for all living things. I definitely haven't gotten to this level so I can't say much about this.
Finally, as with his other books I really appreciate how Epstein tries to demystify meditation/Buddhism and bring it down to earth, especially emphasizing that meditating doesn't mean that you will magically become perpetually calm and happy. You will still get angry and annoyed, bad things will still happen, but your response might change.
The focus of this book is TRAUMA. The message is that "Life is inherently traumatic so don't be shocked when something tragic happens to you".
Like many things it's intellectually hard to deny but it's hard to truly accept!
Some things that stood out to me:
(1) "Everything is on fire"
I love this image. I just found out that this came from one of the Buddha's earliest sermons, aptly titled "The Fire Sermon":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ādittap...
I also just found this great summary: "The Buddha said that the world is like a house being consumed by flames, and that we are inside it. "
https://www.booksandculture.com/artic...
(2) "The Absolutism of Daily Life"
Most of us go from day to day assuming that everything will be OK. Our house won't burn down, people we love won't die, our company will not unexpectedly go bankrupt, etc. But these assumptions are completely unjustified! Bad stuff can happen at any time. We literally can't handle the truth. This is what Epstein calls "The Absolutism of Daily Life". He advocates stripping ourselves of these comforting illusions and really trying to accept that life can be random, cruel and unforgiving.
(3) "Life is Bliss"
This was one of the hardest teachings to accept. I interpreted this to mean that once we accept the true nature of things and that suffering is inevitable we will experience a blissful state of connection with the universe and boundless compassion for all living things. I definitely haven't gotten to this level so I can't say much about this.
Finally, as with his other books I really appreciate how Epstein tries to demystify meditation/Buddhism and bring it down to earth, especially emphasizing that meditating doesn't mean that you will magically become perpetually calm and happy. You will still get angry and annoyed, bad things will still happen, but your response might change.
August 10, 2022
I listened to this on audio and was very impressed by it. I'm glad I could rewind it because it was dense with a lot of wise insights. I was struck by the parallel he made between finding the holding space of the good enough mother within and finding the Buddha'a compassionate inner Self or Void. Great analogy of psychotherapy and Buddhist practice.
February 6, 2025
This may be someone’s cup of tea. Unfortunately, I drink coffee.
Some points I thoroughly resonated with, but overall just a simple man’s reasoning to turn to Buddhism and how he employs it in therapy. Meh.
Some points I thoroughly resonated with, but overall just a simple man’s reasoning to turn to Buddhism and how he employs it in therapy. Meh.
December 19, 2018
I did not expect to be so delighted by this book. Exploring trauma & healing through the life of Buddha. Will be reading more of Epstein's work.
February 2, 2023
There are many solid assessments of this book in Goodreads reviews already, so I will not re-invent the proverbial Buddhist prayer wheel here and leave at this - the book blends the author’s clinical experience as counselor with a discussion of key Buddhist concepts and weaves in elements of trauma from the Buddha’s own story, characters in that story, some of his patient’s and his own to present a take on inherent suffering as “trauma” that is endemic to life and thus part of each person’s challenge and describes the ways in which Buddhist principles and pract ices can be part of the adaption to that suffering. Many will accept this definition and many will not. It is a fine book but I would not recommend putting this at the top of a list of recommended Buddhist books.
August 3, 2021
A bit long-winded, but I have to forgive Mark for his repetition because he chose to lay out his trauma (whether toast or wiggle worm) for the reader in such a relatable and clear way. Mark narrated trauma and self-awareness through the story of the Buddha in a way that felt spiritual and realistic.
Not the easiest book to pick up and get into, but well worth the read if self-reflection is in your wheelhouse and a space you feel safe to explore.
Not the easiest book to pick up and get into, but well worth the read if self-reflection is in your wheelhouse and a space you feel safe to explore.
April 5, 2019
No kurwa! <3
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September 2, 2025Notes
Developmental trauma occurs when "emotional pain cannot find a relational home in which it can be held." (PG. 4)
To understand selflessness – the central and liberating concept I was reaching for when I reminded Monica of her oceanic nature – we have to first find the self it takes to be so real, the one that is pushing us around in life, the one that feels traumatized, entangled in a tangle. (PG. 15)
"Painful or frightening affect becomes traumatic when the atonement that the child needs to assist in its tolerance, containment, and integration is profoundly absent," writes Robert Stolorow, a philosopher, psychologist, and clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, and his book about trauma. "One consequence of developmental trauma, relationally conceived, is that affect states take on enduring, crushing meanings. From recurring experiences of melattunement, the child acquires the unconscious conviction that unmet developmental yearnings and reactive painful feeling states are manifestations of a loathsome defect or of an inherent inner madness." (PG. 24)
The observational posture that Buddhist psychology councils is sometimes called bare attention. Its nakedness refers to the absence of reactivity in its response, to its pure and unadorned relatedness… in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, this is sometimes evoked through the setting up of what is called a spy consciousness in the corner of the mind, watching or feeling everything that unfolds in the theater of the mind and body… It ask us to defer our usual reactions in the surface of something less egocentric; the instructions are not to cling to what is pleasant and not to reject what is unpleasant – to simply be with things as they are. (PG. 28)
The trauma within prompts us to search for a culprit, and we all too often attack ourselves or our loved ones in an attempt to eradicate the problem. This splitting of the self against itself or against its world only perpetuates suffering. (PG. 29)
While all things remain contingent, relative, and relational, our object-seeking instincts desire a security we assume is our birthright… We cling to a notion of permanence that, according to Buddha, never existed in the first place. We cling to a class that is already broken. (PG. 46)
"The worlds of traumatized persons are fundamentally incommensurable with those of others," Robert Stolorow writes. Trauma creates a "deep chasm in which an anguished sense of the arrangement and solitude it takes form." … They are suddenly dropped into an alternate reality that feels… "singular”. (PG. 55)
“Disassociation shows its signature not by disavowing aspects of mental contents per se, but through the patient's alienation from aspects of self that are inconsistent with his experience of ‘me’ at a given moment. It functions because conflict is unbearable to the mind, not because it is unpleasant." (PG. 74)
The ego takes charge, vanishes that which is threatening, and carries on in a limited, reduced, or constrained state. The self we ordinarily identify with, the ego, is the caretaker trying to maintain control. Other aspects of the self, including the unbearable feelings evoked by one's traumas, are relegated to the periphery, often outside conscious awareness. We think of this coping mechanism as a rational process – it certainly employ the machinery of rational thought – but therapists have come to agree with the Buddha that the over insistence on self-control is severely limiting and ultimately irrational because of the way it excludes feeling. (PG. 86)
No longer being exclusively identified with the egos need for structure and stability, no longer being driven by the "face" one puts on for the world (or for oneself), creates the possibility of releasing oneself from old habits that have become ingrained in the personality. (PG. 90)
As Eigen rights, "Most dreams are aborted. Aborted experience. Something happens to frustrate the dream. An arc of experience fall short, is broken off before completion. Perhaps the dream is attempting to portray something broken, interrupted, incomplete, fragmented. Perhaps the very experience of in completion and interruption is being dramatized and fed to us. As if the feeling of something being aborted is part of our insides… Broken dreams, expressing broken aspects of our beings. (PG. 93-94)
The search for what is sometimes called the "intrinsic identity habit" or the "intrinsic identity instinct," the way we unconsciously take ourselves to be "absolutely" real, as if we are really here, absolutely; fixed, enduring and all alone; intensely real and separate; and what is often called, in Buddhist psychology, "the cage of self-absolution." (PG. 95)
We disassociate from that which seems unbearable and reorient ourselves around something we can conceive of. As Barendregt described his patients’ predicament, "This ‘it’ situation is so unreal, so absurd, that they desperately try to recover their bearings and find them in fear, which is preferable to the void of ‘it.’ Since their fear is itself a very negative experience, coping mechanisms are developed to channel and rationalize it." (PG. 106-107)
"In the bad pattern which is at root of this patient's illness, the child cried and the mother did not appear. In other words the scream that she is looking for is the last scream just before hope was abandoned. Since then screaming has been of no use because it fails in its purpose." Winnicott (PG. 110)
"It's not what you are experiencing that's important," Joseph Goldstein would often say. "it's how you relate to it that matters." I always found this shocking – each time I heard it, I felt like I was hearing it for the first time. Splinters of pain did not have to be obstacles to awakening; they could become vehicles of it once the "conceit" that attaches to them as abandoned. (PG. 135)
The grubs are sinister, like maggots in the flesh of the ancient aesthetic, but also redemptive, like cicadas, which in Japan represent rebirth, crawling as they do from the ground every summer to fill the air with their distinctive background song. In this imagery, the Buddha's third dream aligns his awakening with therapists’ insights about aborted emotional experience. The dream suggests that agony, like the white grubs with blackheads, can be a vehicle of awakening and that the broken aspects of our being have within themselves the template for wholeness. Each person who came to the Buddha brought his own individual anguish along, and each such person, in harnessing his capacity for remembering, let that anguish crawl upward. (PG. 165)
In psychological terms, Mara represented the Buddha's ego, "that desperate longing for a self and a world that are comprehensible, manageable, and safe." As ego, Mara represented the endless attempt to shield oneself from the inevitable traumas of this world. One of his nicknames was the "drought demon" because of the way he tried to hold back the waters of change. (PG. 186)
As Stephen Batchelor has written, "When the stubborn, frozen solidity of necessary selves and things is dissolved in the perspective of empty emptiness, a contingent world opens up that is fluid and ambiguous, fascinating and terrifying. Not only does this world unfold before us with awesome subtlety, complexity, and majesty, one day it will swallow us up in its tumultuous wake along with everything we cherish… What is striking about the Buddhist approach is that rather than Payne and immortal or transcendent self that is immune to the vicissitude of the world, Buddha insisted that salvation lies in discarding such consoling fantasies and embracing instead the very stuff of life that will destroy you." (PG. 191-192)
This was the classic scenario for Winnicott, the one he described over and over again, in which something critical in the child is sacrificed in order to cope with a less than adequate emotional environment… The way out of trauma is by going through it. (PG. 211)
Developmental trauma occurs when "emotional pain cannot find a relational home in which it can be held." (PG. 4)
To understand selflessness – the central and liberating concept I was reaching for when I reminded Monica of her oceanic nature – we have to first find the self it takes to be so real, the one that is pushing us around in life, the one that feels traumatized, entangled in a tangle. (PG. 15)
"Painful or frightening affect becomes traumatic when the atonement that the child needs to assist in its tolerance, containment, and integration is profoundly absent," writes Robert Stolorow, a philosopher, psychologist, and clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, and his book about trauma. "One consequence of developmental trauma, relationally conceived, is that affect states take on enduring, crushing meanings. From recurring experiences of melattunement, the child acquires the unconscious conviction that unmet developmental yearnings and reactive painful feeling states are manifestations of a loathsome defect or of an inherent inner madness." (PG. 24)
The observational posture that Buddhist psychology councils is sometimes called bare attention. Its nakedness refers to the absence of reactivity in its response, to its pure and unadorned relatedness… in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, this is sometimes evoked through the setting up of what is called a spy consciousness in the corner of the mind, watching or feeling everything that unfolds in the theater of the mind and body… It ask us to defer our usual reactions in the surface of something less egocentric; the instructions are not to cling to what is pleasant and not to reject what is unpleasant – to simply be with things as they are. (PG. 28)
The trauma within prompts us to search for a culprit, and we all too often attack ourselves or our loved ones in an attempt to eradicate the problem. This splitting of the self against itself or against its world only perpetuates suffering. (PG. 29)
While all things remain contingent, relative, and relational, our object-seeking instincts desire a security we assume is our birthright… We cling to a notion of permanence that, according to Buddha, never existed in the first place. We cling to a class that is already broken. (PG. 46)
"The worlds of traumatized persons are fundamentally incommensurable with those of others," Robert Stolorow writes. Trauma creates a "deep chasm in which an anguished sense of the arrangement and solitude it takes form." … They are suddenly dropped into an alternate reality that feels… "singular”. (PG. 55)
“Disassociation shows its signature not by disavowing aspects of mental contents per se, but through the patient's alienation from aspects of self that are inconsistent with his experience of ‘me’ at a given moment. It functions because conflict is unbearable to the mind, not because it is unpleasant." (PG. 74)
The ego takes charge, vanishes that which is threatening, and carries on in a limited, reduced, or constrained state. The self we ordinarily identify with, the ego, is the caretaker trying to maintain control. Other aspects of the self, including the unbearable feelings evoked by one's traumas, are relegated to the periphery, often outside conscious awareness. We think of this coping mechanism as a rational process – it certainly employ the machinery of rational thought – but therapists have come to agree with the Buddha that the over insistence on self-control is severely limiting and ultimately irrational because of the way it excludes feeling. (PG. 86)
No longer being exclusively identified with the egos need for structure and stability, no longer being driven by the "face" one puts on for the world (or for oneself), creates the possibility of releasing oneself from old habits that have become ingrained in the personality. (PG. 90)
As Eigen rights, "Most dreams are aborted. Aborted experience. Something happens to frustrate the dream. An arc of experience fall short, is broken off before completion. Perhaps the dream is attempting to portray something broken, interrupted, incomplete, fragmented. Perhaps the very experience of in completion and interruption is being dramatized and fed to us. As if the feeling of something being aborted is part of our insides… Broken dreams, expressing broken aspects of our beings. (PG. 93-94)
The search for what is sometimes called the "intrinsic identity habit" or the "intrinsic identity instinct," the way we unconsciously take ourselves to be "absolutely" real, as if we are really here, absolutely; fixed, enduring and all alone; intensely real and separate; and what is often called, in Buddhist psychology, "the cage of self-absolution." (PG. 95)
We disassociate from that which seems unbearable and reorient ourselves around something we can conceive of. As Barendregt described his patients’ predicament, "This ‘it’ situation is so unreal, so absurd, that they desperately try to recover their bearings and find them in fear, which is preferable to the void of ‘it.’ Since their fear is itself a very negative experience, coping mechanisms are developed to channel and rationalize it." (PG. 106-107)
"In the bad pattern which is at root of this patient's illness, the child cried and the mother did not appear. In other words the scream that she is looking for is the last scream just before hope was abandoned. Since then screaming has been of no use because it fails in its purpose." Winnicott (PG. 110)
"It's not what you are experiencing that's important," Joseph Goldstein would often say. "it's how you relate to it that matters." I always found this shocking – each time I heard it, I felt like I was hearing it for the first time. Splinters of pain did not have to be obstacles to awakening; they could become vehicles of it once the "conceit" that attaches to them as abandoned. (PG. 135)
The grubs are sinister, like maggots in the flesh of the ancient aesthetic, but also redemptive, like cicadas, which in Japan represent rebirth, crawling as they do from the ground every summer to fill the air with their distinctive background song. In this imagery, the Buddha's third dream aligns his awakening with therapists’ insights about aborted emotional experience. The dream suggests that agony, like the white grubs with blackheads, can be a vehicle of awakening and that the broken aspects of our being have within themselves the template for wholeness. Each person who came to the Buddha brought his own individual anguish along, and each such person, in harnessing his capacity for remembering, let that anguish crawl upward. (PG. 165)
In psychological terms, Mara represented the Buddha's ego, "that desperate longing for a self and a world that are comprehensible, manageable, and safe." As ego, Mara represented the endless attempt to shield oneself from the inevitable traumas of this world. One of his nicknames was the "drought demon" because of the way he tried to hold back the waters of change. (PG. 186)
As Stephen Batchelor has written, "When the stubborn, frozen solidity of necessary selves and things is dissolved in the perspective of empty emptiness, a contingent world opens up that is fluid and ambiguous, fascinating and terrifying. Not only does this world unfold before us with awesome subtlety, complexity, and majesty, one day it will swallow us up in its tumultuous wake along with everything we cherish… What is striking about the Buddhist approach is that rather than Payne and immortal or transcendent self that is immune to the vicissitude of the world, Buddha insisted that salvation lies in discarding such consoling fantasies and embracing instead the very stuff of life that will destroy you." (PG. 191-192)
This was the classic scenario for Winnicott, the one he described over and over again, in which something critical in the child is sacrificed in order to cope with a less than adequate emotional environment… The way out of trauma is by going through it. (PG. 211)
April 19, 2015
Mark Epstein is one of my favorite writers. I struggle to integrate what I(think I) know about psychology and what I (think I) know about Buddhism, and he is just the right guide for that particular exploration. This work tucks into the Buddha's life, as written in the core texts, and applies some psychoanalytic theory to it. Compared to his previous books, this one is a bit more intellectual and slightly less accessible, self-help-ish, but he's clear and uses lots of compelling examples, often, disarmingly, of his own foibles and difficulties. I'm not sure we can really know what motivated Buddha, or Jesus, or any of the people about whom the mythology got written down years after they walked the earth, but it's great food for thought.
September 27, 2018
Incredibly miss leading book. This was an impulse buy at Chapters and I still regret to this day that I paid for price for it. That's $27 Canadian that I will never get back. The back cover and the beginning of the book are wholly misleading. The entire thing is on Buddhism. The author does not use Buddhism as a guide or as a principal but literally the entire book is on Buddhism. How deceptive. Save your money and time, please don't fall for what the book initially implies. It is all a lesson in Bhuddism with nothing new or novel to add to any discussion. NEXT!
August 23, 2016
Interesting use of Buddhist principles to deal with daily difficulties and past pain. A psychiatrist details his use of Buddhism to heal himself and help his patients heal. It was helpful to me personally and well written.
May 23, 2021
A good-enough intro to Buddhism and Buddhist psychology.
June 24, 2023
This book is so rich and well articulated through various stories woven with Buddhist principles. I find this book to be something I will savor and come back to often. The only way out is through.
February 13, 2020
In this one, Epstein dives deeper into Buddha's biography, along with a Winnecottian analysis. Overall he views the effective treatment of trauma goes through this realistic view by the Buddha:
“The burning, fleeting nature of reality is not pathological. It just is.”
Epstein goes into how trauma functions. He argues that the trauma within seeks a culprit. Someone to blame. Self, or close ones.
“When one is upset or anxious or frustrated or angry, one tries to find who is feeling these things. At the same time as one explores the feelings. Intrinsic identity habit. The way we unconsciously take ourself to be absolutely real. As if we are really here. Absolutely, fixed and all alone. Intensely real and separate.”
Epstein also addresses the expectations that the meditation practice may arise in one, falsely towards separating self from the whole.
“We bother things through some false idea that they are outside of us and cling to the idea of remaining quiet undisturbed. Learn to see that it is not things that bother us. But we go out to bother them. The world is a mirror. It is a reflection of mind.”
This reminds us that “Nirvana is not a separate place that we can get to when we eliminate what we don’t like about ourselves. But is already here. Hidden behind the likes and dislikes of every day.”
Epstein also quotes Dr. Hoffman, the father of LSD: “Outside is pure energy and colorless substance. All of the rest happens through the mechanism of our senses. Our eyes see just a fraction of all of the light in the world. It is a trick to make a colored world, which does not exist outside of human beings.”
My favorite part about this book is deep dive into the Buddha’s psyche by addressing the loss of his mom, a fact that, per Epstein’s account, is rather glossed over in the Buddhist tradition.
I quite enjoyed Epstein’s focus on the mother's role, based on D. W. Winnicott’s “good enough mother” who provides a safety zone for the newborn, then later disillusions the child.
Winnicot says: “The mother is both a separate self waiting to be found. And a potential space in which herself is suspended, making room for the baby to find her. And letting herself be that which the baby has the capacity to find. She puts herself into relief. The baby itself then has the illusory experience of discovering her. An inherently creative process. Confidence in the mother makes a playground. Magic emerges.”
Another reference is to Staloro: “Trauma exposes the unbearable embeddedness of being.” Trauma is disillusioning but not in the gentle way of a mother who’s already given her child the illusion of omnipotence. It reveals truth. But in a manner so abrupt that the mind jumps away.
Epstein advises taking on the role of an attentive parent, that understands and mirrors the feelings of a child who is discovering her feelings, and meets them with interest but not overzealously.
“If everything is burning. The compassionate gaze of a parent is a natural response to the flames that engulf us. There is sorrow in samsara, but also bliss.”
Fitting with Epstein's anecdote of Ajan Sha: “When I understand that the glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious.”
Via the analysis of Buddha’s lost mom, he leads to a requirement of finding the feminine, the good enough mother figure inside of us in order to accept a realistic view that trauma is part of every day life. In Winnicott's view "The male element does, while the female element is.”
Dalai Lama: “Transform your thoughts, but remain as you are.”
Finally one passage on grief that I will tonight share with a friend of mine who lost recently lost his dearest friend, his dog Pablo:
“There need be no end to grief. While it is never static, it is never a single or even a five-stage thing. There is no reason to believe it will disappear and no need to judge oneself if it does not. Grief turns over and over. It is vibrant, surprising and alive. Just as we are.”
“The burning, fleeting nature of reality is not pathological. It just is.”
Epstein goes into how trauma functions. He argues that the trauma within seeks a culprit. Someone to blame. Self, or close ones.
“When one is upset or anxious or frustrated or angry, one tries to find who is feeling these things. At the same time as one explores the feelings. Intrinsic identity habit. The way we unconsciously take ourself to be absolutely real. As if we are really here. Absolutely, fixed and all alone. Intensely real and separate.”
Epstein also addresses the expectations that the meditation practice may arise in one, falsely towards separating self from the whole.
“We bother things through some false idea that they are outside of us and cling to the idea of remaining quiet undisturbed. Learn to see that it is not things that bother us. But we go out to bother them. The world is a mirror. It is a reflection of mind.”
This reminds us that “Nirvana is not a separate place that we can get to when we eliminate what we don’t like about ourselves. But is already here. Hidden behind the likes and dislikes of every day.”
Epstein also quotes Dr. Hoffman, the father of LSD: “Outside is pure energy and colorless substance. All of the rest happens through the mechanism of our senses. Our eyes see just a fraction of all of the light in the world. It is a trick to make a colored world, which does not exist outside of human beings.”
My favorite part about this book is deep dive into the Buddha’s psyche by addressing the loss of his mom, a fact that, per Epstein’s account, is rather glossed over in the Buddhist tradition.
I quite enjoyed Epstein’s focus on the mother's role, based on D. W. Winnicott’s “good enough mother” who provides a safety zone for the newborn, then later disillusions the child.
Winnicot says: “The mother is both a separate self waiting to be found. And a potential space in which herself is suspended, making room for the baby to find her. And letting herself be that which the baby has the capacity to find. She puts herself into relief. The baby itself then has the illusory experience of discovering her. An inherently creative process. Confidence in the mother makes a playground. Magic emerges.”
Another reference is to Staloro: “Trauma exposes the unbearable embeddedness of being.” Trauma is disillusioning but not in the gentle way of a mother who’s already given her child the illusion of omnipotence. It reveals truth. But in a manner so abrupt that the mind jumps away.
Epstein advises taking on the role of an attentive parent, that understands and mirrors the feelings of a child who is discovering her feelings, and meets them with interest but not overzealously.
“If everything is burning. The compassionate gaze of a parent is a natural response to the flames that engulf us. There is sorrow in samsara, but also bliss.”
Fitting with Epstein's anecdote of Ajan Sha: “When I understand that the glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious.”
Via the analysis of Buddha’s lost mom, he leads to a requirement of finding the feminine, the good enough mother figure inside of us in order to accept a realistic view that trauma is part of every day life. In Winnicott's view "The male element does, while the female element is.”
Dalai Lama: “Transform your thoughts, but remain as you are.”
Finally one passage on grief that I will tonight share with a friend of mine who lost recently lost his dearest friend, his dog Pablo:
“There need be no end to grief. While it is never static, it is never a single or even a five-stage thing. There is no reason to believe it will disappear and no need to judge oneself if it does not. Grief turns over and over. It is vibrant, surprising and alive. Just as we are.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 22, 2020
2.5 stars This book started off really strongly, bringing to light this idea that the Buddha argued life is suffering because of these everyday traumas, particularly around death. We all have to face our own deaths and the possible deaths of loved ones and this puts us in a state of disassociation from the problem. This is what other buddhists refer to as hooks (Pema Chodron), distractions, addictions, etc. or in more lay terms - avoidance. But I appreciated the language of psychology in this discussion and I also appreciated how Epstein raised the challenges we have often to the level of trauma because neuropsychology has demonstrated that our bodies react to these everyday (ordinary) traumas as traumatic threats, setting off our fight, flight, freeze, fawn response. If our body treats them as traumas, even if we know they are not intellectually traumas, they need to be handled as traumas, which Epstein covers in this book. He does carefully point out how thinking of everyday traumas as traumas, instead of challenges, does not diminish the true traumas as defined by the DSM-V, but rather acknowledges a commonality between the two, including not only the fight, flight, freeze, fawn reaction, but also the dissociation or distancing from those emotions and experiences. To me, this made sense in terms of the ACE scores, which asks adults 10 questions about challenges in their childhood lives (like a parent being in prison, etc.) and not all of these meet the DSM-V diagnostic critera for an official trauma, yet these events have been highly correlated with poor outcomes later in life. As a trauma survivor, I was not put off by the use of the word trauma for events that don't meet the official DSM-V critera as my trauma does, and instead, I found it incredibly useful to see the connection between everyday traumas (hardships) and the consequences of my true traumas.
However, after Epstein lays this all out, he goes into much detail about the Buddhist cannon on the Buddha's life and how the Buddha was shaped by the trauma of losing his mother at the age of one week old. He talks about the importance of the mother child relationship to great extent and gets dangerously close to blaming mothers for children who faced great challenges in later life, though his coverage of this topic did not feel blaming to me. He also heavily covered the importance of breastfeeding, which could be challenging to read for mothers who were unable or did not want to breastfeed. But the biggest problem was the incredibly heavy focus on Buddhist cannon stories and scriptures which were often mystical and not easily connected to psychology, but in which he made a strong connection. Essentially, he used all of these stories to demonstrate that Buddhism provided an ideal psychology thousands of years before the west figured it out, and while I see his point about how Buddhism can support modern psychology, I disagree with what feels like an assertion that it was done intentionally or as a great insight no one else made for thousands of years. He seems to overlook the fact that the Buddhist cannon stories about the Buddha's life were developed over hundreds of years and thus many, many people contributed to a general Buddhist psychology.
I am incredibly grateful that I read the first 1/3 of this book as it is helped me think more broadly about overcoming trauma and facing day to day hardships as well as positively changed my meditation practice, but I found it very challenging to get through the last 2/3 of this book which felt entirely like a justification for Buddhist belief systems and not a book helping people understand how to use Buddhism to help them cope with everyday traumas.
However, after Epstein lays this all out, he goes into much detail about the Buddhist cannon on the Buddha's life and how the Buddha was shaped by the trauma of losing his mother at the age of one week old. He talks about the importance of the mother child relationship to great extent and gets dangerously close to blaming mothers for children who faced great challenges in later life, though his coverage of this topic did not feel blaming to me. He also heavily covered the importance of breastfeeding, which could be challenging to read for mothers who were unable or did not want to breastfeed. But the biggest problem was the incredibly heavy focus on Buddhist cannon stories and scriptures which were often mystical and not easily connected to psychology, but in which he made a strong connection. Essentially, he used all of these stories to demonstrate that Buddhism provided an ideal psychology thousands of years before the west figured it out, and while I see his point about how Buddhism can support modern psychology, I disagree with what feels like an assertion that it was done intentionally or as a great insight no one else made for thousands of years. He seems to overlook the fact that the Buddhist cannon stories about the Buddha's life were developed over hundreds of years and thus many, many people contributed to a general Buddhist psychology.
I am incredibly grateful that I read the first 1/3 of this book as it is helped me think more broadly about overcoming trauma and facing day to day hardships as well as positively changed my meditation practice, but I found it very challenging to get through the last 2/3 of this book which felt entirely like a justification for Buddhist belief systems and not a book helping people understand how to use Buddhism to help them cope with everyday traumas.
July 20, 2021
I didn’t find much to take issue with but I was not captured the same was I was by Going To Pieces or Advice Not Given. From what I can tell, Epstein’s books are mostly similar - a combination of lessons from psychotherapy and Buddhism. That is exactly what this book is so I suppose I got what I wanted from it. Yet, I don’t feel as inspired by it as the two books I mentioned. It’s possible that has more to do with me than the book but I suspect I won’t be the only reader with this take. As much as I love the bits and pieces from both perspectives Epstein offers, I also feel the need for a clearer structured. Advice Not Given followed the four noble truths and Going To Pieces follows the eightfold path. This book had a much looser structure and I can only guess that is the reason it didn’t land for me quite as well. I also found the frequent references to the same couple of psychotherapists a little worrisome. That’s a pretty easy way to fall victim to poor analysis. Putting too much emphasis on a single persons research and thoughts means if they fall into question then so does every point you made in reference to them. Why Buddhism is True had a similar problem, it relied on evolutionary psychology which upon further investigation is more of a pseudoscience than a science, bringing the entire book into question. I don’t know Epstein’s references have any reason for suspicion but the constant reference made me feel wary.
With that said, the book was still quite enjoyable and I’d recommend to anyone whose already read the two previously mention books by the same author. It scratches that buddhist itch some of us have and is very easy to read. I have the other two books four stars and found this one clearly a notch below them so I naturally had to go with three. Don’t let that dissuade you, however, if your considering picking this one up then I say go for it.
With that said, the book was still quite enjoyable and I’d recommend to anyone whose already read the two previously mention books by the same author. It scratches that buddhist itch some of us have and is very easy to read. I have the other two books four stars and found this one clearly a notch below them so I naturally had to go with three. Don’t let that dissuade you, however, if your considering picking this one up then I say go for it.
June 13, 2017
I came to this book after wandering around a local bookstore. I had gone on a long walk because I felt oppressed by a sense of sadness that I could't escape. The blurb on the back made it seem as though Mark Epstein might have some wisdom relevant to my situation, so I went home and downloaded the audio book.
Parts of this book are very good, and parts are very bad. The good parts are straightforward recapitulations of Buddhist teachings. Epstein seems to have grokked the Buddha's messages. He shares them in a way that is clear and useful for modern life.
The bad parts consist of Epstein's nosedive into discredited and vehemently anti-scientific forms of psychotherapy, including primal therapy and Freudian psychoanalysis. He tortures these philosophies to make them accord with Buddhist teachings. Case in point: he spills enormous quantities of ink suggesting that the historical Buddha's loss of his mother in infancy traumatized him in a way that he needed to spend many years of his life overcoming. This is despite the fact that Buddha was still attended by wet nurses in infancy and grew up in a loving two-parent home. Epstein expresses rhetorical puzzlement over the fact that this aspect of the Buddha's biography has been so neglected throughout history. Sadly, he does not use the occasion to observe the ridiculousness of his own claims.
I did get something out of this book, even though a lot of it had me rolling my eyes. Next time I'll probably skip the middleman and just read some Buddhist canon.
Parts of this book are very good, and parts are very bad. The good parts are straightforward recapitulations of Buddhist teachings. Epstein seems to have grokked the Buddha's messages. He shares them in a way that is clear and useful for modern life.
The bad parts consist of Epstein's nosedive into discredited and vehemently anti-scientific forms of psychotherapy, including primal therapy and Freudian psychoanalysis. He tortures these philosophies to make them accord with Buddhist teachings. Case in point: he spills enormous quantities of ink suggesting that the historical Buddha's loss of his mother in infancy traumatized him in a way that he needed to spend many years of his life overcoming. This is despite the fact that Buddha was still attended by wet nurses in infancy and grew up in a loving two-parent home. Epstein expresses rhetorical puzzlement over the fact that this aspect of the Buddha's biography has been so neglected throughout history. Sadly, he does not use the occasion to observe the ridiculousness of his own claims.
I did get something out of this book, even though a lot of it had me rolling my eyes. Next time I'll probably skip the middleman and just read some Buddhist canon.
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