Make Me One with Everything

by Surya Das

What did the Dalai Lama say to the pizza guy from Brooklyn? Make me one with everything! It's a familiar joke, muses Lama Surya Das, but it holds a profound truth: that in addition to inner peace, meditation is a path for all-inclusive connection. With Make Me One with Everything, he invites us to experience this expansive dimension of the dharma through the art of intermeditation. If you've ever felt at one with something--your beloved or your child, a wooded trail, a favorite song--then you've experienced intermeditation, teaches Surya Das. Based on Tibetan Buddhism's core insights into the deeply connected nature of who we are, intermeditation offers both new and experienced meditators a fresh new way to commune with every moment on and off the cushion in oneness with our partners, our family and friends, our enemies, those in need near or far, our higher Selves, and Nature itself.

Genres: Buddhism, Spirituality, Meditation, Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2015

About the author

Lama Surya Das is one of the foremost Western Buddhist meditation teachers and scholars, one of the main interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, and a leading spokesperson for the emerging American Buddhism. The Dalai Lama affectionately calls him “The Western Lama.”

His most recent book is Make Me One with Everything: Buddhist Meditations to Awaken from the Illusion of Separation. He is well known for his internationally bestselling Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World and the sequels in the “Awakening” trilogy, Awakening to the Sacred: Creating a Spiritual Life from Scratch and Awakening the Buddhist Heart: Integrating Love, Meaning and Connection into Every Part of Your Life. His other books include:

Buddha Standard Time: Awakening to the Infinite Possibilities of Now
The Mind Is Mightier Than the Sword: Enlightening the Mind, Opening the Heart
Natural Radiance: Awakening to Your Great Perfection
Buddha Is as Buddha Does: The Ten Transformative Practices of Enlightened Living
The Big Questions: How to Find Your Own Answers to Life’s Essential Mysteries
Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be
Awakening the Buddhist Heart: Integrating Love, Meaning,
Natural Great Perfection: Dzogchen Teachings and Vajra Songs, with Nyoshul Khenpo
The Snow Lion’s Turquoise Mane: Wisdom Tales from Tibet

Lama Surya Das has spent over forty years studying Zen, Vipassana, yoga, and Tibetan Buddhism with the great masters of Asia, including the Dalai Lama’s own teachers. He is an authorized lama and lineage holder in the Nyingmapa School of Tibetan Buddhism, and a personal disciple of the leading grand lamas of that tradition. He is the founder of the Dzogchen Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts and its branch centers around the United States. Surya has brought many Tibetan lamas to this country to teach and start centers and retreats over the years. As founder of the Western Buddhist Teachers Network with the Dalai Lama, he regularly helps organize its international Buddhist Teachers Conferences. He is also active in interfaith dialogue and charitable projects in the Third World, and has recently turned his efforts towards youth and contemplative education initiatives, what he calls “True higher education and wisdom for life training.”

As a sought after speaker, Lama Surya Das teaches and lectures around the world, conducting meditation retreats and workshops. He is also a published poet, translator, and chant master. His blog, “Ask the Lama,” can be found at www.askthelama.com and his lecture and retreat schedule are listed on his website www.surya.org. Follow him on Facebook--Lama Surya Das--and Twitter--@LamaSuryaDas.

Reviews

[Jron · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my opinion, mindfulness practice isn't that meaningful or honorable unless you know how to use it to benefit others. This book teaches exactly that: how to use mindfulness to connect with and help other beings. For a while now I've felt dissatisfied with my mindfulness practice: I know how to focus on my breath to make myself feel calm and happy, but what's the point if I don't know how to share this happiness and calm with others? If you want to learn how to share the benefits of your mindfulness practice with others, then this book is a great place to start. For example, one can practice Tonglen by "breathing in" whatever the current situation one is faced with, and "breathing out" love, compassion, and good energy to whatever the situation is (e.g. conflict, work at the office, traveling on the bus or in traffic, in social situations with others, etc). By breathing the situation in you let go of resistance, aversion, or the desire to run away or ignore. Then you breathe out warm compassionate attention and good energy towards the situation, choosing to act in whatever way you feel would be most beneficial to the situation. Cheers.

[Rui Torres · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a pearl among today's spiritual books. There is Truth and ancient knowledge that you can practice anywhere, written by an American lama and mystic poet that is in his spiritual journey since his youth in a buddhist tradition. It reveals and left me with a sense that everything in your way, good or bad, is an opportunity for awakening and that there is a space of connecting with other beings who are going through the same rough seas or the calmest waves, whatever happens "it's all grist for our spiritual mill". This book shows you how to cultivate wisdom and love through practices that reveal the veil of illusion and separateness between all living beings.

[Stephen Porter · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always Lama Surya Das manages to enlighten and entertain at the same time. The Lama takes us from the traditional idea of monks meditating in caves, or students tied into pretzels, chanting mantras they don't understand while their bodies scream to them to stop.
Instead he introduces the beauty of co-meditation. Realizing we are one with everyone and everything and connecting with all of it in the here and now. Being completely present in the moment and sharing with whoever we are with is the way to take meditation away from just being a personal pleasure, and using it to solidify our kinship with the universe and all in it.
Told in his inimitable style combining humour and life lessons, i would recommend this book to anyone who knows there is more to life than we can ever imagine.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Everyone is responsible for creating their own karma and experience. Their happiness and suffering doesn't depend on me. My happiness and suffering doesn't depend on them. I accept them as they are, and bless and release them from all expectations."

"The less full of myself I am, the more room there is for another, for others."

There's a lot of wisdom in here but unfortunately it's buried in 300 pages of personal anecdotes and musings.

[Bd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lama Surya Das has produced an amazing book with Make Me One With Everything; by far one of my favorites. His words are full of wisdom and compassion. Lama Surya introduces deep teachings from ancient Tibetan Buddhism in a style that is very accessible to practitioners of all levels. A much needed read for our times. Highly recommended!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has so much good information on every page. It took me some time to read this because I had to stop and meditate on everything that was presented. I definitely plan to re and reread many times.

[Jim Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

A different look at meditation from Lama Surya Das who teaches in the Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Each chapter explains a different meditation practice with an emphasis on co-meditation. Many wonderful meditation suggestions are presented.

[Gerry]

What did the Dalai Lama say to the hot dog vendor?