A View From A Lake: Buddha, Mind and Future

by Neil Hayes

A View From A Lake: Buddha, Mind and Future explains how to train our minds to attain lasting contentment. Drawing on the original and most powerful source of mind training – the word of the Buddha – Neil Hayes takes the reader on a journey from ancient India to contemporary Western psychology and the Internet age.

It may be unusual for a non-fiction book to have a villain, but this one does, and it is the thinking mind, or the voice in our heads. This troublesome guest’s ruses are exposed as being the source of our own unhappiness, and, if unmanaged, a threat to our mental health. Although Western education and science encourage a model of mind in which thinking is at the helm, we generally receive no education in how to manage such a powerful resource safely. A compelling and more beneficial alternative view of mind is offered, based on the natural awareness already present in our minds. The central point of the book is that there is a wager we must all make: for the small stake of some rewarding mental training, we can attain perpetual happiness. Indeed, we learn that to do otherwise makes no sense.

This thought-provoking new book gives a detailed practical guide to meditation using the techniques that the Buddha himself used, and explains his psychology clearly and in the context of what psychologists know about the mind today. The beauty of this mind training is that it delivers benefits immediately, so the reader need take nothing on trust. The book is suitable for the popular psychology market, and for more serious students of mind, meditation, and the Buddha’s teaching. A View From A Lake is both a valuable source of mind management techniques and a message of hope for our species.

408 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2015

About the author

Dr Neil Hayes has a doctorate in Psychology from the University of Oxford. He has meditated for many years and has learnt from monks in multiple Buddhist traditions. He is a double cancer survivor who has benefited from sufficient suffering to road test the mind training techniques he advocates.

Neil would love to hear from his readers via his website http://www.neilhayesauthor.co.uk, via Twitter @NeilHayesAuthor, via Facebook Facebook.com/neilhayesauthor, or via Goodreads.

Reviews

[Chris Comer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly recommend A View from a Lake. It is a fascinating analysis of some of the many teachings of the Buddha (with some of his many lists!) and their relevance to modern life. The book also delivers a wealth of practical help with the "How?" of meditation and also, compellingly, the "Why?".

An appreciation of the teachings of the Buddha is encouraged through the use of a few “mind-exercises”. Through these the author skilfully gives even the uninitiated (me included), the ability to see some of the Buddha’s psychology at work for yourself, indeed, inside yourself. It’s a fascinating read and thankfully (for me) one not needlessly distracted from by any religious dogma.

The voice of the thinking brain is shown to be an overactive, controlling and deceitful guest in our heads and one which distracts us from our supposed pursuit of happiness. Worse still, it is frequently the cause of much of our discontent and misery. Although terrifically powerful at thinking it just doesn’t know when to stop and resists doggedly attempts to quieten it.

So far so good. This presumably is what earned the book its classification as a “self-help” book. But A View from a Lake is much much more than that.

Quoting from a broad spectrum of recent research the author goes on to make a compelling case for the enduring relevance of the Buddha’s insights into the human mind. Citing the development of cognitive psychology, modern research into the idea of self, todays treatment of mental health problems, & an analysis of the evolution of language & thought. He shows how the “Eastern” ideas of two and a half millennia ago are gaining a foot-hold in contemporary “Western” models of mind. Finally it is all brought smack up to date with an assessment of how our use of technology may affect the future evolution of our species (or prevent it completely!).

A View from a Lake is engagingly written and charmingly frank. The author presents complex ideas in an enjoyable, sincere, and surprisingly humorous style. If you are at all inquisitive at all about the uniqueness of the human condition and the role of consciousness in it you will find much to satisfy you in this beautifully written book.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me this was around a 3.5. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more as an audio book. While the author ultimately came to some good points/conclusions, I found the bulk of the book extremely wordy. Sometimes I would skim ahead just to see what point he was trying to make. I think this approach would work well as a lecture series (in a retreat or university setting), but in book it was a lot to get through. There were also some very strange comparisons (chicken sexing in Japan?!) that could have been left out entirely. Once again, these antidotes would be amusing in lecture setting, but in a book I kept wondering why they were there.

[Cassandra]

I continue to have the vague sense that if only I could have been in the proper headspace, this might have been an interesting (although not enjoyable) look at Buddhism from an unusual angle. But the prose was painfully dry, and Hayes is so very didactic -- yes, of course he is trying to teach, but surely he realises that not all of his readers are coming to this from the same place he is? He assumes so much, many statements about how all people do this, or think that, or believe something else, and I am sufficiently oppositional that my reaction was to quit reading, since obviously he is not speaking to me.