Bad Buddhist: Speed Bumps and Detours on the Path to Enlightenment

by Meshel Laurie

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been focused on accumulation. I’ve been accumulating money, objects, jobs, respect, friends, invitations and ticks on the list in my mind called “Things I Should Have Done by This Stage of My Life”.... I feel like I’ve done everything I was supposed to do, but while I have lots of stuff, I have no time, energy or peace ... This isn’t the way it was supposed to be.

Meshel Laurie is all too aware that she’s probably a very bad Buddhist, but every day she puts her energy into improving. She works in television and radio, creates podcasts, writes columns and books, and parents twins – so she also knows a thing or two about the mad juggle of modern life.

In this collection of new and previously published writing, Meshel explores everything from the meaning of friendship to the travails of online dating, from mammograms to mid-life crises. With candid humour, she reveals her horror of family holidays after becoming stranded in Bali and reflects on what it was like to meet his one and only Holiness, the Dalai Lama. This is Meshel at her funniest and most relatable.

240 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 3, 2018

About the author

Meshel Laurie is a comedian presently on air (Nova) in Melbourne. You'd have seen her on television on Can of Worms, Spicks and Specks and GNW; she was a regular on Rove and the Circle. She also writes for Mamamia and is highly active on Twitter, where she has over 50,000 followers.

Meshel has been a stand-up comedian since 1994, and appeared in fourteen Melbourne International Comedy Festivals, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival and a sell-out season of a one-woman-show at the Sydney Opera House. Meshel is a member of the Advisory Board of SISHA (South East Asia Investigations into Social and Humanitarian Activities), an ambassador of Karuna Hospice, an ambassador of Childsafe Australia and an ambassador of A Flying Start for Queensland Children, for the Queensland Department of Education and Training.

Reviews

[Lesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light-hearted collection of anecdotes. I would have given it four stars if the author hadn't used 'Dalai' to refer to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It's what the Chinese Government calls him to show its disrespect

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as great as her previous books, I felt it jumped a bit between stories and I kept losing focus.
Still love her, but this one wasn't as great!

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these stories resonated, a few have me thinking things over and reconsidering my perspective... I enjoy the practical ways Buddhism is used in her everyday life. As others have noted is a collection of prev published stories

[Mell Sappho · Rating 2 out of 5]

A compilation of previously published stories.

[Sally · Rating 2 out of 5]

A nice read but basically a collection of previously published material. Not as good as Buddhism for the Umbelievably Busy