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The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path
An imaginative approach to spiritual practice in difficult times, through the Buddhist teaching of the six paramitas or "perfections" — qualities that lead to kindness, wisdom, and an awakened life.
In frightening times, we wish the world could be otherwise. With a touch of imagination, it can be. Imagination helps us see what’s hidden, and it shape-shifts reality’s roiling twisting waves. In this inspiring reframe of a classic Buddhist teaching, Zen teacher Norman Fischer writes that the paramitas, or “six perfections” — generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and understanding — can help us reconfigure the world we live in.
Ranging from our everyday concerns about relationships, ethics, and consumption to our artistic inspirations and broadest human yearnings, Fischer depicts imaginative spiritual practice as a necessary resource for our troubled times.
In frightening times, we wish the world could be otherwise. With a touch of imagination, it can be. Imagination helps us see what’s hidden, and it shape-shifts reality’s roiling twisting waves. In this inspiring reframe of a classic Buddhist teaching, Zen teacher Norman Fischer writes that the paramitas, or “six perfections” — generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and understanding — can help us reconfigure the world we live in.
Ranging from our everyday concerns about relationships, ethics, and consumption to our artistic inspirations and broadest human yearnings, Fischer depicts imaginative spiritual practice as a necessary resource for our troubled times.
224 pages, Paperback
Published April 30, 2019
131 people are currently reading
1075 people want to read
About the author
Norman Fischer
71 books99 followersZoketsu Norman Fischer (born 1946) is an American poet, writer, and Soto Zen priest, teaching and practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. He is a Dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman, from whom he received Dharma transmission in 1988.
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September 1, 2019
It’s an odd title for a book on Buddhism, which is supposed to devote itself to the world as it is. When Fischer lectured on the book at the Chapel Hill Zen Center, someone asked him about that, and he said, among other things, that our imagination may show us that the world actually is otherwise, that we’re not seeing things as they are. Meditation helps us develop this imaginative faculty, which enables us to see the world more clearly.
Actually, somewhat to my surprise, it’s a book about the six paramitas, which everybody seems to be writing about these days, the six focuses of practice that take us to the other shore: generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and understanding. This is one of the many lists in Buddhism, a religion which seems obsessed with lists, perhaps because it began as an oral tradition, and learning lists was one way to pass it on.
I don’t often read books of moral exhortation, though I did read Fischer’s earlier book, Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on Lojong, his take on a collection of slogans that come out of Tibetan Buddhism. I’ve met people who find such things helpful, who—when describing a difficult personal encounter—mentioned how a particular Lojong slogan, for instance, helped them decide how to react.
I find that in difficult personal situations some list of slogans is the last thing that comes to my mind. I’m not great at remembering lists anyway: if somebody held a gun to my head right now and asked me to name the six paramitas, I’m not sure I could, as many times as I’ve heard them (to say nothing of the list of precepts, our guide for ethical conduct). That isn’t to say that such things have no effect on my life. I’ve spent hours studying and talking about them. But I think that, in moments of difficulty, it isn’t our rational mind that comes into play. It’s something deeper than that.
That’s why—at least this is my understanding—Zen Buddhism focuses so much on the practice of zazen, or sitting meditation, rather than a list of rules. What changes our conduct is not a rational explanation of what to do (I don’t think anyone would argue with the paramitas as a set of guidelines for your life, but who really needs an explanation of how to be generous, or patient?) but the long-term practice of sitting, in which, over time, all of our impulses come up, and we see them in the cold light of consciousness, knowing we’re not going to act on them (because we’ve taken a vow just to sit there. No matter how much you want to get up and have a beer, or go to the movies, you’ve pledged to just sit there). Our deepest impulses seem more physical than mental, or logical; when somebody cuts you off in traffic, you’ve flipped him the bird before your mind has calculated whether that’s a good idea or not (a fact which has gotten more than one driver in trouble). And when you find those impulses deep in your body, and prove to yourself that you don’t have to act on them, that can make a major change in your life. It doesn’t have to, but it can.
So for me, the final two paramitas are the most interesting and important, and I believe Fischer agrees. I would say, in fact, that the book really picks up in those final two chapters, and gets to the heart of all the paramitas. It is through meditation (the fifth paramita) that we find understanding (the sixth), and once we have some understanding we naturally start enacting the first four paramitas. As a friend once said to me, the precepts are the mind of the Buddha. Once you’ve seen that mind—which is in all of us—the precepts seem natural.
Fischer’s chapter on meditation is excellent; he’s studied not only in the Zen tradition, but others as well (Fischer himself was raised as a Jew, and leads a Jewish group in meditation; he also seems familiar with all the spiritual and mystical traditions), and he covers a lot of ground in that chapter. But it is when he gets to the zazen of Zen Master Dogen, the shikantaza, or “just sitting,” that is at the heart of Soto Zen, that he becomes most eloquent, also, at the same time, spells out the mystery at the heart of this practice and of all meditation.
“Dogen is giving us the ultimate meditation object—no object. Technically this is nondual meditation: beyond the duality of subject and object. Just presence, ‘just this.’ It can only be done ‘immediately,’ in no time, eternal time.
“By definition, this practice is impossible. There is literally nothing to it. Yet we can do it. Or rather, it can somehow occur, though we can’t do it. When the mind becomes quiet—ceases to search for concentration, insight, or anything other than being in time, and is willing to simply sit in the midst of the impossible ineffability of being alive—then this meditation is taking place. Body and mind drop away. No longer ours, we don’t worry about them. Like the sun rising in the morning, our original face, our Buddha face, dawns. We touch it intimately with our body, breath, awareness.”
It’s the “impossible ineffability of being alive” that people have trouble with. That’s why they run away from zazen, and seek a religion that offers concrete answers.
Yet it is in that state of sitting that understanding—the sixth paramita—arises. Fischer offers practices for each of the paramitas as he discusses them, but when he gets to the sixth, he admits there’s no way to practice it; it arises or doesn’t. It is like, I would say, the Christian concept of Grace. The sixth paramita is often translated as wisdom, but Fisher is wise to call it understanding, giving it a much more fluid, evanescent feel. Buddhism speaks of perfect wisdom, perfect understanding, and that exists theoretically, but you can’t get a handle on it. You can’t really say what it is. It was the evanescent nature of understanding that made the Buddha reluctant to teach in the first place. He could see it, but couldn’t say it. So what he taught was a way to get there.
Fischer is extremely eloquent in the chapter on understanding as well. Here his vocation as a poet must have helped; he was a poet before he practiced Buddhism, and has published a number of volumes of poetry through the years. This mind of meditation, the Big Mind that we find in sitting, is the place that poets and other writers have always written from. When I’ve tried to describe meditation to my writer friends, I say: it’s just like writing, except you don’t do the writing. It’s also the mind that ultimately leads to a better life; Fischer describes it beautifully.
“Based on the perfection of understanding, bodhisattvas don’t see practices or teachings, they don’t have goals or make effort—they are flexible, they have a sense of humor about themselves and their bodhisattva project. They understand that everything is ironic, provisional, and fluid, especially the way they see things, the way they think and speak. The perfection of understanding is the ultimate source of skillful means. The whole world is nothing but skillful means.
“It’s an easy shift from here to the overarching theme of our discussion—imagination. I hope it’s clear that all the words I have been emphasizing in this book are just labels I am clumsily trying to pin on something that defies all labels. Emptiness, understanding, perfection, imagination, irony, skillful means, love, compassion, awakening, bodhisattva—can we really be clear about the precise definitions of these various words? Aren’t they all just markers of our continually feeble attempt to explain something we desperately need to understand, but can’t quite understand, about our collective life on earth? Yet we need to keep trying to understand, with a great hope that our effort will somehow help.”
Indeed we do, and I believe the effort does help. I read the first four chapters of this book somewhat dutifully, but the last two were marvelous, and illuminated the other four. I don’t think you should skip the early chapters. But you’ll appreciate them more by the end.
www.davidguy.org
Actually, somewhat to my surprise, it’s a book about the six paramitas, which everybody seems to be writing about these days, the six focuses of practice that take us to the other shore: generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and understanding. This is one of the many lists in Buddhism, a religion which seems obsessed with lists, perhaps because it began as an oral tradition, and learning lists was one way to pass it on.
I don’t often read books of moral exhortation, though I did read Fischer’s earlier book, Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on Lojong, his take on a collection of slogans that come out of Tibetan Buddhism. I’ve met people who find such things helpful, who—when describing a difficult personal encounter—mentioned how a particular Lojong slogan, for instance, helped them decide how to react.
I find that in difficult personal situations some list of slogans is the last thing that comes to my mind. I’m not great at remembering lists anyway: if somebody held a gun to my head right now and asked me to name the six paramitas, I’m not sure I could, as many times as I’ve heard them (to say nothing of the list of precepts, our guide for ethical conduct). That isn’t to say that such things have no effect on my life. I’ve spent hours studying and talking about them. But I think that, in moments of difficulty, it isn’t our rational mind that comes into play. It’s something deeper than that.
That’s why—at least this is my understanding—Zen Buddhism focuses so much on the practice of zazen, or sitting meditation, rather than a list of rules. What changes our conduct is not a rational explanation of what to do (I don’t think anyone would argue with the paramitas as a set of guidelines for your life, but who really needs an explanation of how to be generous, or patient?) but the long-term practice of sitting, in which, over time, all of our impulses come up, and we see them in the cold light of consciousness, knowing we’re not going to act on them (because we’ve taken a vow just to sit there. No matter how much you want to get up and have a beer, or go to the movies, you’ve pledged to just sit there). Our deepest impulses seem more physical than mental, or logical; when somebody cuts you off in traffic, you’ve flipped him the bird before your mind has calculated whether that’s a good idea or not (a fact which has gotten more than one driver in trouble). And when you find those impulses deep in your body, and prove to yourself that you don’t have to act on them, that can make a major change in your life. It doesn’t have to, but it can.
So for me, the final two paramitas are the most interesting and important, and I believe Fischer agrees. I would say, in fact, that the book really picks up in those final two chapters, and gets to the heart of all the paramitas. It is through meditation (the fifth paramita) that we find understanding (the sixth), and once we have some understanding we naturally start enacting the first four paramitas. As a friend once said to me, the precepts are the mind of the Buddha. Once you’ve seen that mind—which is in all of us—the precepts seem natural.
Fischer’s chapter on meditation is excellent; he’s studied not only in the Zen tradition, but others as well (Fischer himself was raised as a Jew, and leads a Jewish group in meditation; he also seems familiar with all the spiritual and mystical traditions), and he covers a lot of ground in that chapter. But it is when he gets to the zazen of Zen Master Dogen, the shikantaza, or “just sitting,” that is at the heart of Soto Zen, that he becomes most eloquent, also, at the same time, spells out the mystery at the heart of this practice and of all meditation.
“Dogen is giving us the ultimate meditation object—no object. Technically this is nondual meditation: beyond the duality of subject and object. Just presence, ‘just this.’ It can only be done ‘immediately,’ in no time, eternal time.
“By definition, this practice is impossible. There is literally nothing to it. Yet we can do it. Or rather, it can somehow occur, though we can’t do it. When the mind becomes quiet—ceases to search for concentration, insight, or anything other than being in time, and is willing to simply sit in the midst of the impossible ineffability of being alive—then this meditation is taking place. Body and mind drop away. No longer ours, we don’t worry about them. Like the sun rising in the morning, our original face, our Buddha face, dawns. We touch it intimately with our body, breath, awareness.”
It’s the “impossible ineffability of being alive” that people have trouble with. That’s why they run away from zazen, and seek a religion that offers concrete answers.
Yet it is in that state of sitting that understanding—the sixth paramita—arises. Fischer offers practices for each of the paramitas as he discusses them, but when he gets to the sixth, he admits there’s no way to practice it; it arises or doesn’t. It is like, I would say, the Christian concept of Grace. The sixth paramita is often translated as wisdom, but Fisher is wise to call it understanding, giving it a much more fluid, evanescent feel. Buddhism speaks of perfect wisdom, perfect understanding, and that exists theoretically, but you can’t get a handle on it. You can’t really say what it is. It was the evanescent nature of understanding that made the Buddha reluctant to teach in the first place. He could see it, but couldn’t say it. So what he taught was a way to get there.
Fischer is extremely eloquent in the chapter on understanding as well. Here his vocation as a poet must have helped; he was a poet before he practiced Buddhism, and has published a number of volumes of poetry through the years. This mind of meditation, the Big Mind that we find in sitting, is the place that poets and other writers have always written from. When I’ve tried to describe meditation to my writer friends, I say: it’s just like writing, except you don’t do the writing. It’s also the mind that ultimately leads to a better life; Fischer describes it beautifully.
“Based on the perfection of understanding, bodhisattvas don’t see practices or teachings, they don’t have goals or make effort—they are flexible, they have a sense of humor about themselves and their bodhisattva project. They understand that everything is ironic, provisional, and fluid, especially the way they see things, the way they think and speak. The perfection of understanding is the ultimate source of skillful means. The whole world is nothing but skillful means.
“It’s an easy shift from here to the overarching theme of our discussion—imagination. I hope it’s clear that all the words I have been emphasizing in this book are just labels I am clumsily trying to pin on something that defies all labels. Emptiness, understanding, perfection, imagination, irony, skillful means, love, compassion, awakening, bodhisattva—can we really be clear about the precise definitions of these various words? Aren’t they all just markers of our continually feeble attempt to explain something we desperately need to understand, but can’t quite understand, about our collective life on earth? Yet we need to keep trying to understand, with a great hope that our effort will somehow help.”
Indeed we do, and I believe the effort does help. I read the first four chapters of this book somewhat dutifully, but the last two were marvelous, and illuminated the other four. I don’t think you should skip the early chapters. But you’ll appreciate them more by the end.
www.davidguy.org
May 7, 2021
will definitely teach this at some point
very understandable, accessible ... many witty metaphors ... many surprising statemetns, cute paradoxes to break certain unexamined presumptions of the western world, the peculiar western culture
very understandable, accessible ... many witty metaphors ... many surprising statemetns, cute paradoxes to break certain unexamined presumptions of the western world, the peculiar western culture
May 4, 2019
Norman Fischer is a Zen poet and teacher, translator, and former co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center and presently director of the Everyday Zen Foundation. He is also the author of many books of poetry and instructional texts, such as What Is Zen? Plain Talk for a Beginner’s Mind and Opening to Your: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms. From the latter title one can sense how open he is to different spiritual paths. This is crucial for his broad presentation in this present volume, The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path.
The premise of the book is that the imagination is core to one’s grasping the key concepts of generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joy, meditation, and finally, understanding—the main divisions of the book. While the text is kept highly readable and entertaining, it is also carefully researched and documented. With a shared goal of raising compassion, the author draws no sharp lines between religions.
Fischer is best at explaining these key concepts without making them too abstract, a skill gained perhaps through all of his years of teaching. His work with the imagination is stellar:
“The imagination doesn’t measure, devise, or instrumentalize. It doesn’t define and manipulate. Instead, its nature is to open, to mystify, to delight, shock, inspire. It extends without limit. It leaps from the known to the unknown, soaring beyond facts to visions and intensities. It lightens up the heavy circumscribed world we think we live in. It plays in the deep end, where heart and love hold sway.”
Fischer doesn’t end in thought but finds living examples in our shared lives. Though he does pack in lots of thought and might pace it a little slower, he continues to double back to relevance and insight, thus charting the way of a good bodhisattva. The reader can find his or her own best pace.
The author’s intention is for a shared and compassionate understanding. “I have no doubt this was the Buddha’s intention too, to help ensure there is less suffering and more happiness in the world.” One does not leave the world in this contemplation, but lives amid relationships. Who can deny such a holistic approach?
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book...
The premise of the book is that the imagination is core to one’s grasping the key concepts of generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joy, meditation, and finally, understanding—the main divisions of the book. While the text is kept highly readable and entertaining, it is also carefully researched and documented. With a shared goal of raising compassion, the author draws no sharp lines between religions.
Fischer is best at explaining these key concepts without making them too abstract, a skill gained perhaps through all of his years of teaching. His work with the imagination is stellar:
“The imagination doesn’t measure, devise, or instrumentalize. It doesn’t define and manipulate. Instead, its nature is to open, to mystify, to delight, shock, inspire. It extends without limit. It leaps from the known to the unknown, soaring beyond facts to visions and intensities. It lightens up the heavy circumscribed world we think we live in. It plays in the deep end, where heart and love hold sway.”
Fischer doesn’t end in thought but finds living examples in our shared lives. Though he does pack in lots of thought and might pace it a little slower, he continues to double back to relevance and insight, thus charting the way of a good bodhisattva. The reader can find his or her own best pace.
The author’s intention is for a shared and compassionate understanding. “I have no doubt this was the Buddha’s intention too, to help ensure there is less suffering and more happiness in the world.” One does not leave the world in this contemplation, but lives amid relationships. Who can deny such a holistic approach?
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book...
March 18, 2021
Full confession: I did not, nor will I finish this book. It is nothing like his book, Taking Our Places which I absolutely loved and would recommend in a heartbeat to anyone. I've been a student of (or aspiring )Buddhist for 13 years, voraciously reading various Buddhist authors. Pema Chodron is my favorite teacher. I feel like I'm no stranger, nor a beginner to Buddhism.
This book was dense and I found myself questioning so many of his statements in the first two chapters that I decided there were more books out there than I'd rather spend my time on.
This book was dense and I found myself questioning so many of his statements in the first two chapters that I decided there were more books out there than I'd rather spend my time on.
Read
March 28, 2020My favorite Norman Fischer book is still “Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of the Lojong.” It is full of down to earth teachings to which I continually return. This book - “The World Could Be Otherwise” - has some of that same down to earth style in the Meditation Practices and the Daily Life Practices at the end of the chapters. However, Fischer spends most of the time explaining and developing the Buddhist practice of the Six Perfections, which isn’t what I was really looking for at this time.
July 20, 2019
Norman Fischer is becoming my new favorite Buddhist writer. His "Training in Compassion" book, on lojong practice is great, and The World Could Be Otherwise, on Paramita practice, and how we have to use the imagination to extravagantly imagine a better world, and then move toward creating it, is excellent. I can't recommend it highly enough!
February 1, 2020
One of my favorite quotes from the book is:
"If you don't look for reward or reputation, or even think there is any such thing as self or other, if instead you do everything with a sense of inclusion, then you will never tire of your work and never tire of people."
"If you don't look for reward or reputation, or even think there is any such thing as self or other, if instead you do everything with a sense of inclusion, then you will never tire of your work and never tire of people."
March 23, 2023
From boring to inspiring!
Seriously, Norman Fischer gets off to a slow start and I found myself wondering where he was going with the things he was saying in the introduction and the first chapter. Perhaps I was a little primed for something different because of the title; I read the title as an indication that this was to be a book about "engaged Buddhism", or how to go about trying to make a concrete difference in the world, but the concept(s) explored actually point toward making the world a better place by making you a better person (from the Buddhist perspective, although I think it works from any perspective).
What was not clear to me is that this book is about the Six Perfections or Six Paramitas. As a new follower of the Buddha way, I have a lot to learn and as I continued the book I became quite interested in both the scholarly and practical aspects of the paramitas. Don't be put off if you are not a Buddhist, though, because Fischer stays away from formal language and terminology to present the ideas and concepts in language that should be clear to anyone. In fact, I think the term "paramita" is hardly used in the book.
The six perfections (as described in the book; they may be translated differently elsewhere) are generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and understanding. Each chapter takes these perfections in turn and describes how they are important and how they impact the world around us. Again, this is from a Buddhist perspective and sometimes this impact is much deeper than one realizes. There were a few times I had to sit back for a moment and turn a sentence or paragraph around in my head to comprehend or marvel at it.
Each chapter ends with meditation practices to encourage development of the particular perfection of that chapter as well as practices to engage in during the daily life. Far more practices than can be done in a short time! I actually took that excess of instruction to mean that I should use the things that seemed to work or resonate for me and let the others go (in fact, Fischer may have given such instruction in the book, although I don't remember for sure). I should mention that the final chapter, focused on the perfection of understanding, does not have any practices because this final perfection arises from the previous five (and vice-versa).
Norman Fischer is a priest in Soto Zen Buddhism, and that is clear to me (who also practices in that school), but he also brings in ideas and writings from other schools as well, particularly Tibetan Buddhism. There may be other influences from other schools, but I am not qualified to recognize them, and my point is that it *might* be narrowly focused toward the Soto Zen school, I don't think it is.
As of late, I have noticed this book on a few "recommended reading" lists, so I think I am not alone in my appreciation of this exploration of the Six Perfections. It was very informative and, as I said, quite inspiring to me.
Seriously, Norman Fischer gets off to a slow start and I found myself wondering where he was going with the things he was saying in the introduction and the first chapter. Perhaps I was a little primed for something different because of the title; I read the title as an indication that this was to be a book about "engaged Buddhism", or how to go about trying to make a concrete difference in the world, but the concept(s) explored actually point toward making the world a better place by making you a better person (from the Buddhist perspective, although I think it works from any perspective).
What was not clear to me is that this book is about the Six Perfections or Six Paramitas. As a new follower of the Buddha way, I have a lot to learn and as I continued the book I became quite interested in both the scholarly and practical aspects of the paramitas. Don't be put off if you are not a Buddhist, though, because Fischer stays away from formal language and terminology to present the ideas and concepts in language that should be clear to anyone. In fact, I think the term "paramita" is hardly used in the book.
The six perfections (as described in the book; they may be translated differently elsewhere) are generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and understanding. Each chapter takes these perfections in turn and describes how they are important and how they impact the world around us. Again, this is from a Buddhist perspective and sometimes this impact is much deeper than one realizes. There were a few times I had to sit back for a moment and turn a sentence or paragraph around in my head to comprehend or marvel at it.
Each chapter ends with meditation practices to encourage development of the particular perfection of that chapter as well as practices to engage in during the daily life. Far more practices than can be done in a short time! I actually took that excess of instruction to mean that I should use the things that seemed to work or resonate for me and let the others go (in fact, Fischer may have given such instruction in the book, although I don't remember for sure). I should mention that the final chapter, focused on the perfection of understanding, does not have any practices because this final perfection arises from the previous five (and vice-versa).
Norman Fischer is a priest in Soto Zen Buddhism, and that is clear to me (who also practices in that school), but he also brings in ideas and writings from other schools as well, particularly Tibetan Buddhism. There may be other influences from other schools, but I am not qualified to recognize them, and my point is that it *might* be narrowly focused toward the Soto Zen school, I don't think it is.
As of late, I have noticed this book on a few "recommended reading" lists, so I think I am not alone in my appreciation of this exploration of the Six Perfections. It was very informative and, as I said, quite inspiring to me.
July 10, 2022
Loved it. An excellent guide for those of us on the path. I picked it up on the recommendation as an explication of the 6 Perfections, but it's far more than that - or the 6 Perfections are far more than I had understood. As another reviewer said, the title seems contradictory since Buddhism is about accepting things as they are, not hoping for something else. But as I (finally) recognize the essential role of imagination and creativity to my own wellbeing, Fischer weaves that beautifully into the philosophy and practice that has grounded me for more than a decade. I read it slowly not because it's dense or unengaging, but because I wanted to absorb the teachings slowly.
It's been particularly helpful to me as an aspirational socially engaged Buddhist. The recognition of our oneness and interdependence must, for me, be the glowing heart of any volunteering I do. Just opening the book at random, I find this one of many highlights: "When 'I' feel responsible to 'help' 'them' ... I feel depressed, discouraged, stressed out because I can't take away their suffering. [...] Really understanding that there is no one to help, no one who needs help, and no helping takes the pressure off."
It's been particularly helpful to me as an aspirational socially engaged Buddhist. The recognition of our oneness and interdependence must, for me, be the glowing heart of any volunteering I do. Just opening the book at random, I find this one of many highlights: "When 'I' feel responsible to 'help' 'them' ... I feel depressed, discouraged, stressed out because I can't take away their suffering. [...] Really understanding that there is no one to help, no one who needs help, and no helping takes the pressure off."
Want to read
May 28, 20215/27/21 It was recommended to me by a Meditation instructor from 10% Happier in this email responding to a question about imaging a future during meditation:
I do think creativity and imagination have a role to play in the practice, more informally. Norman Fischer wrote a beautiful book about this a few years ago, The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path. The idea here is that imagination is important in addressing some of the systems and ways of being that cause suffering in our lives. However - and this is where language feels a bit tricky and inadequate - cultivating imagination is not quite the same as "imagining a future" which to me implies perhaps an attachment to things turning out a particular way. I think what Norman Fischer would say is that we need to balance between envisioning/embodying new ways of being in the world that create less suffering, with letting go of attachment to things turning out as we might like/prefer.
August 26, 2025
Good introduction to the path of Buddhism. It resonates a lot. It will resonate with everybody because it talks about suffering. But Buddhism has this 50% effectiveness in solving human suffering it in general.
Like yeah, I understand you understand that everything is suffering and that aversion/attachment/Ignorance are the causes for that suffering. Understanding this is 50% solving the problem of our existence.
The other 50% that holds itself as a mystery is “Why do we inherently suffer?” Buddhism has no answer. And that’s why there’s a breaking point for a lot of people that follow this path, one of them being me.
But yeah, read about Buddhism to ground that reality of our inherent suffering in your life so you can find 50% peace. Later on, delve into Christianity, for the rest of the 50%. Buddhism, I believe, has been a stepping stone for me, and so can it be for a lot others that are in aggressive currents of misery that render them incompetent to be happy in this materialistic world.
(I don’t even know how to rate this book😂)
Like yeah, I understand you understand that everything is suffering and that aversion/attachment/Ignorance are the causes for that suffering. Understanding this is 50% solving the problem of our existence.
The other 50% that holds itself as a mystery is “Why do we inherently suffer?” Buddhism has no answer. And that’s why there’s a breaking point for a lot of people that follow this path, one of them being me.
But yeah, read about Buddhism to ground that reality of our inherent suffering in your life so you can find 50% peace. Later on, delve into Christianity, for the rest of the 50%. Buddhism, I believe, has been a stepping stone for me, and so can it be for a lot others that are in aggressive currents of misery that render them incompetent to be happy in this materialistic world.
(I don’t even know how to rate this book😂)
January 4, 2020
I have been a long time fan of Norman Fischer. When I don't even know what questions I have but feel confused, I turn to his writing to help settle me and this book is now my favorite.
In this book, he explains the role of imagination and how it relates to growth on the spiritual path. I wouldn't typically call Zen a very imaginative practice but Fischer helps me to see it in a way I never imagined. (pun intended). It's the sign of a great teacher who can take a fundamental tenant and make you see it in an entirely different light.
I personally like his emphasis on using this as a form of inspiration as that's what this book gave me. Hope and inspiration can drive a person to make leaps where otherwise they would have faltered: this book serves as a much-needed springboard for practitioners navigating the path.
In this book, he explains the role of imagination and how it relates to growth on the spiritual path. I wouldn't typically call Zen a very imaginative practice but Fischer helps me to see it in a way I never imagined. (pun intended). It's the sign of a great teacher who can take a fundamental tenant and make you see it in an entirely different light.
I personally like his emphasis on using this as a form of inspiration as that's what this book gave me. Hope and inspiration can drive a person to make leaps where otherwise they would have faltered: this book serves as a much-needed springboard for practitioners navigating the path.
February 22, 2022
Despite the long time it took me to finish this book, I still recommend it. True to the book's title, the author asks how we can make the world anew through imaginative remaking, which leads (or may lead) to unfolding enlightenment. Again and again, Norman's writing climbs the peak and looks down, explaining what is seen from the Buddhist perspective in simple terms. At other times, the sheer impossibility of explaining the unexplainable becomes apparent as Norman relinquishes the hold words have on the world, suggesting that definitions begin to lose their power to describe. He then urges meditation. For Western readers (and by this I mean Christians, Muslims, and other non-Buddhists), the emphasis on meditation may seem a cop-out, but no less than, after reading scripture, to pray.
October 23, 2024
good nuggets but difficult to access
We used this book for a Unity Book Study. I liked a few chapters but you have to wade through lots of terms and quotes from Buddhist scholars. I wish the author had made more of his points without using archaic texts. I have read several Buddhist authors like Jack Kornfield, Pema Chodron, Thich Naht Hahn among others, and I was able to come away with more. I feel more confused about Buddhism now. I did like the practices at the end of each chapter.
We used this book for a Unity Book Study. I liked a few chapters but you have to wade through lots of terms and quotes from Buddhist scholars. I wish the author had made more of his points without using archaic texts. I have read several Buddhist authors like Jack Kornfield, Pema Chodron, Thich Naht Hahn among others, and I was able to come away with more. I feel more confused about Buddhism now. I did like the practices at the end of each chapter.
December 5, 2020
2020.12.02–2020.12.05
Contents
Fischer N (2019) (09:28) World Could Be Otherwise, The - Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path
1. Imagination
2. The Perfection of Generosity
• Practices
3. The Perfection of Ethical Conduct
• Practices
4. The Perfection of Patience
• Practices
5. The Perfection of Joyful Effort
• Practices
6. The Perfection of Meditation
• Practices
7. The Perfection of Understanding
• Practices
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the Author
Contents
Fischer N (2019) (09:28) World Could Be Otherwise, The - Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path
1. Imagination
2. The Perfection of Generosity
• Practices
3. The Perfection of Ethical Conduct
• Practices
4. The Perfection of Patience
• Practices
5. The Perfection of Joyful Effort
• Practices
6. The Perfection of Meditation
• Practices
7. The Perfection of Understanding
• Practices
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the Author
September 6, 2025
I’m not sure if I’m just in the right place to receive this right now, but my experience of reading the book was that the author has a remarkable knack for explaining complex concepts in light ways that really land. All while not taking himself too seriously (though he’s obviously well informed on the subject), which was refreshing. This book made me feel much more connected to the world around me and was a good reminder that inter-being is always a worthwhile pursuit.
July 20, 2021
Great, clearly-illustrated insights throughout, but there are books similar to this that I have been more struck by. It may have been its timing in my life. I will say, though, I did enjoy the focus on concrete practices, the inclusion of stories, and the fusion of imagination and compassionate action.
January 19, 2020
A great introduction to Zen Buddhism as it can be practiced in the modern Western world today. I enjoyed the blend of ideals to strive toward and practices to engage with, and will refer back to this book often!
April 20, 2020
Fischer is one of the most accessible writers on Zen Buddhism, which is a great match for his deep practice and teaching. He is always clear and warm-hearted, even when writing, as he does here, about fairly recondite subjects, such as the "Six Perfections" in Buddhist Practice.
June 19, 2020
A superb Buddhist book. Norman Fischer is excellent. Good for those who want to learn more about Zen, Mahayana, and how to live a good and more filfilled life. Good for audio and well narrated, but would be good to have a physical copy of this book to flick through.
January 30, 2021
I've been to listening to Norman's dharma talks every week for years as part of my practice. Some of this is a review but I could recommend these ideas more highly - you don't have to be Buddhist to benefit from these insights and good-humored urges toward contemplative practice.
June 6, 2019
Author just had to cram politics into it. Barf.
July 29, 2020
Wonderful writing on imagination and the Six Perfections.
May 20, 2021
Loved this book on the six paramitas -- his humility and willingness to look at himself, Dharma, and the world without flinching is inspiring.
July 7, 2021
Insightful, generous spirit. Loved it.
tried-but-didn-t-finish
March 9, 2022Am listening to it and not digging it. Perhaps it is a book better read. Finished the beginning first chapter.
August 29, 2022
I took this on a week long retreat and read a chapter a day. I love the idea of the Bodhisattva path as one of imagination. Such a wonderful book.
March 26, 2023
I rarely give 5 stars, but feel this book deserves it. Fischer writes clearly, succinctly, and powerfully. He understands that less words makes for greater impact. His main topic are the six Perfections (Paramitas) that Bodhissatvas are expected to practice: generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful energy, meditation, and understanding. Of these, understanding is the most important.
I'm not a Buddhist but I believe that the basic ideas of impermanence and that we are the cause of our own suffering are true. Cause and effect, or karma, is true. Existence means constant change. You don't have to be a Buddhist to appreciate the ideas and insights in The World Could Be Otherwise.
In my reviews, I like to include quotes that struck me from the book:
P. 6: All idealism and moral vision depend on imagination. So does love. To go beyond one's own material and practical needs to loving care for another is the greatest of all imaginative acts.
P. 28: To practice it [generosity] is to appreciate the natural abundance of being, the inherent generosity of time and space, and the ongoing unfolding of life.
Pp. 93-4: Loss, aging, and death are inevitable, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about them. The immense injustice of these basic facts of life strikes me as a perfectly compelling reason to be angry. Maybe all instances of anger are just stand-ins for our basic anger about the total loss we are all subject to and can't prevent.
p. 102: At the bottom of every important conflict is a sense of love being betrayed.
p. 107: quote from Tokme Zongpo's Thirty-seven Practices of a Bodhisattva: "For bodhisattvas who want to be rich in virtue a person who hurts you is a precious treasure. Cultivate patience for everyone, without irritation or resentment."
P. 131: Love is the most frightening thing of all. It takes courage to love because you have to throw yourself away for the beloved; you have to be willing to suffer. With joyful effort, bodhissatvas face this great risk, the develop this great courage.
P. 191: Generous in outlook, [bodhisattvas] have the capacity to forgive people because they understand the condition that gave rise to unwise conduct.
I'm not a Buddhist but I believe that the basic ideas of impermanence and that we are the cause of our own suffering are true. Cause and effect, or karma, is true. Existence means constant change. You don't have to be a Buddhist to appreciate the ideas and insights in The World Could Be Otherwise.
In my reviews, I like to include quotes that struck me from the book:
P. 6: All idealism and moral vision depend on imagination. So does love. To go beyond one's own material and practical needs to loving care for another is the greatest of all imaginative acts.
P. 28: To practice it [generosity] is to appreciate the natural abundance of being, the inherent generosity of time and space, and the ongoing unfolding of life.
Pp. 93-4: Loss, aging, and death are inevitable, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about them. The immense injustice of these basic facts of life strikes me as a perfectly compelling reason to be angry. Maybe all instances of anger are just stand-ins for our basic anger about the total loss we are all subject to and can't prevent.
p. 102: At the bottom of every important conflict is a sense of love being betrayed.
p. 107: quote from Tokme Zongpo's Thirty-seven Practices of a Bodhisattva: "For bodhisattvas who want to be rich in virtue a person who hurts you is a precious treasure. Cultivate patience for everyone, without irritation or resentment."
P. 131: Love is the most frightening thing of all. It takes courage to love because you have to throw yourself away for the beloved; you have to be willing to suffer. With joyful effort, bodhissatvas face this great risk, the develop this great courage.
P. 191: Generous in outlook, [bodhisattvas] have the capacity to forgive people because they understand the condition that gave rise to unwise conduct.
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April 6, 2023A deeply generous book, equal parts profound and practical.
September 8, 2023
Good book on the Buddhist's Six Perfections!
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