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A Mind Without Craving
A Mind Without Craving is a deep dive into the principles and practices of early Buddhist meditation. It offers a collection of instruction and dialogue sessions transcribed from a ten-day meditation retreat led by Delson Armstrong. It is a practical guide to understand the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path for the attainment of awakening and the experience of Nibbāna (Nirvāna).A selection of discourses by the Buddha is presented with detailed commentary about its meaning and purpose. Each provides practical application for daily life and in meditation practice to support the progress of insight. Instruction in loving-kindness meditation is laid out with detailed methodology for all levels of meditative experience. A Mind Without Craving explores consciousness, karma, rebirth, and the liberated mind along with explanations about behavioral reprogramming, intention, and free will. It includes descriptions of Jhāna states (sublime realities) as a means to understand the true nature of reality.A Mind Without Craving is an ideal compendium for self-guided meditation. It offers explicit instruction of a course in tranquil wisdom insight meditation with detailed answers to a broad range of frequently asked questions. Supplemental links to online videos complement the text to further elucidate meaning. Taken together, the book and videos provide clarity and guidance for beginners and a master class to accelerate progress for experienced meditators.
- GenresMeditationSpirituality
424 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 10, 2021
56 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
About the author
Delson Armstrong
12 books8 followersDelson Armstrong was born in Bombay, India (he prefers to call his hometown by its anglicized name) on March 9th, 1990 and moved to the US in 1995.
At an early age, Delson was encouraged to read as many books as he could, which fuelled his imagination and sparked the desire to become a full time writer. He began writing short stories and enjoyed the class fiction writing assignments he was given, which helped him to develop his skills as a writer. It also made him really look into pursuing writing as a serious craft, and the first time he thought of doing that was in the sixth grade when he was around eleven. He began to outline The Falsifier and based many of the characters on his friends in school, but left it that for some time.
He went back to India to and attended Pathways World School for three years in Gurgaon and then moved to Bombay. There he pursued the idea for the book once again and continued writing, rewriting and finally finished in 2009. But that wasn't the end. He knew the story was not going to fit in one book and as he explored the history of the characters and the history of the Vampires in the novel, he realized it spanned a timeline of 150,000 years. That was a lot of stories to tell! And now, he's decided he wants to tell all of them, or at least the highlights, in an epic fourteen book saga.
He currently transits between New York and Bombay, spending equal amounts of time in both cities and embracing the best of both cultures as well as soaking in the inspirations he encounters daily.
He enjoys practicing yoga, meditation and philosophy, as well as classical music. His favorite composers include Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and Chopin and he plays the piano occasionally, wishing he could find more time to continue his practice. He's also a major film buff and watches movies all weekend long every week with his family and is currently working on some screenplays, one of which is already completed.
At an early age, Delson was encouraged to read as many books as he could, which fuelled his imagination and sparked the desire to become a full time writer. He began writing short stories and enjoyed the class fiction writing assignments he was given, which helped him to develop his skills as a writer. It also made him really look into pursuing writing as a serious craft, and the first time he thought of doing that was in the sixth grade when he was around eleven. He began to outline The Falsifier and based many of the characters on his friends in school, but left it that for some time.
He went back to India to and attended Pathways World School for three years in Gurgaon and then moved to Bombay. There he pursued the idea for the book once again and continued writing, rewriting and finally finished in 2009. But that wasn't the end. He knew the story was not going to fit in one book and as he explored the history of the characters and the history of the Vampires in the novel, he realized it spanned a timeline of 150,000 years. That was a lot of stories to tell! And now, he's decided he wants to tell all of them, or at least the highlights, in an epic fourteen book saga.
He currently transits between New York and Bombay, spending equal amounts of time in both cities and embracing the best of both cultures as well as soaking in the inspirations he encounters daily.
He enjoys practicing yoga, meditation and philosophy, as well as classical music. His favorite composers include Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and Chopin and he plays the piano occasionally, wishing he could find more time to continue his practice. He's also a major film buff and watches movies all weekend long every week with his family and is currently working on some screenplays, one of which is already completed.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 28, 2021
This book is a gem. It's structured in the form of a 7 day retreat, with each chapter dedicated to a specific day, with suttas and daily reflections included. However, you don't need to read it while being on retreat, I read it during daily life.
Delson does a great job of clearly explaining the most important concepts in Buddhism and meditation, making them easy to understand and put into practice. Well, everything except for the reincarnation/kamma stuff, and forgive me for a bit of a rant.
First and foremost, this is not the author's fault, he is genuinely trying to explain traditional reincarnation doctrine in detail, and he provides lots of examples and clarifications. For those people who accept this doctrine, those chapters will be very helpful. The problem is that it doesn't make much sense to me. Everything else in Buddhadharma is clear, practical and straight to the point. When it comes to past/future lives and reincarnation, everything gets really confusing and seems to blatantly contradict a teaching about annata (no self). In my view, it's an attempt to smuggle in some sort of a self where it doesn't belong (called a string of lives, or mind stream, or whatever). Of course, death is not the end - beings are born and die constantly in this interconnected reality. The problem occurs is if you are taking this body and mind to be a self, something special, separate and self-existing. Of course there are past lives, we wouldn't be here now if there were no past lives, but were any of them "mine" or "yours"? Were any of the dinosaurs living 65 million years ago "you"? What does it even mean to claim it was your past life? There is no self even now, just a stream of causes and conditions, and putting a "me", "I" or "mine" label on any of them, is missing the point.
Of course, there are future lives, and kamma does matter and will bear fruit in the future, but again, why is there such a certainty that all this kamma will be inherited by one being, which will be "your" future life? Why not many beings? Some parts of kamma take fruit in one being, some in another, everything is interconnected and all boundaries are illusory and impermanent. Otherwise, some form of an enduring self (or string of selves between lives) is being smuggled in, where it shouldn't be. I am also not saying that you can't see past lives while doing some practices, but again, those are not your past lives. Everything is interdependent and interconnected, and it's completely plausible that you can tap into other aggregations of consciousness, present or past. This is my overall concern with the way this doctrine is traditionally taught in religious Buddhism circles, and it makes me think that this is a later addition to the Buddha's teaching, a misinterpretation of the texts, or something he just pragmatically decided to use as part of his teaching not to repel people (because this belief was so prevalent at the time). Because everything else Buddha taught was clear (at least intellectually), non-contradictory and of great practical significance. Of course, I am also humble and mindful of the possibility that I just don't understand it. Fortunately, belief in reincarnation is not required to practice Dhamma effectively, and Delson also mentions that in the book.
Despite all that, I still highly recommend this book and give it 5 stars. The 6R practice was a game changer for me, I had been doing TMI practice for 6 years (developed by Culadasa) , and integrating Relax and Re-smile steps made a huge difference in my practice and propelled it forward. I also really like how down-to-earth Delson is, how clearly he teaches the Dhamma, and the level of detail he is willing to go into, while still keeping things easily digestible. I like that a huge emphasis was put on not taking things personally, to be self. This was repeated so often that I get an impression that it is the core message of this book. Which makes a lot of sense, because craving is dependent on an ignorant view of self. To have a Mind Without Craving, don't take anything that happens personally.
As a side note, I really liked that full suttas are included in the beginning of each chapter. This is a great idea!
P.S, before or after reading this book, I highly recommend watching an interview on Guru Viking podcast Ep. 120, called "Meditation Virtuoso", this is how I found out about Delson. It will be a great supplement to this book.
Delson does a great job of clearly explaining the most important concepts in Buddhism and meditation, making them easy to understand and put into practice. Well, everything except for the reincarnation/kamma stuff, and forgive me for a bit of a rant.
First and foremost, this is not the author's fault, he is genuinely trying to explain traditional reincarnation doctrine in detail, and he provides lots of examples and clarifications. For those people who accept this doctrine, those chapters will be very helpful. The problem is that it doesn't make much sense to me. Everything else in Buddhadharma is clear, practical and straight to the point. When it comes to past/future lives and reincarnation, everything gets really confusing and seems to blatantly contradict a teaching about annata (no self). In my view, it's an attempt to smuggle in some sort of a self where it doesn't belong (called a string of lives, or mind stream, or whatever). Of course, death is not the end - beings are born and die constantly in this interconnected reality. The problem occurs is if you are taking this body and mind to be a self, something special, separate and self-existing. Of course there are past lives, we wouldn't be here now if there were no past lives, but were any of them "mine" or "yours"? Were any of the dinosaurs living 65 million years ago "you"? What does it even mean to claim it was your past life? There is no self even now, just a stream of causes and conditions, and putting a "me", "I" or "mine" label on any of them, is missing the point.
Of course, there are future lives, and kamma does matter and will bear fruit in the future, but again, why is there such a certainty that all this kamma will be inherited by one being, which will be "your" future life? Why not many beings? Some parts of kamma take fruit in one being, some in another, everything is interconnected and all boundaries are illusory and impermanent. Otherwise, some form of an enduring self (or string of selves between lives) is being smuggled in, where it shouldn't be. I am also not saying that you can't see past lives while doing some practices, but again, those are not your past lives. Everything is interdependent and interconnected, and it's completely plausible that you can tap into other aggregations of consciousness, present or past. This is my overall concern with the way this doctrine is traditionally taught in religious Buddhism circles, and it makes me think that this is a later addition to the Buddha's teaching, a misinterpretation of the texts, or something he just pragmatically decided to use as part of his teaching not to repel people (because this belief was so prevalent at the time). Because everything else Buddha taught was clear (at least intellectually), non-contradictory and of great practical significance. Of course, I am also humble and mindful of the possibility that I just don't understand it. Fortunately, belief in reincarnation is not required to practice Dhamma effectively, and Delson also mentions that in the book.
Despite all that, I still highly recommend this book and give it 5 stars. The 6R practice was a game changer for me, I had been doing TMI practice for 6 years (developed by Culadasa) , and integrating Relax and Re-smile steps made a huge difference in my practice and propelled it forward. I also really like how down-to-earth Delson is, how clearly he teaches the Dhamma, and the level of detail he is willing to go into, while still keeping things easily digestible. I like that a huge emphasis was put on not taking things personally, to be self. This was repeated so often that I get an impression that it is the core message of this book. Which makes a lot of sense, because craving is dependent on an ignorant view of self. To have a Mind Without Craving, don't take anything that happens personally.
As a side note, I really liked that full suttas are included in the beginning of each chapter. This is a great idea!
P.S, before or after reading this book, I highly recommend watching an interview on Guru Viking podcast Ep. 120, called "Meditation Virtuoso", this is how I found out about Delson. It will be a great supplement to this book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review