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Unlimiting Mind: The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism
Both broad and deep, this eye-opening book is one of the best available overviews of the radical psychological teachings underlying the Buddhist approach to freedom and peace. Sophisticated without being daunting, brilliantly clear without becoming simplistic, Andrew Olendzki's writing is filled with rich phrases, remarkable images, and the fruits of decades of careful thought. Grounded in profound scholarship, psychological sophistication, and many years of teaching and personal practice, this much-anticipated collection of essays will appeal to anyone looking to gain a richer understanding of Buddhism's experiential tools for exploring the inner world. In Unlimiting Mind , Olendzki provokes fresh and familiar reflections on core Buddhist teachings.
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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269 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
September 5, 2011
Great exploration of Buddhist ontology and the psychology of meditation. Author unpacts core Buddhist teachings, like the three marks of existence, and various key Pali terms illuminating the Buddha's understanding of reality and mind. Suffering comes from the process of our concept-making mind freezing and fixing the flux of phenomena into graspable entities, images, or ideas, to which we become attached to and build into stories of the "world" and our "selves". This is delusion. I like his discussions of papanca - the tendency of mind to "spin-off" from the reality of this moment and lose itself in it's own reifications of the flux, judgments, narratives or phantasy - and paticca samuppada, the chain or process of arising and becoming that results in suffering (when we don't see this process for what it is, a process or arising and falling away).
February 12, 2015
Now after many years of practice when there has been a great deal of change and I can look back over the confused and tentative path I have followed it is clear to me that whatever transformation of this person that has taken place has been "the child of two parents;its mother the empirical observation of meditative experience, while its father is an inspired organizing intellect." Both have been for me indispensable. The inspiration of that intellect has been drawn from my many readings. It is they that have illuminated the way and pouted out the direction for me, they have provided solace in times of discouragement by pointing out that others have passed this way, they have defined for me the terms and concepts so antithetical to my western way of thought that they sometimes seem an absurdity when it is in fact the other way around. That illumination of the Buddha's thought by those from my own culture who have struggled through as I do have provided the grist for reflection on the realizations unfolding within and with that the knowledge that this is the path for me. Indeed that there is no other.
In that process there have probably been a half a dozen books that exploded into my mind and rearranged everything, bringing with them the clarity I seek so assiduously. Among that half dozen two or three have been absolutely remarkable. This one is at the head of that very small list. It offers a perspective on the fundamental principles of the Buddha's teachings illuminating for me all those things I thought I understood and all those things I thought I would never understand in a way that simply had the penny drop.
I am so very grateful for this man's work and for his clear intention to ease my path for he has done so beautifully.
In that process there have probably been a half a dozen books that exploded into my mind and rearranged everything, bringing with them the clarity I seek so assiduously. Among that half dozen two or three have been absolutely remarkable. This one is at the head of that very small list. It offers a perspective on the fundamental principles of the Buddha's teachings illuminating for me all those things I thought I understood and all those things I thought I would never understand in a way that simply had the penny drop.
I am so very grateful for this man's work and for his clear intention to ease my path for he has done so beautifully.
July 10, 2012
This is a generally wonderful book on the more psychological teachings of (mainly) early buddhism. His concluding section on the Abhidhamma understanding of "mindfulness" is itself a valuable contribution and much needed corrective to the white-washing of the concept as it grows ever more 'mainstream.' If you think "mindfulness" is simply paying non-reactive attention to experience, you are missing the heart of the concept!
His sections on "Self and Non-Self" and "Karma" are also solid as is the very strong"Constructing Reality." Sadly, the opening sections, "The BIgger Picture" and "Caring For The World" are the weakest and show the general weakness of much contemporary buddhism to take buddhism as completely sufficient and totalistic. There's a big problem in even implicitly denigrating the great western tradition of rationalism and the values of "the Enlightenment."
So, uneven, but mostly strong and solid, I can recommend this book to anyone interested in buddhist theory and practice.
His sections on "Self and Non-Self" and "Karma" are also solid as is the very strong"Constructing Reality." Sadly, the opening sections, "The BIgger Picture" and "Caring For The World" are the weakest and show the general weakness of much contemporary buddhism to take buddhism as completely sufficient and totalistic. There's a big problem in even implicitly denigrating the great western tradition of rationalism and the values of "the Enlightenment."
So, uneven, but mostly strong and solid, I can recommend this book to anyone interested in buddhist theory and practice.
November 29, 2016
If you want to get a bit familiarized with the Buddhist principles and understand a bit what mindfulness is all about, this is the book you should read. It is well-written and deep and it kept my mind active the whole time. It has a strange effect of not quenching your thirst for knowledge in this area, but rather of determining you to further explore the realm of this fascinating ancient doctrine.
April 16, 2011
One of the best books on Buddhism I've read.
Want to read
January 26, 2021recommendation: [An Organic Spirituality](https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/artic...)
> Fearless and honest introspection will soon reveal the core defects of the human condition; this is the noble truth of suffering. The mind and body are riddled with stumbling blocks, choke points, nodes of tension, knots of pain, and a veritable fountainhead of selfish, hurtful and deluded psychological stuff. The mind’s capacity for awareness, the “knowing” that arises and passes away, drop by drop in the stream of consciousness, is constantly hindered, fettered, intoxicated and polluted by such internal defilements. The enterprise of organic spirituality is to untangle these tangles, to untie these knots, to unbind the mind—moment by moment, breath by breath—from the imprisoning net of unwholesome and unhealthy manifestations. The reward for a life of careful inner cultivation is the liberation of the mind through wisdom—a remarkable transformation of the mind that awakens it to its full potential of awareness without obstruction or limitation.
> Fearless and honest introspection will soon reveal the core defects of the human condition; this is the noble truth of suffering. The mind and body are riddled with stumbling blocks, choke points, nodes of tension, knots of pain, and a veritable fountainhead of selfish, hurtful and deluded psychological stuff. The mind’s capacity for awareness, the “knowing” that arises and passes away, drop by drop in the stream of consciousness, is constantly hindered, fettered, intoxicated and polluted by such internal defilements. The enterprise of organic spirituality is to untangle these tangles, to untie these knots, to unbind the mind—moment by moment, breath by breath—from the imprisoning net of unwholesome and unhealthy manifestations. The reward for a life of careful inner cultivation is the liberation of the mind through wisdom—a remarkable transformation of the mind that awakens it to its full potential of awareness without obstruction or limitation.
October 26, 2018
Five out of five seems fitting for the educational benefits of reading this book.
A nice once-through, for the meditation practitioner and psychology enthusiast.
Quite heavy reading throughout but otherwise a most enjoyable read.
A nice once-through, for the meditation practitioner and psychology enthusiast.
Quite heavy reading throughout but otherwise a most enjoyable read.
September 16, 2024
I just read this book every now and then and still find pages where I lay down and think about for ages.
Every. Single. Time.
They should teach this stuff so we become a more conscious world and more happy in our lives.
Every. Single. Time.
They should teach this stuff so we become a more conscious world and more happy in our lives.
April 15, 2020
Một cuốn sách rất sâu sắc. Phải đọc từng bài từng đoạn thật chậm rãi, ngẫm nghĩ mới hiểu ý của tác giả. Cuốn này đúng là trải nghiệm triệt để, đi vào rất sâu sắc về tâm lý các lời giảng. Nếu người mới bắt đầu tìm hiểu thì đọc cuốn này sẽ rất khó hiểu. Sách tuy ngắn nhưng đọc rất mất thời gian.
November 23, 2017
Very clear. Nice short chapters.
March 10, 2018
A must read!
April 27, 2021
I will come back to this collection of essays again and again!
Read
August 2, 2011I believe there are more books on the psychology of Buddhism than for any other religion. This particular one is among the best that I've read. It is a collection of essays, each a gem of insight, illuminating a different facet of Buddhism. The author, a life-long Pali scholar, is able to give first-hand translations of important concepts directly from the Pali scriptures, using language that is is fresh, current and compelling. This is a highly recommended read for anyone interested in core teachings of Buddhism.
November 2, 2010
my 1st book on psychology of Buddhism. Pretty interesting as it presents Buddhism teaching for -presumably- non Buddhist westerner. I am not claiming that I understand 100% but I had start somewhere ain't I?
February 3, 2011
An extremely intellectual approach to Buddhism. Review: http://bit.ly/14KaBDf
Currently reading
May 5, 2011the most clearly written book about buddhist psychology ive encountered
January 29, 2019
A very good book on the Buddhist Abihdamma teachings.
June 4, 2012
Wonderful profound small chapters to take in. Easier to digest this way.
May 30, 2013
This book was immensely helpful in developing my understanding of the psychology of Buddhism.
September 16, 2013
Disappointed it didn't hang together better but some excellent insights among his essays.
May 8, 2018
Olendzki, a Buddhist scholar well known for his exquisite translations and deft interpretations of the original Pali discourses, has been a featured contributor to the magazines Insight Journal, Buddhadharma, and Tricycle since 2002. In this volume, he collects thirty-two of these previously published essays and organizes them (in slightly revised versions) into eight chapters exploring what he terms in his subtitle “The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism”.
He wastes no time in defining exactly what he means by a “radically experiential psychology”. The four essays comprising his opening chapter, entitled “The Bigger Picture”, establish the foundation upon which the entire book stands. In them, Olendzki carefully explains the highly-individualized process by which each of us makes unique sense of the constant stream of experiences we are passing through. Here’s a reprise, in his own words: from the first essay, “all meaning is locally constructed”; from the second, “the world of human experience is a ‘virtual’ world, constructed each moment by every individual mind and body to patterns of human invention and instinct”; and from the fourth, “each one of us … is planted squarely in the center of a virtual world we create for ourselves every moment”.
This radically experiential perspective will inform every essay in the chapters that follow, as Olendzki explores the key topics in Buddhist teachings about the world we find ourselves in – impermanence, suffering, and most especially the delusion of believing in a fixed unchanging selfhood. We begin to better understand how the ways in which our minds work are integral and inseparable components of these essential attributes of reality. And this insight then contributes to a deeper appreciation of the virtues Buddhism encourages us to cultivate in response to this reality – generosity, compassion, and wisdom.
The “unlimiting mind” referenced by the book’s title suggests a way for us to pursue the development of these virtues. In his chapter on meditation practice, Olendzki explains that our minds are naturally limited by our human desire to accrue pleasant experiences and to avoid unpleasant ones – a desire that inadvertently, but inevitably, brings us only more suffering. Through the practice of meditation, we gradually free our mind of these persistent cravings, so that instead of limiting our ability to see things as they really are (and not through the distorting blinders of our wants and aversions), our mind becomes un-limiting, “capable of experiencing a greater freedom through wisdom. Its freedom comes not from the license to broadly explore a shallow terrain, defined by its likes and dislikes, but rather from the ability to shake off the constraints of desire altogether and plunge deeply into investigating the field of experience as it is.”
Olendzki successfully avoids the pitfall that often afflicts books comprised of previously written pieces – here there is no sense of discontinuity between chapters, and no suggestion of a book being stitched together from discrete parts that bear but a minimal relation to one another. On the contrary, these essays flow smoothly, each one into its successors, and each adding something new to what has been said in the earlier ones.
And yet, while the essays interconnect so effectively with each other to form a cohesive unit in book form, still they retain all the usefulness from their original incarnations as stand-alone articles in the aforementioned magazines. So that, having read them first in the sequence Olendzki has prepared for us, we can then go back at will and re-read any of them on an individual basis with no depreciation in value. Each reader will no doubt have his or her own favorite essays to revisit – among mine are “The Non-Pursuit of Happiness”, “Healing the Wounds of the World”, “War and Peace”, “Making the Best of It”, “Self Is a Verb”, “The World Is Not Yours”, and “Homo Sophiens”.
Finally, it would be remiss of me not to mention the remarkable prescience on display in this volume. While all of the essays collected here were originally published between the years 2002 and 2009, there is a timeliness to many of them that could easily have one guess that they were written yesterday. This is especially the case in the essays included in the chapter entitled “Caring for the World”. As I write this review in April of 2017, in the week just passed the government of Syria has unleashed a poison gas attack against its own citizens, the United States has responded with a limited missile strike against a Syrian military installation, and the world now debates the consequences of both these actions. Consider, if you will, these words, written by Olendzki and first published in 2002:
“Once loosed, the dogs of war tend to wreak havoc in unimaginable ways. Instead of soothing an area of conflict by trying to heal the ruptured relationship, we are inflicting a fresh wound, with its own set of new and expanding dangers. And this simply does not make us safer; rather it exposes us to greater and often unforeseen hazards.
“A country will be safe from terrorism when its relationships with all parties in all directions are honest, noble, and just. As the Buddha tells the Brahmin youth, security comes from aligning our attitudes and policies with the behaviors that will bring out the best in others, rather than doing the very things that are sure to provoke or entrench them.”
He wastes no time in defining exactly what he means by a “radically experiential psychology”. The four essays comprising his opening chapter, entitled “The Bigger Picture”, establish the foundation upon which the entire book stands. In them, Olendzki carefully explains the highly-individualized process by which each of us makes unique sense of the constant stream of experiences we are passing through. Here’s a reprise, in his own words: from the first essay, “all meaning is locally constructed”; from the second, “the world of human experience is a ‘virtual’ world, constructed each moment by every individual mind and body to patterns of human invention and instinct”; and from the fourth, “each one of us … is planted squarely in the center of a virtual world we create for ourselves every moment”.
This radically experiential perspective will inform every essay in the chapters that follow, as Olendzki explores the key topics in Buddhist teachings about the world we find ourselves in – impermanence, suffering, and most especially the delusion of believing in a fixed unchanging selfhood. We begin to better understand how the ways in which our minds work are integral and inseparable components of these essential attributes of reality. And this insight then contributes to a deeper appreciation of the virtues Buddhism encourages us to cultivate in response to this reality – generosity, compassion, and wisdom.
The “unlimiting mind” referenced by the book’s title suggests a way for us to pursue the development of these virtues. In his chapter on meditation practice, Olendzki explains that our minds are naturally limited by our human desire to accrue pleasant experiences and to avoid unpleasant ones – a desire that inadvertently, but inevitably, brings us only more suffering. Through the practice of meditation, we gradually free our mind of these persistent cravings, so that instead of limiting our ability to see things as they really are (and not through the distorting blinders of our wants and aversions), our mind becomes un-limiting, “capable of experiencing a greater freedom through wisdom. Its freedom comes not from the license to broadly explore a shallow terrain, defined by its likes and dislikes, but rather from the ability to shake off the constraints of desire altogether and plunge deeply into investigating the field of experience as it is.”
Olendzki successfully avoids the pitfall that often afflicts books comprised of previously written pieces – here there is no sense of discontinuity between chapters, and no suggestion of a book being stitched together from discrete parts that bear but a minimal relation to one another. On the contrary, these essays flow smoothly, each one into its successors, and each adding something new to what has been said in the earlier ones.
And yet, while the essays interconnect so effectively with each other to form a cohesive unit in book form, still they retain all the usefulness from their original incarnations as stand-alone articles in the aforementioned magazines. So that, having read them first in the sequence Olendzki has prepared for us, we can then go back at will and re-read any of them on an individual basis with no depreciation in value. Each reader will no doubt have his or her own favorite essays to revisit – among mine are “The Non-Pursuit of Happiness”, “Healing the Wounds of the World”, “War and Peace”, “Making the Best of It”, “Self Is a Verb”, “The World Is Not Yours”, and “Homo Sophiens”.
Finally, it would be remiss of me not to mention the remarkable prescience on display in this volume. While all of the essays collected here were originally published between the years 2002 and 2009, there is a timeliness to many of them that could easily have one guess that they were written yesterday. This is especially the case in the essays included in the chapter entitled “Caring for the World”. As I write this review in April of 2017, in the week just passed the government of Syria has unleashed a poison gas attack against its own citizens, the United States has responded with a limited missile strike against a Syrian military installation, and the world now debates the consequences of both these actions. Consider, if you will, these words, written by Olendzki and first published in 2002:
“Once loosed, the dogs of war tend to wreak havoc in unimaginable ways. Instead of soothing an area of conflict by trying to heal the ruptured relationship, we are inflicting a fresh wound, with its own set of new and expanding dangers. And this simply does not make us safer; rather it exposes us to greater and often unforeseen hazards.
“A country will be safe from terrorism when its relationships with all parties in all directions are honest, noble, and just. As the Buddha tells the Brahmin youth, security comes from aligning our attitudes and policies with the behaviors that will bring out the best in others, rather than doing the very things that are sure to provoke or entrench them.”
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews