Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide

by Barry Magid

We all have a right to the pursuit of happiness - but could we actually be happier if we gave that whole thing up? This surprising new book from Zen teacher, psychoanalyst, and critical favorite Barry Magid inspires us - in gentle and winking prose - to move on and make peace with the perfection of the way things actually are, including ourselves. Magid invites us to consider that our "pursuit of happiness" may actually be a source of our suffering. He takes an unusual look at our "secret practices" - what we're really doing when we say we're meditating-like trying to feel calmer, or more compassionate, or even "enlightened" (whatever we imagine that means!). He also uncovers our "curative fantasies" about spiritual practice - those ideas that we can somehow fix all the messy human things about ourselves that we imagine are bad or wrong or unacceptable. In doing so, he helps us look squarely at-and avoid-such pitfalls. Along the way, Magid lays out a rich roadmap of the new "psychological-minded Zen" - a Zen that includes our entire life, our entire personality - as pioneered by his teacher, bestselling author Charlotte Joko Beck.

Genres: Buddhism, Zen, Philosophy, Psychology, Nonfiction, Spirituality

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Frank Jude · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book, even dare I say, a necessary book. But there's going to be a lot of people who are not going to like it or what it's saying. Both those who don't understand it, but even more, those who do but are overly invested in the kind of practice Magid is trying to undermine will feel threatened by what he has to say. They need to hear it.

This is a naturalist approach to Zen practice. No fantasies of transcendent ever-lasting bliss will be found here. Instead, if you can truly understand Magid's point, and courageously let go of one's hidden assumptions and secret practices of perfection (that tether one to a samsaric relationship to life) then you may find yourself making peace with the way everying -- including yourself -- actually is.

[Teo · Rating 3 out of 5]

2019.09.15–2019.09.15

Contents

Magid B (2008) (05:28) Ending the Pursuit of Happiness - A Zen Guide

Introduction

01. Our Secret Practice
• What Is Meditation?
• Why Are We (Really) Meditating?
• Three Stages of Practice

02. The Zen Way, the Psychoanalytic Way
• Zen and Psychoanalysis
• What Is the Self?
• Psychologically-Minded Zen
• Learning from Problems

03. Ordinary Life
• Your Ordinary Mind Is the Way
• Ordinary or Special?
• Psychological versus Spiritual Insight

04. The Search for Enlightenment?
• Flypaper
• That’s Me
• You’re Perfect, and You Can Use a Little Improvement
• Rinzai’s “Buji” Zen
• If This Was It

05. Body and Mind
• The First Noble Truth
• Thinking about Thinking
• Spiritual versus Material
• Sitting Long Becomes Tiring
• Three Buddhas

06. Love, Sex, and Compassion
• Desire and Suffering
• Asses and Horses
• Thomas Merton in Love

07. Relationships
• Being Alone
• Attachment and Detachment
• If It Is Broke...Fix It
• A Mother’s Kiss

08. Who, What, and Why
• Why Practice?
• Who’s Listening?
• The Meaning of Life

09. Something or Nothing
• Doing Nothing
• Not Knowing
• No Helping

10. It’s a Mystery to Me
• A Pilgrimage
• Angels
• Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Conclusion: No Path, No Wisdom, and No Gain

Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

[Ben Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this book on audible.

It's a pretty nice zen book. Basically the premise is don't try so hard, don't overthink things so much, don't put so much pressure on yourself to improve yourself and seek happiness. It's a fairly good argument and I enjoyed the book. The first section is basically a rationalising of how zen and psychoanalysis can coincide and work together. I wasn't that interested in this section, so it loses points for that, unless that's your thing. Once it got to the meat, though, it was enjoyable.

[Bobparr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Siamo circondati da terapie, diete, programmi di auto miglioramento che promettono tutti di aggiustarci. Quello che non capiamo è come tutte queste forme rinforzino tacitamente il nostro assunto che in noi ci sia qualcosa di rotto che deve essere aggiustato. Ma se, invece di andare in cerca dell’ennesimo aggiustamento, provassimo davvero a sfidare nel profondo una volta per tutte quell’assunto?

Questo il tema del libro, con le parole dell’autore. Come sempre i discepoli di Joko Beck hanno una marcia in più.
In questo caso l’approccio psicoanalitico di fondo rafforza le affermazioni buddiste, creando un connubio molto efficace e sottilmente affascinante.

[Manos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting and extremely thought provoking, especially if you have read other books on the fundamentals of Zen.
I found its writing style very engaging. I read the whole book in 3-4 sittings over 2 days

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barry Magid wants us to end our pursuit of not only happiness, but of enlightenment. But he wants us to keep practicing nonetheless. His meditation practice is not one of attainments, but one of "no gain". Magid says that practice is defined by what you lose - which turns out to be mostly your own illusions about what meditation practice can do for you in the first place.

In this book Magid repeatedly asserts in different ways that a mature meditation practice is really about coming to terms and acceptance with what it means to simply be human, with all of the pain and hurt and suffering that entails. He says that many come to practice for transcendence of sorts, but this turns out for many to just be a code word for escaping pain in all its guises.

One of my favorite turns of phrase in this book is Magids formulation of the "secret practice" or the "curative fantasy" - which is to say whatever hidden agenda or strategy that we may be smuggling into meditation practice - that is to say, whatever hidden hopes we have that practice will do for us in terms of changing us for the better or ridding us of some disliked or alienated part of ourselves. In Magid's terms, undergoing practice as a means to end - to make a better, more improved self, is just to be endlessly caught in a self-perpetuating dualism. "There is nothing to escape", Magid tells us. And secondly, but no less importantly, "there is nothing to gain".

It's tempting to walk away from this book - more than a little bit crestfallen - thinking that meditation practice is, well, useless. We've projected so much of our hopes for our respective self-improvement projects onto this whole mindfulness thing, after all, and according to this crusty old zen master that has been practicing for three decades, it's just not going to deliver. But Magid isn't saying that. He doesn't say insight doesn't happen, or that "kensho" or "realization" is illusory. Quite the contrary. What he is saying is that any wisdom gained through practice is going to impact the mind in a very different way than what you're anticipating or expecting.

This is not a book about learning meditation, or zen - it's not introductory material. All the same, it's not a bad book for a beginner to read - for someone interested in starting a meditation practice to read. Perhaps if a beginning meditator reads this, they will save themselves the folly of believing meditation will be the turnkey solution to solving all of their problems in life.

[Douglas Cosby · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars -- This booked seems more like an argument that Magid is having with his colleagues than a book for others to read. Its main point is that zen meditation doesn't have a point, so it shouldn’t be used as a means to accomplish something. As with most zen approaches, his ideas are vague and purposefully self-contradictory, more like word games than anything else. If you are practicing zen meditation to fix something about yourself, Magid vehemently argues, then you don't understand what zen is for. Also, because Magid is a psychoanalyst, he has strong opinions on the differences of and uses for zen and psychoanalysis. Once again, probably interesting to practitioners in his field of work, but not so helpful to the rest of us. While there were a few insightful nuggets on "you are what you are" and "everything is going to be what it is", all-in-all, this book is more vapid than inspiring.

[Allys Dierker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teases out connections between Zen Buddhism and psychoanalysis. Some hard truths about accepting things as they are and using anger, boredom, restlessness, and anxiety as signals that life is not meeting your expectations and, instead of trying to suppress the emotions, use them as a way to investigate your expectations.

Great explanation of the “secret practice,” as the ways in which we think we are broken, the things for which we are seeking a “curative practice” when maybe a better way would be to face the things we want to avoid, and not to rely on a curative fantasy. Instead, to accept what is.

[Huw]

Loved this, non-dogmatic and accessible.

I hesitate to summarize so I'll just mention a couple of things. One is that when we begin to meditate (sit) or go into analysis we usually have "curative fantasies" which we might well not even be aware of. We think that zen or analysis (or religion) will in some way "fix" these problesm, that is fix us. The point of zen or analysis then becomes to expose our curative fantasies and to begin to see the problems were wanted to "fix" in a different way.

Best read it for yourself :-)

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Packed with insights and eye-opening exploration of Zen and the art of living. Barry Magid brings a remarkable and frank intelligence to very subtle and complex topics. Impressive and, at points, inspiring.

[Chris Boutté · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. I wasn’t familiar with Zen Buddhism, but it’s similar to the other forms I’ve been practicing and studying. The author does a great job of making this book good for anybody who needs to accept life as it is

[David Walley · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is no answer to life, just living itself. Living is the hard part, death will be easy, we all do it eventually. Just enjoy the journey and stop making life so hard, just try to be good and you will alter the world one person at a time.

[Ingo · Rating 5 out of 5]

My entrypoint into Meditation. Clear, bridging Zen and Psychology, super helpful

[Karol Kudra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dla mnie książka trudna, wręcz niezrozumiała w pewnych fragmentach.

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book worthy of Joko Beck.

[Linda Hollingsworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was originally attracted to this book when I learned that Barry Magid's Zen teacher was Charlotte Jocko Beck; some of her recounted talks were an important source of wisdom in my early years of meditation. In addition to working with people as a Zen teacher himself, Barry Magid is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. His years of focus in these interrelated areas has resulted in the insight that "enlightenment is real." But he also says in the introduction of this book that "...we will never know what it means as long as we entangle it with all our fantasies and dreams." So Ending the Pursuit of Happiness is an appropriate title for a book which describes a "secret practice" to "fix or cure" ourselves rather than accepting and valuing ourselves in a kind of "ordinary spirituality" for who we really are. He speaks of the simplicity of meditation and the discipline of awareness in ways that I found very helpful. In fact, I found this book very readable and extremely valuable in recognizing and gaining insight into my own (sometimes hidden) conflicts--conflicts that divide me from personal understanding and acceptance--from wholeness. He helped me see that I'm not looking for answers but for a spirit of openness. "...the teacher is life-as-it-is and that is the only teacher."

[Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

In our achievement-oriented society, we're conditioned to "get" things, be they material things like money, intangibles like success and happiness.

Magid, using his experience as a psychoanalyst and Zen teacher, argues that pursuing happiness, however we define it, isn't a worthy goal. He goes further to say that using a practice like meditation to "become happy" weakens rather than strengthens us because it it assumes attainment of a fixed state.

Rather, meditation exists for its own sake of allowing us to confront where and what we are at any given moment again and again. Whether you call it awareness, attention or mindfulness, meditation is about "being with" or "abiding in" whatever particular physical, mental, or emotional sensation we are experiencing right now.

While you may have heard this before, Magid uses Zen stories, philosophy, and experiences in therapy to remind us of the wisdom that is right in front of us at all times, if only we let go of our fantasies of perfection or stasis. For me, this book was a welcome reminder.

[Peter Allum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barry Magid is a dharma heir of Joko Beck, a zen teacher, and a psychoanalyst based in NY city. I found this to be an unusually helpful zen book. It addresses many of the puzzles about zen practice that are too rarely discussed—why do we sit? What do we hope to gain? Why sit through pain? Why have many zen teachers fallen short by abusing the trust of students? Magid draws on his study under Joko Beck, which emphasized the value of sitting with emotions, and his own psychoanalytic practice. Magid’s message is that zen produces no obvious “gains “ in terms of relieving suffering or improving one’s life. Rather, through the practice of sitting, the practitioner starts to accept that suffering is an inevitable part of life, not something that can be set apart and treated. A book to go back and reread periodically.

My Zen reviews, ranked

[SLADE · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I enjoyed this book and the basic tenants of Zen that it describes, I get the feeling that it is not necessarily the best book with which to start the study or Buddhism or the understanding of Zen. Having said that, it did do a good job of making me realize that the search for self is really a search for something that already exist. Self is self, and does not need to be found, merely embraced.

[Joslyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

he's a psychologist and a buddhist teacher (and a new yorker), and offers very pragmatic and helpful perspectives on dealing with our dissatisfactions and desires to be a different presumably better person. i want to reread this until i have some portions memorized :) very thought-provoking and helpful...

[Nikki]

I no longer feel like reading about other people practicing this religion or that religion will help me find anything new. I have my own spirituality, and I just need to accept it.

Hey, maybe I should write a book about it.

No stars because (meh) I don't care enough to influence the average on this one.

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author is a psychiatrist and lay zen teacher. He is just deeply honest about what people seek from zen in particular. His constant emphasis is that seeking is futile. We may change as a result of practice but there is no technique to make change Just Sit. In the moment.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The meshing of psychoanalysis and Zen didn't always go smoothly, but this is an interesting book. I liked some of his updating of old koans for more modern thought, as well as his discussions of Western philosophy (even when they didn't mesh so well).

[Dalvareze · Rating 5 out of 5]

¿Qué se opina de un libro que no pretende nada, sino transformar al lector?.

Me gustó, y aunque lo complete rápido, lo leeré muchas veces más en mi vida.

Recomendado para quien busca un forma real de vivir mejor su vida.

[Christie Arlotta · Rating 2 out of 5]

i'm not sure i can finish this one! bit on the dry side ...

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book. Unlike many Zen books this was written by a true practitioner.
Best I have seen.

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had a great message. Too bad the author made me fall asleep every time I picked it up, but I pushed through because it was worth it.

[Mike Porter · Rating 3 out of 5]

More accessible than the previous book by Magid, I did find this one useful.