Buddhist discussion

We seem to have lost people along the way, but then I havn't found this an easy book to comment on myself. You can use this topic for you overall last impressions and ideas.

Actually I finished it and enjoyed it very much. I hadn't seen any discussion going on and meant to look it up in case I just missed it. Right now it's a case of it kind of flowing together, while all along the way I reacted to this and that. Now it's a blur, but I'll look it over again and see if some of those thoughts come back.

One thing that ocmes to mind is that, although at first I was a little disappointed that it wasn't going to focus specifically on Buddhism, I soon began to appreciate that it spoke from other religious traditions as well. It's not often enough that we look for the common impulses that religions/philosophies share, and nowadays everybody focuses so much on the negatives of Christianity (and I'm not arguing that there aren't many negatives, as it's practiced now, especially in America, at least, but these things are given too much credit for representing all of Christianity.)

It does tend to jumble all together doesn't it? If you want to just make general comments as they come to you in this thread, feel free.

On Kornfield's inclusive approach, I like it. I too was a little disappointed when I first came across his work that he didn't focus more Buddhism. I am an Atheist and turned to Buddhism as an alternative to the religions he was quoting, but eventually I realised that the wisest, regardless of their religious beliefs, have a universal wisdom. He is obviously a well read man and even quotes from Atheistic sources (at least he does in the audiobooks I've listened to, I can't recall any from the book). This isn't to say that religion, including Buddhism and Atheism (if you class it as a religion as I do) don't have their problems, but it changed my attitudes.