Title: An Open Heart-Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life
Author: The Dalai Lama
Edited By: Nicholas Vreeland
Afterword: Khyongla Rato and Richard Gere
This book is based on the series of talks that His Holiness Dalai Lama gave at The Tibet Centre and The Gere Foundation in New York City in August 1999.
An Open heart; Practicing compassion in everyday life is a wonderful book to fill the gap between our everyday realities and our spiritual pursuits. The Dalai Lama gives a practical approach to tame the mind into being more compassionate. He emphasizes that as long as we are living in a human society, it is very important to be a kind, warm-hearted person. The book is about how we can achieve that.
The Buddhist practitioners have cultivated this wisdom by which they are able to tap their compassionate hearts to seek happiness and fulfill desire by overcoming suffering. Buddha, Sangh, Dharma are the three jewels of refuge that help us in reaching our goals of happiness. The Dalai Lama teaches meditation techniques to change our habitual mind to be a more virtuous one. The difference between the material and immaterial world, the role of Karma, the afflictive emotions that hamper spiritual practice are certain points that are dealt with in this masterpiece.
The method to opening our hearts and the wisdom needed to do so lies within us. Recognizing our abilities towards a profound insight requires study and meditation, and for that we should have compassion. The term compassion is the feeling and a wish for others to be suffering free. We should have empathy, the ability to recognize suffering of others and a loving-kindness to feel compassion. Reading this book have certainly opened my vision to these mystical ideas.
The book talks about the sevenfold Cause-and-effect method and exchanging self for others to achieve a bodhicitta and become a bodhisattva. The nine stages of calm-abiding meditation or single-pointed concentration is a wonderful take from this book.
Having sympathy for others and the desire to free them of it – developing compassion are not easy concepts to digest but the way this beautiful book has been written, it simplifies the readers eagerness to understand and helps them imbibe the simplicity and power of these age old concepts. The meditation practices suggested in here are very deep and profound. This is one of the finest “perspective” books I have come across.
The Spell Bound 