Thich Nhat Hanh Healing in Vietnam The Wonderful World of Gathas

ook REVIEWSJourneyingEastConversations onAging and DyingBy Victoria Jean DimidjianParallax Press, 2004Reviewed by William MenzaUnderstandingOur MindBy Thich Nhat HanhParallax Press, 2006Softcover, 251 pagesReviewed by Judith ToyJourneying East is an extraordinary primer on the spiritual,psychological, and physical components of getting oldand dying — and living a mindful life. Author Victoria JeanDimidjian is a professor of education at Florida Gulf CoastUniversity and founding member of the Naples, Florida Communityof Mindfulness. She has assembled a profound and practicalcollection of insights from Ram Dass, Frank Ostaseski,Joan Halifax, Thich Nhat Hanh, Michael Eigen, Rodney Smith,Sister Chan Khong, John Welwood, and Norman Fischer.In interviews with Dimidjian these teachers transmit aremarkable blend of Eastern and Western wisdom. They tell usthat to understand death or prepare for it we have to be deeplyin touch with what is happening in the present moment, evenas the body dissolves.Thich Nhat Hanh says: “There is no journeying east, thereis no journeying west. We live in the now.” Frank Ostaseski tellsus: “You cannot go into the room where someone is dying andnot pay attention. Everything is pulling you into the moment.”Norman Fischer says: “I think that death is our greatest teaching.Dying is a way of living, a meditation practice, the mostfundamental and most profound of all meditation practices.”We are cautioned by John Welwood to “be careful withwhat the death industry might be trying to package for us aboutknowing what death is all about.” If you have an idea about “agood death” you are creating expectations that will interferewith your unique experience of death. We each need to findour own individual death. “This is an important moment inyour life — the final passage — and you don’t want to “livesomeone else’s version of that!”The book has an appendix on Internet resources andanother on suggested activities such as writing or videotapinga living will, an advance health directive, a durable powerof attorney, a will, a good-bye letter. To demystify death andmake it normal and natural Dimidjian suggests taking classeson aging and dying, visiting a local hospice, and talking aboutdeath with your family. This reminds me of the Meditation orContemplation on Death, like the one detailed in Thay’s bookThe Blooming of a Lotus, where we envision the various stagesof a decaying dead body — one day this is what we will be.The first time I encountered the Fifty Verses on the Natureof consciousness was in Thich Nhat Hanh’s previous bookon this subject, Transformation at the Base. About midwaythrough the text, I got into trouble trying to intellectually graspthe teachings. While I did finish the book, it was with scantunderstanding. Now Thich Nhat Hanh has made these teachingsfrom the Abhidharma (literally super-Dharma) more accessible.In Understanding Our Mind, Thay provides an in-depthlook at this primary text of original Buddhism on the nature ofconsciousness, applying it to modern life. The verses, and thusthe book, are divided into six sections: store consciousness, orthe seed bed; manas, or the mind root; mind consciousness;sense consciousness; the nature of reality, or non-self; and thepath of practice.Breathing in, I approached this new book by first readingthe Fifty Verses. Breathing out, I made some notes. For example,verse Ten refers to the five universal mental formations. Forhandy reference, I pencilled them into the margin: 1) contact;2) attention; 3) feeling; 4) perception or conceptualization; and5) volition. I thought of how these work in succession: Whenwe smell a tasty food, the odor commands our attention: contactand attention. Often, then, we feel hungry: feeling. Nextwe approach the stove and take the lid off the pan. We see thefood: perception or conceptualization; and finally, we decideto taste it: volition.Mind root, manas, the verses explain, has its interbeingwith these five universals. In fact, manas inter-exists with allthinking and affliction. Further, all that stems from the mindroot is indeterminate and obscured. In his commentary, theauthor uses the metaphor of the ocean to explain indeterminateand obscured: “The ocean is salty, so all drops of water in theocean are salty at the same time.”Verse Twenty-Two refers to the stages of the bodhisattvapath. Many of us have experienced the first stage of thebodhisattva path, transforming afflictions. And perhaps whenwe are well focused, we enjoy a preview of the tenth stage,transforming our belief in a separate self, nirvana.Understanding Our Mind contains the central illuminationof Mahayana Buddhism — that we are all buddhas-to-be.Much more than an intellectual excercise, Thich Nhat Hanh’sdiscourse is a deep inspiration, underlining for those of usraised in the Christian tradition our early, child-like belief inresurrection. Afflictions, we learn, are none other than enlightenment!We can see how this great mirror wisdom works inour own lives.Continued on page 4544 Summer 2007