System 13

Title: Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World [amazon]
Author: Lama Surya Das
Publisher: Broadway; Reprint edition (June 15, 1998)
Pages: 389
Book Number: 6

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

This is actually the second time I’ve read this book, but the first time I’ve written a full entry for it. When I read it before, I mentioned it briefly on this post, saying that it came across as a bit “new agey”, but that I enjoyed it a lot anyway.

After my second reading of it, I’m not so sure I stand by my initial impression. I don’t know if it’s really new agey, or perhaps it’s just that Lama Surya Das is so at ease and genuinely happy about what he’s teaching. I’m leaning more towards the latter at this point.

Awakening the Buddha Within is one of the most popular introductory texts to Buddhism available right now, and, after reading it twice, I can see why. Lama Surya Das, a native American, has spent roughly half of his life studying the Dharma, mostly in foreign countries such as Nepal. He writes in a very natural style, making it extremely easy to understand what he’s saying. I’ve read a few books on Buddhism that were a bit too technical for my tastes, but this isn’t one of them.

The book has all of the things that one would expect from an introductory book about Buddhism: a brief story about Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha; examining the Four Noble Truths; and exploring the Eightfold Path, which takes up about half of the book. There are also many meditations that you can use for your own practice. Throughout the book are stories from the author’s life, as well as from the lives of his teachers and others, which illustrate the principles of Buddhism.

My only real complaint with the book is that it needs to be longer. Often, Surya would start a section on a new topic, and (in my opinion) not devote enough space to it. About the time he’d be getting into the topic he’d started, the section would end. While this can be frustrating, I suppose the bonus is that the topics he doesn’t thoroughly explore give you something to look into. A few of the topics which he skimmed (such as Lojong and Tonglen practice), I checked out online, and they both have plenty of more in-depth material available. And, of course, I’m sure there are books on the topics as well.

All in all, I really like this book; I actually ended up buying it the last time I was at a Borders in Charleston, West Virginia. It certainly doesn’t explore Buddhism in an exhaustive manner, but I doubt there’s any book that does that.