Cultivating Inner Peace

Rating:
Summary: An unostentatious gem
Review: "Cultivating Inner Peace" is a beautifully written and inspiring book. Dr Fleischman examines the lives of extraordinary people such as Tagore, Whitman, and the Nearings to tease out the ways by which they cultivated and manifested inner peace. He then shows how we, too, can cultivate inner peace by employing the same means. These include seeking out peaceful people, giving peace priority among daily activities, selecting out obstacles to peace and so on.

Dr Fleischman is a clear-eyed, poetic writer who reveals beauty at the core of life, while remaining fully aware of its vicissitudes. I encourage others to read this book.

I can also recommend the following essays that Dr Fleischman has written: "The Therapeutic Action of Vipassana", "Why I Sit", "Vipassana Meditation: Healing the Healer", and "The Experience of Impermanence". They have something to say, I think, to meditators of any stripe. And also to those who do not practice formal meditation, but who choose to dive deeply into their own being and environment.

Rating:
Summary: Really Helpful
Review: A remarkably helpful work that distills the hard-won, lifelong insights of some of the World's true masters, such as Gandhi and Thoreau. Thanks for the gift Dr. Fleischman.

Rating:
Summary: Really Helpful
Review: A remarkably helpful work that distills the hard-won, lifelong insights of some of the World's true masters, such as Gandhi and Thoreau. Thanks for the gift Dr. Fleischman.

Rating:
Summary: Incredibly Helpful
Review: Discover the lifelong, hard won insights about living a peaceful life as learned by some of the Great Masters: Gandhi, Thoreau, Buddha, etc...

Thank you Dr. Fleischman for this amazing work!

Rating:
Summary: Great insights and example, but not very accessible
Review: I really regret not being able to give this book a 5 star rating, because in most respects I think it gives excellent examples and explanations of the path to inner peace.

The problem is the book is literally overflowing with words that are not in common usage. Here are some examples: bard, palliated, merganser, signative, protopeaceful, mellifluous, neotropical, obeisance, aliquots, and excoriate. There are many more.

There is nothing particularly difficult in the definitions or understanding of most of these words. The problem is that they are so prevalent that even the well read will need a dictionary and probably a thesaurus available at all times.

When trying to explain concepts that are difficult to grasp and implement it is very important to communicate in a manner that is simple and accessible. Having to stop, often, to research word definitions is very distracting.

I would suggest that if you are going to read this book make sure you are willing to struggle with this on a fairly continuous basis.

If you are the author please consider a rewrite using common words. The subjects in your book are too important to leave them in such an inconvenient and inaccessible state.

Rating:
Summary: The joy of inner peace
Review: Now that I have some practice at Vipassana as taught by S.N. Goenka, I know the experience of inner peace. Fleischman does such a good job at explaining it all - that I find I share his essays with others in order to do justice to what I am beginning to experience within myself. Of course it is of great help to see that this man has years of practice in cultivating a life of inner peace, thus helping one realize that the path is long, but always unbelievably worthwhile.

Rating:
Summary: an important and timely work
Review: This is the first book I can remember that I've finished, then immediately flipped back to Chapter One and began reading again. Fleischman's beautiful and lyrical metaphors create powerful flow within the simple biographical essays, and the unexpected list of characters whose lives are portrayed provides a smorgasbord of reflections within his theme of lives of peace. We can use profound, yet approachable role models in this time of dismay, and here's a sensitively written way to meet them.