The Passionate Buddha: Wisdom on Intimacy and Enduring Love

Rating:
Summary: Couples who meditate together . . .
Review: Relationship issues are nothing new, and as this book shows, ancient Buddhist teachings on intimacy and relationship offer plenty of guidance on contemporary matters of the heart. Drawing from "the eclectic blend" of his twenty-seven-year marriage and Tibetan Buddhist practice with teachers including Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, among others, Sachs offers readers insights into relationship issues like anger, finding the right partner, sex, abortion, contraception, and infidelity. We are living in a time when divorce rates are high, unprotected sex can result in disease or even death, single-parent families are the norm, cyber-sex is the dominant attraction along the information superhighway, and people medicate their feelings of loneliness and despair, he observes. "In these conditions, it seems imperative to offer a book that addresses how we can come to trust our loving nature, break the habits that alienate us from ourselves and others, and develop healthy, fulfilling, lasting relationships" (p. 4). In his book, Sachs successfully shows how intimate relationships are actually a type of spiritual practice that can teach us flexibility, loving detachment, mutual respect, compassion and enduring love.

G. Merritt