Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness With the Dalai Lama

Rating:
Summary: Retracing the flightpath of a butterfly by its droppings
Review: Can you imagine a conversation about the essence of art taking place between, oh, say, Picasso and art therapists who treat mental patients, and some chemists who concoct formulaes for oil paints? Something like that is taking place here. The title alone is enough to pique your interest, but the content is less than secret-divulging. If you're not a neurologist,or a specialist in a related area,then much of the material presented by the neurologist will be for all practical purposes useless. If you're not familiar with the basic assumptions of esoteric buddhist psychology, then much of what HH Dalai Lama has to say will sound like so much dogma or articles of faith. I know next to nothing about brain sciences, but am academically acquainted with the buddhist conception of reality, so I found what the Dalai Lama had to say both interesting and amusing. Interesting, because he speaks as plainly as he can about things that are usually wrapped in some hairy buddhist language. Amusing, becuase the Dalai Lama would show utmost courtesy in listening to all the dry academic presentations, which even I found somewhat tedious, and then offer his views about the matter at hand by often beginning with what sounds like a gentle correction rather than a positing of difference of perspective only. I paraphrase from memory: "Well, your numbers and theories are all very nice, but no, it's actually like this." Some of the discussions on REM, and animal responses to dream states are interesting, but just merely interesting. Better on the Discovery channel. Much of the philosopher Charles Taylor's presentations concerning the Western/Christian conception of the Self is reliable but elementary. And dealing with the subject matter at hand, even an eminent philosopher can do only so much with Ratio alone. The book is of some value if one is willing to be open to the possibility that the Dalai Lama may be speaking of things that are real but not measurable, at least not with knobs and dials. Not yet. He never mentions it specifically in the book, but the idea of rebirth and the attendant conditions are indirectly there, for example when he questions the authenticity of the phenomenon of seeing one's departed ones in a near-death experience. He says, "Maybe the person is hallucinating at that point or projecting a wish. They (the loved ones who departed long ago) would have found new bodies by then." Taken as an record of an encounter with the Dalai Lama, this book sheds some light into that aspect of the man that won't show up when he is on Larry King or speaking of compassion to the multitude in Central Park. The guy is a professional in his own field, after all, and he knows his chops. Here, refreshingly enough, he sheds some of his avuncular "hey, be cool, people!" image and divulges some of his professional knowledge at a speed and intensity of delivery considerably higher than the mass media have shown him to be capable.

Rating:
Summary: Drawing Out Some Potential Links between Science & Buddhism
Review: I found this book very interesting. It shows how science and Buddhism have very few contradictions. This book also highlights the intelligence of the Dalai Lama. His Holiness can understand and add thoughtful insight to matters we consider to be "scientific" , a good book in every way.

Rating:
Summary: Well I Think 5 Stars is Necessary
Review: I'm not sure why this book received all the bad reviews that it did (though I confess I have never given a Dalai Lama book less than a 5 start review-I love the guy!). The book is one of a plethora of transcripts of the Mind and Life Conferences held in India, this being the fourth conference in 1992. Sure the discussions are varied, and by no means is everyone simply in agreement with one another here. But the dialogue is engaging and thought provoking, and above all else, illuminating. At the conference we had philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, and many more; so of course we are going to get a huge spectrum of views.

The cultural ecologist, Jane Halifax (whom you all may know of), had a particularly fascinating section in here on near death experiences. All the Dalai Lama did was show some uncertainty as to the validity of these claims in light of the Buddhist view of a natural death and rebirth. So what if the Dalai Lama didn't agree with her, you don't have to have agreement to have a good book! Differentiating views provide all of us more food to chew on, and then decide which works for us. It's not a matter of who had it right, but rather, "Does it sound right to you?"

Enjoy the book!

Rating:
Summary: Decent book, good stuff from the Dalai Lama
Review: Several moderm day researchers spend a week with the Dalia Lama and discuss the topics of the books title. The material delivered from the Dalai Lama himself is the best part of this book.

Rating:
Summary: Just Another Sectarian
Review: When they read accounts of western near-death experience to the Dalai Lama all he had to say was that he didn't believe them because the people who experienced them reported being greeted by dead relatives and dead relatives "would have to have taken rebirth in some realm long before." He went on to say that this was "only barely possible." He didn't claim to have any firsthand knowledge of this whatsoever, and in fact when once asked if he could point to anyone he actually knew who had attained enlightenment all he could say was: "There MAY be someone in caves somewhere."

He also didn't buy that the light people see in near death experiences was the same as the "clear light of the void." He politely only said they could be considered "analagous" or something of that sort. And when asked in this book to point to even just very advanced meditators who could go into the "clear light" at will, he only said it would be very difficult because "they are all so scattered" and also that such people are uncooperative because they are "stubborn."

So, honestly, at this point one might as well be talking with the Pope or a methodist minister in the sense that here is someone with a belief system who never seriously questions it. In other words, his belief system is "gospel" which is of course a way of saying it's beyond question. Ok, everyone get angry at me, because I'm asking if we in the west haven't overrated the tibetans because of their huge reputation for esoteric knowledge bestowed on them by such questionable people as Madam Blavatsky and Gurdjieff. Thankyou and I apologize to those of you who are now angry because I have questioned the unquestionable.