Unlearning the Basics: A New Way of Understanding Yourself and the World

In fresh and inviting language, making frequent use of strikingly clear diagrams and illustrations, Unlearning the Basics challenges many our commonsense understandings — of who we are, of what the mind is, of the relationship of the self to the world. The book also offers a new way of seeing that enables to us live more serenely, more compassionately, and more free from the slings and arrows of our busy lives. Grounded in the Buddhist tradition yet completely free from the formulas of traditional, tired presentations, this book is written in an informal style designed to maintain the reader’s attention. The author examines concepts of love and grasping, as well as what happens when the need for love meets "the great unfixables." Also covered are how impermanence, vulnerability, and pain feed the "evolution of character," personal agency, "wise resistances," and the necessity of experiential training in new ways of using the mind — and of returning to our true home and finding new ways to flourish.