The Tibetan Book of the Dead / W.Y. Evans-Wentz, ed. -- Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, trans. -- N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1960

The Evans-Wentz edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead or Bardo Thodol -- as it is more properly titled -- was first published in 1927, but it gained enormous attention in the 1960s and 1970s when interest in Eastern philosophy was rising in the West.  Traditionally, the text is believed to have been composed by Padmasambhava, an 8th century Indian Buddhist scholar who was among the first Buddhists (if not the first) to bring Buddhism to Tibet.  Anticipating the persecution of Buddhism in the 9th century, Padmasambhava is believed to have hidden numerous texts to be uncovered by future generations.  In the 14th century, Karma Lingpa is said to have discovered one of these texts, titled Peaceful and Wrathful Deities, the Natural Liberation of Intention, part of which is the Bardo Thodol or Great Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate State.  This English translation of the title is apt, as the text describes the experiences of a recently deceased person as he or she passes from one life to the next.  Furthermore, the text is read ritually in the presence of the deceased in order to focus his or her disembodied consciousness on liberation with the hope of achieving a more fortunate rebirth or escaping the cycle of rebirth entirely.

The intermediate period (bardo) between lives is said to last 49 days.  This period is divided into three stages:  the Chikhai Bardo, the Chonyid Bardo, and the Sidpa Bardo.  During the Chikhai Bardo, the consciousness of the deceased is confused.  Consequently, the reading of the Bardo Thodol in the presence of the deceased's body is intended to focus his or her attention on the Dharma, allowing the deceased to achieve immediate enlightenment.  Immediate (or sudden) enlightenment is thought to be possible by Tibetan Buddhists and it is particularly possible during the bardo between death and rebirth.  The Chikhai Bardo is known as the Bardo of the Moment of Death.  Enlightenment and liberation come to the deceased if he or she is able to recognize the clear light of reality that appears during this stage.  If, however, the deceased becomes frightened of the clear light, he or she will go on to experience the Chonyid Bardo, known as the Bardo of Reality.

During the Chonyid Bardo, the deceased is visited by peaceful and wrathful deities.  In the first five days the deceased is visited by peaceful deities, namely, the five dhyani buddhas: Vairochana, Vajrasattva, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddhi on successive days and each accompanied by their consorts and retinue.  With the appearance of each dhyani buddha, the deceased has the opportunity to recognize reality and attain enlightenment.  If, however, he or she fails to do this, then all of the deities, their consorts, and retinues appear on the sixth day, presenting another opportunity for enlightenment.  Failing this, the deceased is presented on the seventh day with a final chance for enlightenment by peaceful deities: the "Knowledge-Holding Deities" from the "holy paradise realms."

The deceased then experiences seven days of wrathful deities (or hekula).  The first five of these deities are in fact the same peaceful deities that appeared earlier, but now appearing in their wrathful forms.  On the 13th day, eight other wrathful deities appear to the deceased and on the 14th day, four female "door keepers" appear along with numerous additional wrathful deities.  In the Tibetan tradition, hekula are guardians, representing a person's determination to defeat the obstacles to enlightenment.  So while they appear fearsome, they offer the deceased additional chances for sudden enlightenment.

Failing (or fearing) to recognize reality when presented with it face-to-face during the 14 days of the Chonyid Bardo, the deceased enters the Sidpa Bardo, known as the Bardo of Seeking Rebirth.  Here, the deceased flees from the terrors of the previous bardo and seeks escape from the terrible face of reality that appears to the person encumbered with bad karma.  The deceased is attracted to wombs out of which he or she might be reborn into the realm of samsara.  The text explains how the deceased should go about closing wombs to avoid rebirth in particular bad circumstances and how to choose a womb out of which to be reborn.  One's karma, however, will tend to determine where one is reborn.  One might be reborn in any of the six realms as a denizen of hell, a hungry ghost (preta), an animal, a human, a demi-god (asura), or a god (deva) depending upon one's karma.

The Bardo Thodol is considered among a genre of literature known as a tantra.  These works are central to the form of Buddhism common to Tibet known as the Vajrayana.  Tibetan Buddhism is often considered a form of Mahayana Buddhism, but the veneration of the tantras justifiably separates Tibetan Buddhism from Mahayana Buddhism.  The Vajrayana emphasizes a number of ideas that make this clear.  First, the possibility of sudden enlightenment distinguishes Vajrayana from the Mahayana tradition which emphasizes the need for numerous reincarnations to build up the necessary merit to achieve enlightenment.  Second is the veneration of the lama or teacher.  All forms of Buddhism recognize the importance of respect for the Buddha and other spiritual guides, but the Vajrayana takes this veneration much more seriously.  The trisarana, or "three refuges" which Buddhists embrace, are composed of the Buddha, the dharma (the teaching), and the samgha (the community of Buddhists).  Taking refuge in these three "jewels" is something like offering a basic profession of the Buddhist faith -- that is, committing the Buddhist to an intent to gain enlightenment.  In the Vajrayana, a fourth jewel is sometimes recognized, i.e., the specific teacher who initiates the follower to the path.  Third, the Vajrayana is characterized by an elaborate set of symbols that is used to educate and focus the attention of the Buddhist on the path to enlightenment.  This has generated a rich body of art used in its rituals.  Fourth, throughout India and the cultures it has influenced, there is a belief in the magical, superpowers of enlightened beings called siddha.  Such beings play a prominent role in the Vajrayana.  Much of these aspects of Tibetan Buddhism are consonant with the shamanistic beliefs of the Bon religion that had been practice in Tibet prior to the coming of Buddhism.

The Bardo Thodol exemplifies the importance of many of the above distinguishing features of Vajrayana Buddhism.  Upon death, sudden enlightenment is the goal of the elaborate rituals conducted by the "spiritual friend" (or lama) who reads the text in the presence of the deceased's body with the expectation that the disembodied consciousness of the deceased is capable of hearing the guidance the lama is offering.  These practices seem like so much superstition to a materialist way of thinking; however, adept practitioners of the Vajrayana emphasize the symbolic nature of the seemingly magical elements of their tradition.  The symbolism in the Vajrayana is, of course, lost on many lay practitioners.  Consequently, the tradition is characterized by both common teachings and esoteric teachings.  The former is meant for the layperson while the latter is meant for the adept.  In light of this, one can see the importance of the rituals and descriptions in the Bardo Thodol in two ways.  First, one can understand them literally as efforts to assist the deceased in achieving liberation or a preferable rebirth.  Second, one can understand them as disguised (symbolic) efforts to manage the grief of survivors and remind them of some of the basic tenets of Buddhism: life is temporary, attachment to it produces suffering, and the acquisition of merit and an clear understanding of reality will bring about a better future circumstance or even final liberation.

The Bardo Thodol is a fascinating window into a much misunderstood tradition of Buddhism.  Much of the text is gripping and colorful.  Unfortunately, it will be rather puzzling to anyone without a fairly good background in Buddhism and particularly Vajrayana Buddhism.   

The Refutation of the Self in Indian Buddhism: Candrakīrti on the Selflessness of Persons / James Duerlinger -- London: Routledge, 2013

Below is a review that was published in Confluence: Online Journal of World Philosophies, Vol. 2, 2015.  The journal "is a bi-annual, peer-reviewed, international journal dedicated to comparative thought.  It seeks to explore common spaces and differences between philosophical traditions in a global context."  to subscribe to the journal, visit its website at http://www.verlag-alber.de/e-journals/confluence/.  

During the lifetime of the Buddha and in subsequent centuries, the philosophical traditions of India commonly accepted the existence of an eternal, substantive self (ātman). Among Buddhism’s most novel and noteworthy tenets was the rejection of this view and the acceptance of the doctrine of selflessness or the non-existence of the self (anātman). The non-existence of the self was, however, controversial even among Buddhists, due in part to the Buddha’s conflicting comments on the question and to the Buddha’s use of personal pronouns.  This led some to believe that he endorsed the existence of the self. As a consequence, various schools interpreted the doctrine in various ways. Several schools, particularly the Vātsīputrīyas and the Sammitīyas, maintained that some sort of “inexpressible person” (pudgala) must exist in order to make sense of personal continuity and rebirth and that this inexpressible person did not contradict the non-existence of the self. These schools became collectively known as Pudgalavādins. Other schools, particularly the Sarvāstivādins and the Sautrāntikas, maintained that the self was a conceptual fiction, constructed out of more fundamental elements called “dharmas.” Still another school, the Madhyamakas, considered the self, along with all objects, to be without independent existence. The Madhyamaka view was developed first by the second century philosopher Nāgārjuna and subsequently by other philosophers, including the seventh century philosopher Candrakīrti.

Works written by Buddhist philosophers on the self are well-worth reading for any philosopher outside of the Buddhist tradition as they offer theses that are at times analogous to ones found in the European tradition as well as theses that have no clear analogy. Among the most important works is the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya by Vasubandhu, particularly its ninth chapter, Refutation of the Theory of the Self (Ātmavādapratiṣedha or Pudgalapratiṣedhaprakaraņa). This work presents several important theories of the self. It outlines the view held by the Sarvāstivādins, the Pudgalavādins, and the Sautrāntikas. For the Madhyamaka tradition, one would do well to read Verses on the Fundamentals of the Middle Way (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā) by Nāgāruna and several works by Candrakīrti: Clear Words (Prasannapadā), Introduction to the Middle Way (Madhyamakāvatāra), and his Autocommentary on the Introduction to the Middle Way (Madhyamakāvatārabhāṣya). None of these are easy reading for anyone not steeped in the concepts and terminology of the Buddhist tradition. Happily, James Duerlinger has provided us with two mostly clear and insightful guides to much of this literature.

The first work is his 2003 book, Indian Buddhist Theories of Persons: Vasubandhu’s “Refutation of the Theory of the Self” which provides us with a translation of Vasubandhu’s Refutation of the Theory of the Self.¹ The second is his 2013 book, The Refutation of the Self in Indian Buddhism: Candrakīrti on the Selflessness of Persons which provides us with a translation of verses 120-165 of Candrakīrti’s Autocommentary on the Introduction to the Middle Way. A full review of Duerlinger’s 2003 work is beyond the scope of this review, but readers would be well served to read at least the introduction to the 2003 work. This will give the reader a background that will make reading Duerlinger’s 2013 work more meaningful.

The Refutation of the Self in Indian Buddhism is composed of three parts. The first part is a general introduction to the root text and an overview of the issues that it addresses (pp. 1-54). The second is the translation of the root text (pp. 55-89). The third is Duerlinger’s own verse-by-verse commentary on the root text (pp. 90-194). In the introduction, Duerlinger describes and explains the views that Candrakīrti attributes to a several Buddhist schools: the Sāṃmitīyas, the Āryasāṃmitīyas, the Sarvāstivādins, and the Sautrāntikas, as well as the non-Buddhist Tīrthikas. Duerlinger also provides a relatively clear expression of Candrakīrti’s criticisms of these views as found in Candrakīrti’s Clear Words, Introduction to the Middle Way, and his Autocommentary on the Introduction to the Middle Way. The introduction is composed of four sections. The first section distinguishes Duerlinger’s translation and commentary from the existing English translations and commentaries. The second places Candrakīrti’s Autocommentary in the context of the Mahāyāna and Madhyamaka traditions and explains the ten stages of the Bodhisattva path of meditation and its fruit as Candrakīrti understands it from the Sūtra on the Ten Stages (Daśabhūmika Sūtra). The third presents valuable explanations of several critical terms used by Candrakīrti, and the fourth section relates Candrakīrti’s theory of persons to other Indian Buddhist theories.

The second part of the work, the translation of the root text, is informed by what is perhaps the most important contribution that Duerlinger makes toward understanding Candrakīrti’s arguments: the distinction between a self “with person-properties” and a self “without person-properties.” By selves “with person-properties,” Duerlinger means beings that possess minds and bodies, perceive, think, feel, act, etc. When English speakers use the term “self” (and personal pronouns), we commonly refer to beings with such properties. This is most evident in our use of the reflexive pronouns “myself,” “yourself,” “himself,” “herself,” “ourselves,” “yourselves,” and “themselves.” In each case, we refer to beings that have person-properties. Even in the case of “itself,” we commonly use the term to refer to beings with person-properties, e.g., “the mouse trapped itself in the box.” The neuter pronoun merely elides our ignorance of the mouse’s sex. There are, however, some instances when we use “itself” (and even “themselves”) to refer to objects without person-properties, e.g., “the building collapsed on itself” or “the bean stalks entwined themselves around the poles.” In these instances, we appear to suggest a degree of agency (a feature of personhood) that on more careful analysis we would reject. So while it is not always true, on the whole our use of “self” refers to beings with person-properties.

The use of the term “atman” to refer to persons is less consistent in Buddhist texts. The world “ātman” is normally translated as “self,” but it ambiguously refers to beings with person-properties and objects without person-properties. According to Duerlinger, by carefully attending to the ambiguities in the Buddhist texts and marking them with his person-property terminology, we can better understand the arguments made by Candrakīrti. Duerlinger writes, “The distinction [between selves with and without person-properties] is not to my knowledge explicitly drawn by Candrakīrti and his Madhyamaka (Middle Way) followers,” but he goes on to write, “The distinction is needed to explain why he [Candrakīrti] represents his fellow Buddhists as asserting the thesis that a self exists by itself when they deny that a self exists by itself” (p. 4). Perhaps it is because Duerlinger does not find explicit evidence for his person-property terminology that he does not us the terminology in his translation of the root text, but it helpfully appears in both his introduction to the root text and in his commentary on the root text.

The third part of the work is Duerlinger’s verse-by-verse commentary on Candrakīrti’s Autocommentary. It is based on seven Tibetan commentaries written in the Madhyamaka tradition, six of which are from English translations. Among the value-added features of Duerlinger’s commentary are quotations from Candrakīrti’s Clear Words, his commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Verses on the Fundamentals of the Middle Way. These quotations provide additional helpful perspective on Candrakīrti’s views.

To delineate the various Buddhist views of the self as Duerlinger believes Candrakīrti understands them, we should start by describing a view of the self held by the non-Buddhist Tīrthika school. This is the most robust view of the self considered by Candrakīrti. We can compare it to something like (but only something like) a Cartesian substantive self. It is an eternally existing mind that is temporarily associated with a particular body. This is in contrast to the Buddhist view that sees the self as identical to or at least dependent upon the body. Perhaps the simplest version of this contrasting view is held by the Sarvāstivādins and the Sautrāntikas. They maintained that the self is identical to the aggregates (skandhas), i.e., collections of elementary “dharmas” which we might recognize as (i) physical atoms, (ii) sensations, (iii) perceptions, (iv) volitional actions and external forces that condition our circumstances, and (v) consciousness. The classic explanation of this view appears in the Questions of Milinda (Milindapañha), written in the first century. In this text, Nāgasena explains to King Malinda that the self is like a chariot, composed of parts, and while one might say that each part exists, the chariot only exists dependently upon the parts; hence, its ontological status is different than the ontological status of the parts. The chariot does not exist in the strictest sense. The word “chariot” is only a convenient way to refer to the collection of parts that alone exist. Similarly, the word “I” is merely a convenient way to refer to the collection of parts or “aggregates” which make up the self.

David Hume comes closest to holding this particular view of the self. For Hume, personal identity is a bundle of overlapping impressions and ideas. Hume would not agree with the Buddhist enumeration of the aggregates (the strands that make up the bundle that is the self), but the important point is that the self is a composition of elementary parts and does not have an independent existence. The Sarvāstivādins differed from the Sautrāntikas on a number of points, but most importantly the former maintained the existence of the past, present, and future, while the latter only accepted that the present exists. In other words, the Sarvāstivādins accepted a kind of duration of the dharmas that the Sautrāntikas rejected. At the same time, the Sautrāntikas accepted the spatial extension of the bodily dharmas while the Sarvāstivādins held that they were infinitely divisible. Importantly, they agreed that the self was identical to the aggregates and that a self with person-properties did not exist independently of those aggregates.

In contrast, the Pudgalavādins held a view that lay precariously between the Tīrthika view and the Sarvāstivādin-Sautrāntikan view. For the Pudgalavādins the self was dependent upon the aggregates. In this respect it was like the Sarvāstivādin-Sautrāntikan self; however, the Pudgalavādin self did possess person-properties. This latter feature made the Pudgalavādin self similar to the Tīrthika self, but as distinct from the Tīrthikas, Pudgalavādins did not maintain that the self was eternal. It could, though, transmigrate from body to body in rebirth. That the Pudgalavādin self was dependent upon the aggregates, but at the same time possessed person-properties while the aggregates did not, meant that the self and the aggregates were neither the same nor different from each other. The Pudgalavādin self was, in this way, “inexpressible.” Perhaps the closest Western notion to the Pudgalavādin view is that of a form of supervenience. The self is dependent upon the aggregates, but does have the same ontological status as the aggregates. It is not substantive as is a Cartesian or Tīrthikan self; yet, it does possess a mind and body and has the capacity to perceive, think, feel, act, etc. It is no wonder that orthodox Buddhists greeted this view with extreme skepticism.

Candrakīrti rejected all of these views and carried to completion the refutation of the self begun by the Buddhist tradition. His refutation relied on a distinction that all of the previous schools of Buddhism accepted but did not make the most of. Each school recognized two forms of truth: conventional (saṃvṛtisatya) and ultimate (paramārthasatya). By asserting that the self is a collection of aggregates and that reference to the self was a short hand for referring to the aggregates, Buddhists were able to maintain that the existence of the self was of a different order than the existence of the aggregates. That is, the self existed conventionally, while what ultimately existed were the aggregates or the elementary dharmas that composed the aggregates. This allowed Buddhists to maintain that it was conventionally true that the self “existed,” while at the same time maintaining that it was not ultimately true. When the Buddha spoke of the self or made use of personal pronouns, he was asserting facts that were merely conventionally true. Both the Pudgalavādins and the Sarvāstivādin-Sautrāntikan made use of this distinction and both accepted that the aggregates – or more precisely, the dharmas – had an ultimate existence.

It is this last claim that Candrakīrti and the Madhyamikas rejected. Their critical premise was that all things with which we are normally acquainted arise dependently. That is, their existence relies on the existence of other things. This includes even the dharmas, the elemental building blocks of the aggregates. In light of this, the self had no ultimate basis at all. All things, including the self, neither existed (independently) nor did not exist. Instead, they maintained what provisionally might be thought of as a third ontological status between existence and non-existence known as “emptiness” (śūnyatā). One might see this as similar to the Pudgalavādin claim that the self was neither the same as nor different from the aggregates, but the similarity is only superficial. The Pudgalavādins located the “inexpressible self” within the conventional realm, while accepting the ultimate reality of the aggregates. Consequently, the self had a basis in the ultimate realm. Against this, the Madhyamikas drew the conventional-ultimate distinction not between the self and its component parts, but between all experience and a transcendent realm accessible only to the enlightened. The illusion of the self as ultimate or as being composed of ultimate elements was what anchored us in samsāra – this delusional world of suffering. Candrakīrti and the Madhyamikas were thus able to acknowledge the purely conventional existence of the self while completely purging it of any ultimate reality. This, more than any other Buddhist theory of the self, was able to interpret the doctrine of anātman in its most rigorous form, while making sense of our (and the Buddha’s) use of personal pronouns.

Relying solely on Buddhism’s root texts upon which these distinctions are based makes for difficult study. Consequently, commentaries and other secondary literature are of great value. James Duerlinger’s The Refutation of the Self in Indian Buddhism along with his early work Indian Buddhist Theories of Persons stand among the most helpful aids to understanding the critical and intriguing Buddhist doctrines of the self.

1.  Duerlinger, J. Indian Buddhist Theories of Persons: Vasubandhu’s “Refutation of the Theory of the Self,” (London: Routledge, 2003).

The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness / Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche -- N.Y.: Harmony Books, 2007

In 2002, Yongey Mingyur was among a small number of Buddhist monks who came to the University of Wisconsin to become the subjects of a psychological study of long-term meditation adepts.  This study was among the groundbreaking research that has made the interaction between Western psychology and Buddhism so fruitful in recent years.  Subsequently, Yongey Mingyur has written a number of books on Buddhism, particularly Buddhist meditation.  The Joy of Living is among these books.

The Joy of Living is an endearing combination of personal stories, advice on meditation, Buddhist doctrine, and explanations of scientific discoveries that are important to the Buddhist worldview.  For example, Yongey Mingyur describes how neuroplasticity is related to the Buddhist practice of training one's mind and he lays out the similarities between contemporary theories in physics and the Buddhist conceptions of impermanence and emptiness.

Most significant, however, is his advice on meditation.  In a nut shell, Yongey Migyur demystifies meditation, explaining that it is not something that requires great effort.  Instead, one can begin a meditation practice simply by taking the time to passively observe the feelings, experiences, and thoughts that come to one's mind.  Furthermore, meditation need not involve retiring to a quiet secluded place, but can be done anywhere and for even very short periods of time.  Distractions that are normally thought to be impediments to meditation are, for Yongey Mingyur, simply objects upon which one might meditate.

One suspects, however, that this description of meditation is merely preliminary to a more advanced practice.  Beginning by observing one's feelings, experiences, and thoughts certainly allows one to distance oneself from the activity of "the monkey brain" that normally drives us from one mental phenomenon to the next.  With that distance, one is then in a position to control (or at least nuance) one's mental phenomena and bend it toward the non-attachment that characterizes enlightenment.  Yongey Mingyur's preliminary practice is certainly a necessary step toward the more advance, practice that is less casual what he encourages.

Most of all, Yongey Mingyur's literary style is conversation and extremely accessible, even while he explains extremely difficult ideas in Buddhist doctrine.

Yoga and the Quest for the True Self / Stephen Cope -- N.Y.: Bantam Books, 1999

Stephen Cope's book Yoga and the Quest for the True Self is a combination of memoir and an account of Cope's understanding of the essence of yoga, particularly the form of yoga that he experienced in his ten-year residence at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.  The result is an idiosyncratic interpretation of yoga, shaped by Cope's history as a psychotherapist.  On the whole, the work is well-written, presenting composites of characters from his years as a therapist and yoga practitioner. 

Cope decided to take up residence at the Kripalu Center for a one year "sabbatical" shortly after his partner of fifteen years left him for a very much younger man.  It appears his own motivation was less spiritual and more psychotherapeutic.  Consequently, it is no surprise that he interprets yogic practice (his own and others) as a means to deal with personal psychological turmoil.  It is only at the end of the book that he gives any indication that the "true self" for which he is searching is without the empirical characteristics that are the objects of psychotherapy.

Much of the book describes various residents and visitors at the Kripalu Center and the psychological motives behind their yogic practice.  Cope at least initially presents yoga to be the effort to recall the self from exile and create a "royal road home."  Search for the "true self" often means coming to terms with unconscious motivations and psychic states that make one's life painful, unfulfilling, inauthentic, or simply lacking in some respect.  Among the insights that Cope finds helpful is that one's mind and body are importantly connected.  The practice of yoga allowed Cope to understand that his false constructions of his identity were reflected in how he experienced his body.  He often makes much of how yoga practitioners will find a pain or tension in some specific part of the body and draw the conclusion that it is there because of some mental or psychological unease.  Undoubtedly, there are connections between ones mental states and physical states, but the connections that Cope often asserts seem highly speculative.

Cope admirably recognizes that one should approach claims made by yogis with not only an open mind, but also with a skeptical mind, and true to a pragmatic approach to psychotherapy (and spiritual liberation), whatever succeeds for the practitioner/patient should not be denigrated; however, for anyone steeped in 20th century scientific realism or pretty much any moderately exacting criterion for the justification of beliefs, much of what is "successful" seems a bit like so much snake oil.  It's great if a placebo works, but if it involves accepting unfalsifiable claims about the empirical world, it's hard not to listen to one's skeptic mind.

Toward the end of the book, Cope provides an account of a crisis within the Kripalu Center, when the Center's spiritual leader is discovered to have been having sexual relations with some of its residents.  Cope's account of the explosive anger among the residents indicates that the submissive guru-follower relationship that often characterizes spiritual seekers could not contain the individualist, egalitarian, and free-thinking attitudes among the Center's residents and visitors.

By the end of the book, Cope comes to resolve for himself a question that he raises throughout the book.  In the face of the trials and tribulation of the world, how can the assertion by his guru that "everything is OK" be correct.  The answer comes from Cope's realization that his true self is not the empirical self that experiences trials and tribulations. It is an eternal self that embraces all the universe, or at least all consciousness.  He writes, "For several sublime moments, the boundaries that separated us [Cohen and his friends], our complicated personalities, our struggles, our tragedies, all receded into the stillness of Lake Mahkeenac.  We were together on the ladder, in the meditation hall, on the mountaintop.  We were young.  We were old.  We were successful.  We were failures.  We were at the end of our lives.  We were at the beginning of our lives. And everything was absolutely OK....In the shimmering stillness, the world of space and time became transparent, revealing a hidden world in which we were all parts of one another."  It is this identification with a transcendental self that is different from, or at least indifferent to, the self that suffers the trials and tribulation of the empirical world that offers spiritual liberation and one is pleased that Cope appears to have reached beyond his fixation with psychotherapy to understand this.

Yoga and Quest for the True Self concludes with an informative appendix on the "metaphysics of yoga" which describes a number of important ideas in various schools of the Indian philosophical tradition.  Many of these ideas are divergent, even contradictory.  Consequently, Cohen calls it a "stew."  According to Cohen, the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health synthesizes many of the elements of the stew.  He notes, however, that it is heavily influenced by the nondualism of the Vedanta and Tantric traditions, the eight-limbed path of Patanjali, and hatha yoga techniques, a raja yoga context.  Most of all, Cohen is impressed with the idea of the "sacredness of the moment."

In all, Yoga and Quest for the Ture Self is a worthwhile account of one man's experience with yoga, but the reader will need to have a high tolerance for reading about the psychological trials of Cohen's characters, not all of whom are well enough drawn to earn one's sympathy and sustain one's interest.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion / Jonathan Haidt -- N.Y.: Pantheon Books, 2012

There is an extremely good motive behind Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind, i.e., a desire to get people of good will, both conservative and liberal, to see past their own moral perspectives and take one another seriously.  To do so, one needs first of all to see one’s moral perspective as being in some sense subjective and also to assume the legitimacy of the perspective of those with whom one disagrees.  In short, Haidt is calling on us to exercise a little humility and charity when it comes to moral debates.  His main approach for inculcating these virtues is to connect our moral thinking to emotions that are generated by a set of pre-established values.  By examining the moral psychology of liberals and conservatives, he hopes that we will be able to recognize the causes of our differing moral attitudes and find a vocabulary that will allow us to disagree constructively.

The central metaphor for Haidt's moral psychology is that of someone riding an elephant.  The rider is the reasoning/rational aspect of a person, while the elephant is the emotive aspect.  By and large, the elephant goes where it wants to go and the rider provides an after-the-fact justification of the elephant's actions.  At best, the rider can inflect the elephant's movement.  For Haidt, emotions are doing the main work in moral behavior.  Against this, view he poses "rationalist philosophers" or often simply "philosophers."  Setting aside his view of moral psychology, his critique of his alleged opponents is quite misguided.  His mistakes comes from thinking that normative philosophical theories are moral psychological theories.  I'll say more about this later.

The most intersting aspect of his work is his analysis of the sets of values he finds in liberals, conservatives, and libertarians.  According to Haidt, the values of each are based on six "foundations:"  care/harm, liberty/oppression, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation; but the importance of these foundations (or values) is different for the different political groups.  Again, according to Haidt, the moral judgments of liberals are dominated by care/harm, liberty/oppression, and fairness/cheating (in that order of importance.)  The moral judgments of libertarians overwhelmingly dominated by liberty/oppression with some influence coming from fairness/cheating.  The moral judgments of social conservatives are, however, motivated equally by all six of the moral foundations. 

These conclusions are by no means surprising, but on first glance, one might question how Haidt has quantified his results.  By looking at the copious references to psychological studies and the number of surveys available on Haidt's website, yourmorals.org, one can be reasonably convinced that his work on this score is of high quality.  One might object, however, to an overly general assessment of the regulating relationship between emotion and reason.  While it is true that much that goes by the name "reason" is in fact rationalization, reason nonetheless has a role in moral judgments -- a role that might differ among different people.  Some of us drive elephants while others of us drive horses;  Some of us are assertive drivers while others are passive.  Haidt glosses over these distinctions between the varying strengths of emotion and reason among individuals in a population.

It is important to make these distinctions as without them, one is left without an ability to evaluate moral judgments.  If we are stuck with pre-established values which drive us in spite of reason, it becomes impossible to constructively discuss moral differences.  Our moral conclusions are no more amenable to review and change than our culinary tastes.  That Haidt largely overlooks the significance of applying reason to moral decision making turns his work, at best, into a recommendation to apologists on how to address and persuade people with different moral perspectives and not an appeal to see past one's own initial moral perspective and to seriously entertain reaching more valid conclusions about moral questions.  Haidt needs to put aside deterministic psychology and take seriously the moral questions we face.  His antipathy to and misunderstanding of normative philosophy makes it unlikely that he will ever do that.

On Desire: Why We Want What We Want / William B. Irvine -- Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006

In the introduction to his book On Desire, William Irvine writes, "My goal in investigating desire was to turn it inside out -- to understand how and why desires arise, how they affect our lives, and what we can do to master them."  This goal is (or these goals are) certainly worthy, and Irvine does deliver in many respects; however, he begins with too many conceptual confusions to make the work entirely satisfying.

Early on, Irvine asserts that "we are awash in desire at virtually every waking moment."  Some of these are "terminal" and others are "instrumental."  If this is true, then Irvine's definition of desire is so weak as to be nearly useless.  Later, he backs off of this claim to some extent, but it nonetheless haunts his work to the end.  What is missing here is any serious consideration of behavior that is habitual or proceeding from efficient causes.  This is particularly true in his treatment of instrumental desires.  Desiring a meal (a terminal desire) an agent will experience a sequence of instrumental desires, e.g., desiring one's car keys, desiring to open the car door, desiring drive to the restaurant, to find a parking place, to get a table, etc.  While one might categorize these as desires, one might also treat them simple as actions that unfold from a prior decision to go to the restaurant.  The ad absurdum analysis would posit a separate desire for each foot step along the way.  Irvine also fails to examine the distinction between actions and non-actions.  Do I desire to continue sitting in my chair or am I simply still sitting in it?  The answer is probably different in different circumstances, e.g., sitting while the "yeas" are counted in a parliamentary vote vs. sitting in the waiting room of a bus terminal. 

Irvine distinguishes between desires that are born of emotions and those born of the intellect.  The former is particularly effective in establishing terminal desires, while the latter is effective in establishing instrumental desires, but the correlation is not perfect. Acording to Irvine, the intellect can create a terminal desire to "click one's tongue." Such terminal desires are, of course, rare and weak in comparison to emotional desires.  According to Irvine, his treatment of desires follows from most of what Hume says about the sources of our motivations.  I suspect this is incorrect.  Hume famously wrote that reason is the slave to passion.  Reason is able to assess truth and falsity, but action is generated by passion. 

Setting aside whether or not Irvine is correct about Hume, his treatment of the intellect and its power to act deserves a much fuller explanation.  In some instances, "intellect" amounts to the ability to comprehend language, but it is hard to separate such a fundamental ability from other fundamental abilities, e.g., simple sense perception.  Is understanding that certain sounds have a meaning much different than understanding that certain other sense perceptions have a significance?  If not, then is it an excercise of the intellect to understand that the colors and shapes appearing before me are a tree?  And to what extent are simple sense perceptions components of our emotional states?  If perceptions are implicated in emotions, then it would appear that the boundaries between the intellect and emotion are blurred and they may not bear the distinction that Irvine purports. 

Irvine would have done better to avoid the emotion-intellect distinction and examine instead the passion-reason distinction that is made by Kant.  It is noteworthy that he makes no mention of Kant at all.  If he had, his treatment of desires and mental faculties likely would be more insightful and engaging.  As it is, his treatment relies too heavily on a naive hedonism, dressed up in a not terribly useful discussion of what he calls a "biological incentive system."  Irvine points out that we are born with and presumably naturally develop specific likes and dislikes that have served our survival over evolutionary time.  This seems true enough, but he offers no persuasive account as to how we might overturn or even resist these natural tendencies.  Having such an account is critical to the final chapters of his work which seek to explain how people have learned to "master" their emotions.

Irvine's last six chapters (out of thirteen) explore "dealing with our desires."  He examines the advice and practices of Buddhists, mainstream Christians, the Amish, Hutterites, and Shakers; Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics; as well as people he calls "eccentrics."  In each instance, the practices amount to "mastering" our desires, but again, Irvine does not explain the psychological basis upon which this is made possible, beyond noting that our desires do not preclude our freedom.  Of course, presenting an account of freedom would expand the work considerably, but it is nonetheless central to the questions he seeks to answer.  At very least, a more detailed treatment of the ecology of desires as they fit into the various (sometimes conflicting) long and short-term projects which each of us have probably would be consistent with Irvine's overall approach and would deepen his treatment of the questions at hand.

Exploring the Yogasutra: Philosophy and Translation / Daniel Raveh -- London: Continuum, 2012

Exploring the Yogasutra is not for the novice.  Daniel Raveh's exploration mainly addresses the psychology and epistemology underlying Pantanjali's Yogasutra; but he also discusses the difficulties of translation, particularly translating an ancient text in a dead language of a foreign culture into a modern idiom.  One can hardly expect that the original meanings of the words will be replicated simply and concisely in a modern language; however, one might hope that if the ideas under discussion are eternal and universal truths that any relatively well-developed language would provide some way of expressing those ideas.  Since there clearly are difficulties in translating the Yogasutra, one is led to conclude either that it does not reach what is eternal and universal in human experience or that our manner of understanding human experience is variable and requires a more or less significant reframing of how we understand experience.  Anyone remotely sympathetic to comparative religion will opt for the latter explanation and seek help in reframing experience.  Raveh's book attempts to illuminate the assumptions about the structure of mind that are required for this reframing in order to appreciate yogic processes and yogic knowledge.

The most significant assumption is that mental activity is associated with two concepts: prakriti and purusa.  Raveh defines prakriti as "the manifest and nonmanifest dimensions of the world and worldly existence."  In contrast, purusa is the metaphysical core of the self.  Typically, Western psychology would associate mental activity with the latter and see the former as the external cause of mental phenomena; however, the Yogasutra and likely the entire yogic tradition, understands mental activity to be part of, or operating within, prakriti.  Consequently, a higher yogic truth (or "truth-bearing yogic insight") can only be revealed when the yogi brings about a cessation of mental activity. 

Raveh makes an important contribution to the epistemology of yoga when he compares two sutras of the Yogasutra.  His observation helps us understand the nature of yogic knowledge that is made possible when mental activity ceases.  Raveh translates Yoga Sutra 1.7 as "valid knowledge is based on sense perception, inference and reliable testimony."  Here, Raveh notes that "valid knowledge" is based on mental activity that lies within prakriti.  It is conventional knowledge.  He then translates Yoga Sutra 1.49 as "(ritam-bhara prajna or truth-bearing yogic insight) is essentially different from knowledge based on reliable testimony and inference as it touches on particulars."  Notably, truth-bearing yogic insight is not said to be essentially different from sense perception.  Raveh concludes that truth-bearing yogic insight is like sense perception as they both "touch on particulars," but it is different in that it does not operate within the realm of prakriti.  Together, these two sutras provide us with an understanding of the form of knowledge that the yogi seeks: a direct perception of particulars that are not of the manifest or nonmanifest dimensions of the world or worldly existence.

To achieve yogic knowledge, Pantanjali recommends a path composed of "eight limbs."  The eight limbs are yama (ethical restraints), niyama (personal discipline), asana (yogic postures), pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (withdrawal from the sense world), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation), and samadhi (total meditative absorption).  According to Pantanjali, by following this path -- particularly by practicing the final three stages of meditation -- the yogi can achieve a final and irreversible escape from the delusion and suffering that is this world. 

The final chapter of Exploring the Yogasutra is not written by Raveh, but by Daya Krishna (1924-2007), author of Indian Philosophy: A Counter Perspective.  Raveh is deeply impressed with Daya Krishna's treatment of Pantanjali's Yogasutra.  It is Daya Krishna's approach to the Yogasutra which motivates Raveh's work.  The most important insight that Daya Krishna provides is that samadhi cannot be the ultimate goal of the yogi.  Samadhi is commonly understood as an ultimate, unworldly state that is irreversible.  Following Daya Krishna, Raveh points out that entering a state in which one cannot return is a limitation on the freedom of the yogi, and that perfect freedom requires that the yogi be capable of both entering and returning from samadhi (or the meditative state that is samadhi, save its irreversibility.)

This view prompts two observations, the first of which Raveh does not seem to take seriously.  First, samadhi should be understood as a meditative state which cannot be achieved perfectly in practice; second, the motivation to return from samadhi appears to be similar to the motivations of the Buddhist bodhisattva.  The first two states of meditation, dharana and dhyana, clearly seem to admit of degrees of achievement.  One can concentrate on external objects more or less effectively and one can more or less focus on one's mental processes.  If one accepts that samadhi is a state in which one becomes more or less unaware of the distinction between the subject and the object of meditation, then irreversible samadhi is merely the limit that the yogi may approach, but not fully achieve, in the final stage of  meditation (samadhi).  On this account, samadhi is both an irreversible state that one does not achieve and a meditative state beyond dhyana that yogis can experience.  The goal remains irreversible samadhi or total meditative absorption, but pursuing this goal does not preclude the return of actual yogis from the state of samadhi.

The second obvious observation is that Daya Krishna (and Raveh) appear to be reprising the reformation that took place in the Buddhist tradition when Mahayana Buddhism broke from Buddhism's early form.  The yogi who exercises freedom by returning from the state of samadhi is like the bodhisattva, who renounces perfect enlightenment to bring salvation to all sentient beings.  Raveh recognizes that the Yogasutra stands as evidence that Patanjali himself must have recognized the value of returning to enlighten others.  The Yogasutra is, after all, a guidebook to yogic knowledge.

Exploring the Yogasutra is not easy reading.  This is due mostly to Raveh's frequent use of Sanskrit terms without providing the necessary context for understanding them.  It is a curious feature in that Raveh is acutely aware of the difficulties in translation.  It is almost as though he is writing for an extremely erudite audience or he has simply given up on the difficult work of translation.  Perhaps a little of both is true.

Finally, Raveh provide us with a highly readable translation of the Yogasutra, presented without interpolated commentary.  Despite its textual difficulties, Exploring the Yogasutra is a work well worth reading.

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains / Nicholas Carr -- a second look

I don't normally read books twice.  There simply are too many unread books worth reading to return to one I have already read, especially now that I am recording my thoughts about the books I read here on this blog.  I did, however, happily agree to re-read Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows when it was proposed by a member of my book club.  I was curious to see if I would take away something new from it on a second reading.  I suspect not, but my original review by no means covered all of the interesting ideas in this insightful work.  You can read my original review by searching on "Shallows" on this blog.  What stands out for me on this second reading is what Carr writes about the formation of memory and the relationship that is developing between people and our machines. 

In my earlier review, I wrote about Carr's observation that the constant distractions that are presented on the internet are having a detrimental effect on our abilities to transfer working memories into long-term memories.  What I did not emphasize, but what is of great significance is the consequences that this has for our abilities to understand the world.  A broad and deep understanding of the world is only formulated when a wide variety of experiences are assembled in a coherent set of relationships that generate practical theories about future experience.  We need not be conscious of these theories, but they are necessary to navigate the world.  For most purposes, our daily, routine experiences are sufficient to allows us to navigate the day, but understanding more subtle relationships among phenomena and their significance requires more careful reflection.  It requires the patient, probing, and in depth examination of experience which cannot be accomplished without stable, long-term memories as fodder for thought.  If Carr's thesis is true, that the internet impedes the development of stable memories, then it must also be true that it impedes the development of a broad and deep understanding of the world.  Over exposure to the internet would have the consequence of making us shallow and superficial.

It is an extremely provocative conclusion, though Carr does not quantify the extent to which the internet has this dulling effect.  One could dismiss the concern by asserting that our capacities to understand the world in a deep and meaningful way are only marginally diminished by the internet and that the intellectual capacities that the internet fosters more than make up for the loss; however, our ability to objectively reach this conclusion after long exposure to the internet would be undermined if the thesis is true.  Moreover, a simple addiction to the glamour of the internet would also prejudice one's assessment.  Having spent countless work hours connected to the internet and countless off-work hours reading, I am inclined argue that I feel significantly more "human" after a three hour stretch of reading as opposed to a three hour stretch of work on the internet and I suspect this is due to the fact that the activities involved in finding meaning in the world are of a much higher intellectual, indeed spiritual, order than the activities involved in the kind of rapid and ever-changing information observation that comes with working on the internet.

A second and more stunning observation that came out of my second reading of The Shallows is Carr's observation that as our cognitive capacities are changed by the internet, they are changed in a manner that makes us more like the digital tools that we are using.  Computers access and process information, storing it in a manner that makes it entirely inaccessible until specifically recalled in another processing event.  Without the growing store of long-term memories produced by thoughtful reflection, our mental activity becomes more like this information processing, affected only by the immediate inputs of the present cognitive transaction and unaffected by a repository of long-term memories connected in a sophisticated worldview.  Certainly our minds must work in the context of some sort of worldview, but in comparison to a pre-internet world view, it is impoverished.  What stands out about our mental activity is the immediate information transaction and as we are increasingly communicating (receiving and sending) information on the internet in social networks, we are becoming very sophisticated chips arranged in a network.  The only question is, for whose benefit is the network doing its computing?

Certainly, these observations stretch Carr's concerns beyond what one might reasonably have, but there is little doubt that the concerns are significant lead us in the right direction in thinking about the internet and its affect on our selves and society.

Demian / Hermann Hesse -- W.J. Strachan, trans. -- London: Panther, 1971.

Nearly 40 years ago, I read Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf.  It was a profound experience.  I immediately ranked it as one of the most intriguing and insightful books I had ever read. It is curious, then, that I read nothing else by him until just this month.  Part of the explanation certainly must be the ocassional disparaging comments that friends have made  about Hesse's novels.  "Adolescent" is a frequent epithet.  Still, I was curious enough about what might have attracted me to his work lo, those many years ago that I picked up Demian and read it on a transcontinental flight home. 

No doubt, there is something adolescent about Demian and appropriately so as it mostly chronicles the coming of age of a young boy.  Hesse masterfully depicts the anxiety of childhood moral dilemmas and the adventure of learning about the world beyond one's nuclear family.  If there is a weakness in Demian it is that it seems to take its metaphysics and metaethics a little too seriously.  The main character in the novel slowly enters a subculture of people who believe themselves to be the early adherents of a new religion, worshiping the god "Abraxas," who encompasses both the good of the Christian god and the evil of the Devil.  Along the way, the reader is treated to a spread of vaguely Jungian psychology and Nietzschean philosophy. 

For anyone sympathetic to these views, Demian must be a literary treat, but without such sympathies, it is notably dated.  Setting aside what seems to be the author's own sympathies for the psychological and philosophical backdrop, the description of the protagonist's excitement over his induction into an esoteric world is brilliant.  Anyone thoughtful enough to question the worldview of one's childhood and to seek a deeper understand of reality in the course of growing up will recognize the enchanting allure of entertaining and exploring mysterious, new philosophical ideas.  I suspect it is exactly this that attracted me to Hesse's work so long ago.

Perhaps the most grounding aspect of the novel is the sudden intrusion of war into the lives of its characters.  It is as if Hesse acknowledges that the religious and philosophical preoccupations of his characters are a small and private matter in comparison to the enormous currents at work in the world.  At the same time, one is left with the impression that the great currents of history are merely unavoidable interruptions in the spiritual and progress of the individual characters.  It is well worth reflecting on the contradiction.

Imagine: How Creativity Works / Jonah Lehrer -- Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012

Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer is an entertaining, though, rudimentary introduction to the psychological and sociological dimensions of creativity. It leaves one with more questions than answers. Furthermore, the answers it provides are not especially Earth shaking and the questions it raises are largely due to a superficial treatment of the topic.

The most significant shortcoming is Lehrer's failure to give a clear definition of creativity. While he occasionally writes about artistic creativity, most of the book focuses on problem solving in the high-tech industry. This is perhaps unsurprising in that Lehrer is first of all a contributing editor at Wired magazine. Not only are his central cases of creativity peculiar, Lehrer gives us no sense of the scope of problem solving. Some problems stand out for us and require significant time and energy to solve. Others are routine and mundane. For example, how to open an unfamiliar cabinet door might count as a problem to be solved, but the solution might also reveal itself after only a moment's examination. To be fair, one could distinguish degrees of creativity that map to the difficulty of the problem, but complex problems could be broken down into numerous smaller problems. Any of these problems might also be more or less obvious depending upon the background knowledge of the person solving the problem. The point here, is that the concept of problem solving is not as simple as it appears in Lehrer's book. To make problem solving the central case of creativity without exploring these complexities provides us with only a superficial insight into creativity.

The specific claims about problem solving that Lehrer does make are few and sometimes contradictory. Certainly, Lehrer is not unaware of these contradictions, but he provides us with little help in understanding how we can resolve them. For example, his first substantive claim is that creativity (in solving a problem) often comes after one has focused on a problem long enough to conclude that it is unsolvable. Then, after taking one's mind off of the problem and relaxing, one is able to see the problem from a broader perspective and possibly connect seemingly unrelated facts or concepts in manner that provides the necessary insight.

In contrast to this, Lehrer also observes that problems are often solved by sheer, dogged concentration. Instead of a relaxing walk in the woods or taking a warm shower, the problem is solved by taking enough Benzedrine to keep one's mind fixed on the problem. All that a reader can conclude from this is that problems get solved in lots of different ways. This is by no means a surprising revelation.

The more interesting portion of his work comes when he discusses the social context of problem solving. Lehrer observes that many problems are solved by "outsiders," i.e., people who are not steeped in the paradigms of the field that contains the problem. They are sometimes capable of pursuing solutions that an insider would discount as implausible from the start. He also observes that difficult problems are more likely to be solved when numerous people with different backgrounds collaborate in seeking a solution. One is reminded of the commonplace maxim, "two heads are better than one."

Again, Lehrer's observations about society and creativity are not terribly enlightening; however, the final chapter begins to make a bit more of the social elements of creativity. Lehrer points out that different times in history, social circumstances have fostered creativity. His chief example is Elizabethan England. According to Lehrer, the liberal attitude toward theatre productions and the availability of written material in 16th and 17th century England made possible a flowering of excellent dramatic productions, including the work of William Shakespeare. According to Lehrer, Shakespeare's success was in large part due to favorable social conditions, though his genius certainly made him stand out from the numerous other talented playwrights of his time.

This emphasis on the social climate for creativity does not, however, reach far enough. Lehrer overlooks (or at least understates) the role that resources play in problem solving. According to Lehrer, venture capital funding "is widely regarded as one of the best measures of innovation; money chases good ideas." While it may be true that venture capitalists constantly are seeking to invest in good ideas, a more likely relationship is that venture capital, along with a lot of unanticipated and coincidental factors make an idea successful. Without these external circumstances, good ideas are apt to come to nothing. We have no way of tracking all those extremely creative, but unlucky ideas. While so many other factors are involved in the success of an idea, one cannot use success alone as a defining characteristic of a good idea. Because Lehrer overlooks these factors, his book tends to reinforce the cult of the entrepreneur.

Among the best aspects of the Imagine is Lehrer's effort to ground his claims about creativity and problem solving on scientific research. Unfortunately, he does not always provide complete citations for these references. While one could track down some of the original research, it would be difficult to get to all of it. This forces the reader to simply accept Lehrer's judgements about the quality and representativeness of much of the research on which he draws.

All in all Imagine is an easy and often entertaining work, aimed at a popular audience, but for anyone genuinely interested in creativity, it's not a good use of time.

The Happiness Project / Gretchen Rubin -- N.Y.: Harper, 2009

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin is the sort of light reading that you'll find in popular, daily blogs. It fits into the gimmicky genera of "The Year of... books" (the year of eating locally, the year of living Biblically, the year of cooking Julia Child recipes, etc...). Rubin's year consisted in making a "project" of being happier. Rubin chose this project on the belief that being happy is often thought to be the most important goal in life and while she felt she already was happy, becoming happier would not be a bad goal.

Her project divided into committing herself to twelve resolutions, one of which she concentrated on each month of the year. Actually, her twelfth resolution was to fulfill all her previous eleven resolution at once. My initial reaction to the project was somewhat negative: turning being happy into a project seemed rather artificial to me, but there were enough thoughtful passages early in the book to make me think that the book would eventually offer something worthwhile. Furthermore, Rubin anticipated nearly every facile criticism of the book that crossed my mind. She dispensed with them in a rather charming and disarming way, writing something along lines of, "O.K., but if I'm going to be happy, I've got to be myself, so I'm going to do this anyway." Fair enough.

The most serious objection to her work is the superficiality of her concept of happiness. Despite claiming to have read Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, and the Dalai Lama (or some other treatment(s) of Buddhism), her notion of happiness is by and large the temporary psychological state that has its epitome in euphoria. Contrast this with, in particular, Aristotle's concept of happiness (or eudaimonia) which goes well beyond euphoria to involve living a good life. If Rubin truly wants to follow the path recommended by philosophers through the ages, then the happiness that she ought to seek should reach beyond her first-person perceptions of her own emotional state. Certainly, pleasant experiences are likely to be a component of happiness, or a good life, but Rubin seems to think that the highest good is built on these experiences. To be fair, she occasionally recognizes that happiness contains components that are other than euphoria, but the bulk of her book is a compendium of tips on on boosting one's mood. One wonders if Prozac, Paxil, or Ecstacy might be an easier and more effective approach.

Despite this criticism, her mood-enhancing tips are frequently worthwhile and given the success of her blog, they appear to resonate with many blog-readers; some of whom claim to be following her explicit advice and engaging in "happiness projects" of their own. One should not diminish the importance of maintaining a happy state of mind nor deny that it can be cultivated. Rubin reports that her project was successful, and if it leads others to enhance their own happiness, it is all to the good. The danger is that it will feed narcissistic and ego-centric tendencies that are a significant obstacle to the general happiness.

The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption / Clay A. Johnson -- Sebastopol, Cal.: O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2012

Quite a number of books have been published in response to the explosion of digital information and the technology that delivers it. Many of the works are breathless panegyrics. Others are panicky jeremiads. This should come as no surprise. Digital and internet technology has transformed our lives in unexpected ways and promises to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Consequently, assessing the opportunities and dangers is no easy task, making it easy to predict both best case and worst case scenarios for the future.

Clay Johnson's The Information Diet is neither a best nor worst case assessment of our information future. His general disposition is that our social problems can often be addressed by technical solutions and as the founder of Blue State Digital and a former director of the Sunlight Foundation. So one might expect his leanings would be toward panegyrics. Nonetheless, the overall tone of his book is cautionary. Johnson has become concerned that far from solving our social problems, current information and internet technology is filling our information diets with the equivalent of junk food and poses a significant threat to the rational formation of public policy. Johnson is not only concerned about the individual's epistemic health, he is concerned about the effects that widespread "information obesity" is having and will have on society as a whole.

Much of Johnson's work is not particularly ground breaking. His analogy between information and food diets is perhaps the most novel feature of the work. The two critiques that most inform Johnson are by Nicholas Carr and Eli Pariser. Carr argues that the internet has come to be a complex distraction machine, designed to maximize the number of pages that we view. This has grave psychological consequences for our ability to concentrate, engage in deep, thoughtful reading, and remember what it is that we have read. Eli Pariser argues that the personalization of search results on the internet results in your receiving only information with which you agree, doing nothing more than confirming your previously held views. For politics, this means that people of with differing views are becoming more deeply convinced that their views are well-substantiated. Consequently, our ability to carry on reasonable dialogs with those who hold different views from us is declining.

Johnson is clearly sympathetic to Pariser's concerns. His attitudes toward Carr's thesis is, however, more complicated. Johnson writes, "the Internet is not some kind of meta bogey man that's sneaking into Mr. Carr's room while he sleeps and rewiring his brain." He also suggests that there is a "subtext" to Carr's thesis that "there may be some sort of corporate conspiracy to try to...'dumb us down.'" Having read Carr's recent book The Shallows, I am amazed that Johnson would find a conspiracy subtext in it. Furthermore, suggesting that Carr sees the Internet as a "meta bogey man" (whatever that might be) trivializes his arguments.

Johnson's critique of Carr appears to be founded on the power a person's will. He writes, "Blaming a medium or its creators for changing our minds and habits is like blaming food for making us fat." Such a view, "wrongly take[s] free will and choice out of the equation." For Johnson, the problem arises because we choose specific friends in an online social network, we choose to follow specific links, and we choose to spend a specific amount of time "consuming" specific information. Apparently for Johnson, only we are to blame for the changes we experience as we live our lives, more and more, in front of computer screens.

It is strange, though, that the great bulk of Johnson's book describes the powerful influences that the internet has on shaping all of these behaviors. One is left with the sense that Johnson has internalized Carr's criticism, but is unwilling to acknowledge it. To avoid doing so, he constructs a straw argument to attack and appeals to a dubious metaphysical dogma about free will.

His metaphysics does, however, underwrite the practical point of his book: to encourage us to take responsibility for the information we acquire. He writes, "This book's agenda is to help people make more sense of the world around them by encouraging them to tune into things that matter most and to tune out things that make them sick." This is unquestionably a worthy agenda. The amount of trivia that pours out of the internet when you dare to expose yourself to it is breathtaking.

Johnson's recommendations for tuning into the stuff that matters and tuning out the trivia is technological. For example, he recommends various filters and email preference settings that will reduce unwanted information. He recommends software that will show you the amount of time you spend at various kinds of Web sites and techniques for developing your ability to concentrate. All of his suggestions are fine as far as they go, but are hardly likely to achieve great success. The internet is insidious and seductive. Most of all, it is constructed to serve a profit motive which will not succeed unless most people participate in what it is doing to us. When information becomes the lure for commerce, widespread information obesity will naturally follow.

In general, Johnson's The Information Diet underestimates the power of the structural forces driving the internet and overestimates the power of individuals to resist its damaging force. Realistically, we may have only two choices: to embrace the brave new world of the digital information or to create a nearly internet-free counterculture that values face-to-face social interactions over virtual ones and makes limited forays into the virtual world for only specific and limited purposes.

Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World / His Holiness the Dalai Lama -- Boston: Houghton Miflin Harcourt, 2011

In the minds of many, religion and ethics are inextricably tied. The clearest connection of this sort is expressed in the divine command theory of ethics which holds that something is good or right because God has decreed that it is so. Ethics can, however, be tied to religion in a more sociological way. What is good or right is whatever is consistent with a particular religious practice or dogma. Atheists and agnostics have long objected to this way of characterizing ethics on the grounds that many who do not obey "the commands of God" or adhere to a particular religion have as robust a moral sense and can act as completely morally as any religious believer. Ethics on this view can have secular basis. In Beyond Religion the Dalai Lama argues quite persuasively for adopting a secular basis for morality, regardless of one's religious convictions. He presents a basis for morality which while not requiring religious commitment, is not inconsistent with most religious moralities.

For the Dalai Lama, ethics is grounded in human nature. He writes, "Ethics consists less of rules to be obeyed than of principles for inner self-regulation to promote those aspects of our nature which we recognize as conducive to our own well-being and that of others." He recommends that to be moral we should promote our natural dispositions toward compassion and discernment. By compassion, the Dalai Lama means "a motivation of genuine concern for others" and by discernment, he means the ability "to relate to situations in a manner that is in tune with reality." This "enables us to translate our good intentions into good outcomes."

While the first half of Beyond Religion is at pains to set aside any particular religious faith, the second half presents a specifically Buddhist approach to developing within oneself moral dispositions. This not to say that one must dogmatically accept Buddhism to agree with its prescriptions. Instead, the Dalai Lama presents his approach (Buddhist though it is) to the reader on its own terms. Accepting or rejecting the approach is to depend on how reasonable it seems to the reader.

The first step in developing these dispositions is to cultivate heedfulness, mindfulness, and awareness. This involves cautiously attending to one's patterns of thinking, speaking, and acting. The result is that we can eventually gain mastery of ourselves and limit our harmful behaviors. The Dalai Lama goes on to describe practical methods for translating heedfulness, mindfulness, and awareness into self-mastery, particularly in two chapters "Dealing With Destructive Emotions" and "Cultivating Key Inner Values." These chapters are informed not only by the author's deep understanding of Buddhist psychology, but by his interactions with Western psychologists, particularly Paul Ekman with whom he recently authored a book entitled, Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles to Psychological Balance and Compassion (reviewed in the blog.)

In a time when religious believers and those committed to science are often at loggerheads, the Dalai Lama's example of recognizing the merits of both religion and science is important. He has been quoted as saying that if there is anything that is incompatible between Buddhism and modern science, then Buddhism will need to change. At the same time, he emphasizes the practicality of religion. Despite the horrors committed by misguided zealots, "faith is a force for good and can be tremendously beneficial....Religion gives hope and strength to those facing adversity..." and it offers "a vision of a good life which people can strive to emulate."

Beyond Religion is a beautifully written examination of relationships between religion, science, and ethics. It is filled with sage advice and sensitive judgements about contemporary social, political, and ethical issues. Most of all, it is an exquisitely useful handbook for developing one's capacities for compassion and discernment.

The Pursuit of Happiness: An Economy of Well-Being / Carol Graham -- Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2011

Economists have been measuring the gross national product and gross domestic product since the middle of the 20th century. These measures often are thought to indicate the "health" of the economy and moreover the aggregate well-being of the nation's people; however, almost as often, these conclusions have been challenged. In a speech on March 18, 1968, Robert Kennedy, now famously said that the gross national product

counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts...the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

It is surprising, then, that it was only in the last 10-20 years that economists have begun seriously studying an alternative to GNP as a measure of social well-being. In The Pursuit of Happiness, Carol Graham reviews much of this literature and poses important questions as to how and whether happiness research can inform policy debates.

In the second chapter, Graham recognizes the difficulty we face in defining happiness. A number of similar concepts cloud the issue: well-being, satisfaction, contentment, and pleasures of various sorts are among many such concepts, and measuring them involves measuring a number of different factors: health, family, friendships, security, income, freedom, education, expectations, etc. Any of these factors can be complicated by temporary changes in a person's life circumstance. Furthermore, Graham plausibly asserts that individuals have different baseline dispositions toward happiness.

Graham distinguishes two significant forms of happiness recognized in the recent economics literature, hedonism and eudaimonism, roughly labeling them Benthamite and Aristotelian respectively. Labeling the former Benthamite is apt. It refers to simple pleasure or hedonic utility. The latter, while not completely mis-attributed to Aristotle, misses an important aspect of Aristotle's view of happiness. Graham first describes eudaimonia as related to "meaning" or "life evaluation," applying the cooncept to people who establish long-term plans and take steps to complete those plans. A critical component of this is "agency," or the ability to determine the outcome of one's life plans. As the work proceeds, agency becomes the tail which wags the dog in Graham's "Aristotelianism."

Certainly, Aristotle's notion of happiness involves agency. For Aristotle, a happy person is someone who exercises the uniquely human capacity of reason to shape the whole of his or her life; however, Graham's Aristotelian happiness underplays the importance of makarios, i.e., divine, or god-given happiness. Moreover, the etymology of eudaimonia combines the Greek words for "good" and "in dwelling spirit" -- a being halfway between the gods and humans (from which we get our word demon). For Aristotle, happiness, while it certainly is something we work to create by exercising our uniquely human reason, it is also something that happens to us; it is god-given or is a product of being possessed by a good demon. Furthermore, the highest happiness for a person is something that can be measured only after one's full life has been lived and one's posthumous reputation has been assessed. This is certainly a minor academic objection, but overlooking (or underplaying) Aristotle's concept of happiness in its fullness will lead the economics of happiness to policy agendas that overemphasize the autonomy of individuals and underemphasize true human needs.

To better understand policy goal options, one should distinguish three forms of happiness, Benthamite hedonism, Graham's Aristotelian eudaimonism (which might simply be called "liberty"), and the more fully Aristotelian happiness of a good life. Graham's review of happiness surveys makes reasonably clear that Benthamite hedonism is not an adequate policy goal. Our overall happiness requires more than obtaining day-to-day pleasures. By and large, we also require accomplishments that we can trace to our own choices and actions; consequently, we require the social conditions which are conducive to the exercise of our capacity to chose and pursue our own conception of a good life. We require, in the terminology of John Rawls, basic liberties; however, it is doubtful that this will be enough to promote happiness in its fullest sense.

Graham's title The Pursuit of Happiness comes, of course, from the American Declaration of Independence, indicating Carol's bias in favor of a liberal state -- one which is concerned with creating opportunities for happiness where the individual is at liberty to pursue whatever reasonable lifestyle he or she chooses as opposed to a state that seeks to equalize the outcome of the distribution of benefits and burdens. Such a liberal state is clearly an advance over an autocratic state which narrows the life choices of its citizens for the benefit of a ruling minority, but allowing over-wide latitude in life choices has three significant drawbacks. It may allow self-destructive natural temptations to compromise true human needs, it does not recognize the inability of citizens to be fully informed about the consequences of their choices, and it can result in what could be called happiness market failures.

Proper policy decisions might require a recognition that some conceptions of a good life might be objectively preferable to others and that our natures, circumstances, and rational individual actions may sometimes lead us away from the objective good. The remedy would seem paternalistic to the libertarian (or even to the classical liberal), but a way of life endorsed by state policy need not be particularly limiting and it could be justified by appealing to deep psychological and biological needs. Even John Rawls, for example, recognizes that his liberal principles of justice are only apropos to a society that has reached a certain level of development, but the question that Aristotle's view of happiness raises is whether a more communitarian society should be the object of public policy.

My own preferences would be largely to follow Rawls, and protect liberty and equal opportunity before establishing policies that would maximize basic goods for the least well off. As I argued in my dissertation, this alone will result in a fairly thorough-going egalitarianism. Still, I'm not entirely convinced that placing boundaries on the range of permissible conceptions of the good is only relevant for societies in deep poverty or to exclude unreasonable conceptions of the good. The Kantian notion of true human needs obviously applies to conditions of dire poverty, but I'm not entirely certain that it does not reach further into the lives of people who on first glance have all that they need. This is not to suggest that I am especially concerned about what Graham calls the plight of "frustrated achievers" or the "miserable millionaire." As far as I'm concerned, the misery of the millionaire is his or her own damn fault.

According to the happiness literature cited by Graham, an egalitarian society is more conducive to happiness than a society characterized by vast disparities of wealth and I would add that the egalitarian society more effectively respects the full dignity of persons. A truly happy society must provide for equality of opportunity, and mitigate tendencies toward unequal outcomes; but assuming these conditions, a deeper understanding of human nature and the nature of happiness might restrict conceptions of the good life beyond what would be chosen by people without full information, by people without a superhuman ability to withstand temptation, and by people who are not so selfless as to voluntarily accept limitation to avoid happiness market failures. Broadly expressed, an egalitarian society that ensures equality of opportunity may still need a degree of communitarian organization to respect the contours of human nature.

The third chapter of The Pursuit of Happiness is essentially a literature review of happiness economics. Its organization is somewhat confusing and it presents the findings without assessing the validity of the studies. Of course, to do so would have significantly enlarged the book, but at 164 pages (including notes and index), adding a bit more about the validity of the studies would have helped. Hopefully, Graham has carefully examined the studies and is only including those that are most reliable. In any case, one should be extremely cautious about accepting the conclusion of happiness surveys due to the complexity of the concept. Time and again, one is led to wonder if one or another confounding factor is really responsible for results attributed to the independent variable. Even more often, correlations are observed that may be merely a coincidental product of a large data set.

The fourth chapter is entitled, "Adaptation and Other Puzzles." Here Graham demonstrates a good understanding of the concerns that I have raised in this review. Graham understands, perhaps was well as anyone, the difficulties facing happiness economics.

The final chapter describes the how we might incorporate a "gross national happiness" measure into existing social and economic measures to provide a better understanding of the lives of people for making policy decisions. As difficult as measuring happiness is, a "GNH" measure would certainly be worthwhile, if only to de-thrown unlimited economic growth from our policy objectives.

Overall, The Pursuit of Happiness is a valuable contribution to an emerging field within economics. It will probably not become seminal, but hopefully it will prompt further discussion of its important topics.

The Thinking Life: How to Thrive in the Age of Distraction / P.M. Forni -- N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 2011

A number of books have been published recently that warn of possible damaging effects of the internet and other digital communication technologies. Among them are Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget, Nicholas Carr's The Shallows, and John Miedema's Slow Reading. Lanier warns that social media are turning us into willing tools of database developers, coarsening our personalities, and diverting us from exploring the rich, multi-dimensional and nuanced life of the real world of people and tangible things. Nicholas Carr warns that the internet is a massive distraction machine that is shortening our attention spans and possibly changing the structure of our brains making us less able to engage in deep thought. Medeima exhalts the pleasures of combating these tendencies through the practice of reading extended, artfully written texts, slowly and deliberately.

P.M. Forni's new book The Thinking Life fits into this new and developing genera. It is less analytical and more practical than the others. While a good, practical guide would be of value, Forni's book too often lapses into the realm of the trite self-help book, making it of limited use to any reasonably thoughtful adult, i.e., someone thoughtful enough to read a book about thinking. It might, however, offer valuable lessons to an adolescent who over-values the ready information and profusion of content available on the internet.

In the early chapters, Forni describes two elements that are essential to serious thought: time and attention. He rightly observes that both are threatened by our contemporary fixation on the inconsequential trivia that is communicated via the internet and cell phone communication. He then describes two important forms of thought: reflection and introspection, the bane of which is distraction.

Following these chapters, the work begins to read more like an extended monologue in Hamlet by Polonius to his son Laertes. The advice Forni offers is largely commonplace and uncontroversial: how to be a good student, employee, or manager. There are, however, usually valuable kernels embedded within the advice. For example, Forni rightly observes (quoting the Buddha) that "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world." However, his elaboration of this truth becomes little more than a rehash of the power of positive thinking. Elsewhere, he rightly recognizes the importance of cultivating self-control. This is followed by his trademark bulleted list of recommendations. The work becomes of a piece with The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and How to Win Friends and Influence People, both of which he cites favorably.

The superficiality of the work cannot, however, vitiate its core idea: deep, serious thought has significant benefits: it is intrinsically pleasurable, conducive to good decision making, and essential to a truly happy life in the Aristotelian sense. Furthermore, our ability to engage in deep, serious thought is being challenged by the explosion of the seductive, on line trivia that increasingly intrudes on our time.

Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate / George Lakoff -- White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green, 2004

In 1996, linguist George Lakoff published Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think in which he presented his theory that American politics is driven by two models of the family: the Strict Father Model and the Nurturing Parent Model. These models serve as frames for how conservatives and liberals respectively think, not just about family life, but also politics and other spheres of life. Lakoff argues that conservatives have implicitly recognized that emphasizing the values inherent in the Strict Father Model reinforces voters' tendency to employ these values when thinking about politics. After following this strategy for four decades, conservatives have established in the electorate a way of thinking about politics that prevents voters from accepting (and sometimes even understanding) the policies advanced by liberals.

Following the election of George W. Bush in 2000, a number of liberal activists began taking Lakoff seriously, helping him travel the country to talk about "framing" issues inside a liberal value system. By 2004, Lakoff published Don't Think of an Elephant to serve as "short and informal...practical guide both for citizen activists and for anyone with a serious interest in politics." Lakeoff hoped to equip liberals with an understanding of how to change the way in which political discourse is framed and thereby create a resurgent progressive movement. His book quickly showed up on best seller lists around the country.

On the surface, the basic thesis seems interesting and perhaps reasonable. Furthermore, Lakoff's ability to connect the values he identifies in the two family models to politics and public policy issues deepens his thesis. The values residing in the two family models have strong affinity to values that can be identified in various policy positions and they seem to bring together exactly those issues that constitute the constellations of conservative and liberal views. Finally, it is quite reasonable to think that our upbringing is central to our way of thinking and that specific values about families -- learned at an early age -- will play a dominant role in our thinking. No doubt there is very much to Lakoff's thesis; however, closer examination indicates that he is likely overstating the causative role that the family model plays in determining how Americans vote.

Lakoff's thesis could be tested were we able to replace our two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Currently, our political system nearly ensures that voters will only have two choices on the ballot, particularly because which ever candidate wins a plurality usually is elected to office. Moreover, restrictive ballot access laws frequently prevent independents and third parties from appearing on the ballot at all. This makes voting for anyone but a member of one of two major parties seem fruitless. Under these circumstances, voters, motivated by very different values and ideologies, are forced to join into a heterogeneous coalition to elect the candidate they find least objectionable. If there were more candidates on the ballot and if we had proportional representation in our legislatures, then these forced coalitions would quickly break up and the real factors motivating various voters would be more apparent.

Lakoff does not test his theory with this thought experiment. Instead, he looks at the two political coalitions and constructs a theory that best connects their various ideological elements and then declares that his theory explains the driving force behind the coalitions. It is more likely that the values making up the two family models are a rhetorical intersection views -- a least common denominator that appeals to a large percentage of the disparate members of the conservative or liberal coalitions. Without the need to motivate the disparate elements of the coalitions, these values would not stand out and many of them would be disregarded, if not openly attacked, by the various partners in the coalition as they go their separate ways.

Perhaps the most significant divide within the Republican Party is, of course, between social conservatives and libertarians. The idea that their views grow out of the same set of values is almost preposterous. Within the Democratic Party, the labor elements and the environmentalist elements would hardly seem to be natural partners, except that they both oppose capitalist drive to make large profits for shareholders at the expense of all else. It is much easier to explain the motives of the elements in the two major political coalitions by appealing to more obvious interests that they do not share.

To be fair, the foregoing criticism perhaps assumes that Lakoff's thesis is more ambitious than it is. A more charitable reading of his thesis is not that the values of the two model families explain the current political coalitions, but that given the legal framework ensuring two parties, appealing to values of the model families are the most effective way of mobilizing the coalitions. Certainly Lakoff has recognized a powerful rhetorical tool used by the Republican coalition. The values described in Strict Father Model of the family clearly resonate across many segments of the political right and Lakoff explicitly is calling on liberals to employ similar countervailing tactics. The "guidebook" features of Lakoff's work show striking similarities to memos by Republican framing strategist Frank Luntz.

The material in Don't Think of an Elephant appears in a more expanded form on the Web site of Lakoff's think tank, the Rockridge Institute; however, while still maintaining the Web site, Rockridge has folded for lack of funding. This is very telling. Lakoff's argues that framing issues in a progressive way is essential to a liberal renaissance in politics and while he recognizes the advantage that rich funding sources give to conservatives, he doesn't seem to acknowledge their overwhelming importance. This, along with is failure to recognize the true motivating forces behind the conservative and liberal agendas shows that his perspective on politics is overly ideological. A more accurate analysis will explore the material and economic forces at work in American politics.