Book Reviews

FREEDOM IN EXILE: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama; Harper Collins. New York. 1990; hardcover.

OCEAN OF WISDOM: Guidelines for Living, by the Dalai Loma of Tibet; Harper & Row. San Francisco. 1990; paperback.

TO THE LION THRONE: The Story of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, by Whitney Stewart; Snow lion, Ithaca, N Y, 1990; paperback.

WHITE LOTUS: An Introduction to Tibetan Culture, edited by Carole Eichert; Snow lion. Ithaca, NY, 1990, paperback.

CUTTING THROUGH APPEARANCES: Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, by Geshe Lhundup Sopa and Jeffrey Hopkins; Snow Lion , Ithaca, NY, 1989; paperback.

TAMING THE MONKEY MIND, by Thubden Chodron; Graham Brash. Singapore. 1990; paperback.

The Dalai Lama has said that the Chinese, by occupying Tibet, inadvertently helped Tibetan Buddhism. As Tibetan Buddhism was drawn out of isolation and thrown into the larger world outside of Tibet, the tradition has been invigorated.

Evidence for this observation is abundant, not the least in the thriving industry of books about Tibetan Buddhism. This is only a partial selection of the latest batch of releases.

The autobiography by the Dalai Lama is simply wonderful. “It is as a simple monk that I offer this story of my life,” he writes. The Dalai Lama “is a title that signifies the office I hold. I myself am just a human being, and incidentally, a Tibetan, who chooses to be a Buddhist monk.” The book is illustrated with a number of photographs.

The pocket-sized Ocean of Wisdom is a splendid little book that can be used as you would a meditation manual; it has many brief comments by the Dalai Lama on compassion, kindness, just ice, taming your mind, non attachment, and their application to life. It is beautifully illustrated with color photographs.

The Whitney Stewart book is an illustrated story of the Dalai Lama for children. On the day the Dalai Lama was born , the story says, “The weather was dark and thundering, but some people saw a rainbow touching the baby's house. Other neighbors noticed that a pair of noisy crows came to perch on the family's rooftop. And the baby's father jumped from his sickbed, declaring himself cured by his son's birth.”

The Eichert book is a collection of short essays on various aspects of Tibetan culture, illustrated with many photographs, some in color.

Geshe Sopa was one of the young Dalai Lama's teachers, and has been a longtime faculty member at the University of Wisconsin. The book by Sopa and Hopkins covers the fundamentals of Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice and theory.

Thubden Chodron is an American woman who graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles, taught school in Los Angeles, and did graduate work in education. In 1975, she attended a Buddhist meditation course, and two years later was ordained a nun. In 1986 she received full ordination in Taiwan. She travels throughout the world, teaching Buddhism and meditation. Her book is a clear description of the Buddhist view of life and relationships, and should appeal to non-Buddhists as well as Buddhists.

-WILLIAM METZGER

Summer 1991

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IRON JOHN: A Book About Men, by Robert Bly; Addison- Wesley, Reading. MA . 1990; hardcover.

KING, WARRIOR, MAGICIAN, LOVER: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette; Harper Collins, San Francisco. 1990; hardcover.

Long ago in the seventies, in an inchoate “men's group” which had no sense of any national “men's movement,” the name of Robert Bly was never spoken. Someone in the group of professional men may have known his work as a poet and critic, but his name never came up. With no Bly, we were discussing the changes we were experiencing as men in terms of Jung and Jungians, Campbell, and Castaneda's don Juan Matus- especially don Juan.

We loved it when don Juan would accuse the comically over-intellectualizing Carlos of “indulging,” since we all knew that the intellectual life could be an evasion of the maturing process. Rather than deal with some of the feelings generated by inventories of our male shortcomings created by ex-wives and feminist writers, we could “rationally” discuss the archetypes of animal/animus or look for some faint trace of the heroic journey in our lives in academia. But don Juan would be there at the end of the evening, tapping derisively on our shoulders, laughing and letting us know that internal and external dialogues can be nothing more than indulgence and evasion.

The men's movement of the eighties and nineties, however, seems inseparable from Bly's name, his craggy face, his droning voice, his wicked smile. And his long awaited Iron John .is a powerful expression of the mature masculine spirit. Bly's insight into contemporary and ancient history, his self-knowledge and observational skills, his poetry and his storytelling skill make this guided “depth-tour” of the Grimm brothers tale of “Iron John” an experience which is clearly not an indulgence. The account forces one to ask tough questions and respects grief while disdaining whining. (And I cannot imagine don Juan telling Bly to “Shut up!”)

King, Warrior. Magician. Lover by Moore and Gillette, however, is a different case. Getting a clear focus on what we mean by and want from human maturity is an important task for both sexes. Moore, a Jungian analyst, and Gillette, a mythologist, definitely have the scholarship and experience of working with contemporary men to provide a useful framework for delineating the mature masculine.

That framework includes an analysis of each of the four archetypes in the title which contrasts the mature realization of the archetype with two polarized immature examples of the stunted archetype. Thus, the King in His Fullness is contrasted to the Tyrant and the Weakling, and the Hero is contrasted to the Bully and the Coward . The framework can be interesting in itself for the academically inclined. And yet this work seems to lack the fullness and vitality of Iron John. In some ways it seems like the outline of a stronger work which may come later from Moore and Gillette, after they have experimented more with the framework. And I hear my inner vision of don Juan's mocking voice telling me that playing with these archetypes can be just an indulgence.

–ANTONY LYSY

Summer 1991

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FOR THE LOVE OF GOD: New Writings by Spiritual and Psychological Leaders, edited by Benjamin Shield and Richard Carlson; New World Library, Sari Rafael, CA, 1990; paperback.

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF GANDHI: Conversations with Spiritual Social Activists, by Catherine Ingram; Parallax Press, Berkley, CA, 1990; paperback.

THE FIRESIDE TREASURY OF LIGHT: An Anthology of the Best in New Age Literature, edited by Mary Olsen Kelly; Simon and Schuster, New York; 1990; paperback.

A NEW CREATION: America’s Contemporary Spiritual Voices, edited by Roger S. Gottlieb; Crossroad, New York, 1990; paperback.

AT THE LEADING EDGE: New Visions of Science, Spirituality and Society, by Michael Toms; Larson Publications, Burdette, NY, 1991; paperback.

New age … new visions … new creation. Whatever the label, these five books share a sensibility, as they offer up a virtual feast of spiritual thought at the “leading edges” of the new spiritual experience and its relationship to science and culture. Some of the same people pop up ubiquitously in two or three of these books, yet each of the books also has its own character.

The Ingram book contains interviews never published before with Desmond Tutu, Joan Baez, Thich Nhat Hanh, Cesar Chavez, and others, and has a distinctive focus on social activism. The Shield-Carlson book is all new writings by the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Matthew Fox, David Steindl-Rast, and others.

The Kelly and Gottlieb books are both collections drawn from many sources; each contains dozens of short samples of the work of contemporary spiritual thinkers as diverse as Shirley Maclaine, Louise Hay, Fritjof Capra, and M. Scott Peck.

Toms offers up a sampling of interviews from his New Dimensions public radio series, including Joan Halifax, Rupert Sheldrake, David Bohm, Huston Smith, and others.

-WILLIAM METZGER

Summer 1991

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THE LANGUAGE OF THE GODDESS, by Marija Gimbutas; Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1989; hardcover.

THE ONCE AND FUTURE GODDESS: A Symbol for Our Time, by Elinor W. Gadon; Harper & Row, Sun Francisco, 1989.

THE HEART OF THE GODDESS, by Hallie Iglehart Austen; Wingbow Press, Berkeley, 1990; paperback.

The Goddess peers at us from the covers of many books these days as she reenters society jaded from too much science and rationality. Women and men are looking to her more and more for inspiration and are invoking her spirit to create a new pattern of partnership, peace, and harmony. Three Goddess books in particular are notable for their profuse and stunning images.

In The Language of the Goddess anthropologist and prehistorian Marija Gimbutas documents the prehistoric Goddess era with over 2000 symbolic artifacts (shown in black and white) dating from Neolithic times, She adds more archaeological data to the growing evidence that the Goddess as Earth Mother was worshipped for millennia through a vast area of Europe to the Near East. Gimbutas attempts to recreate the worldview of these prehistoric agrarian cultures by interpreting the images they left. For example, she cites the persistence of images of snakes as a sign of devotion to snake Goddesses and Gods as symbols of the life force, of fertility and increase, of regeneration and healing. The scope of the material is dazzling, and one wants to accept the author's conclusions. However, skeptics could accuse her of reading too much into the designs of these people whose inner lives are lost in the mists of time. One wonders if the zig-zag or the chevron, for instance, always were meant to convey spiritual meaning, and if so if they had the same meaning from one culture to another.

However, Joseph Campbell is one who was convinced. In his foreword he writes. “The iconography of the Great Goddess arose in reflection and veneration of the laws of Nature.” For him “the message of [this book] is of an actual age of harmony and peace in accord with the creative energies of nature.”

In The Once and Future Goddess, art historian Elinor Gadon traces the vast sweep of history from the Ice Age to the present. Through 200 black-and-white and 50 color photos, along with full explanations, she illustrates the varied visions of the Goddess and ways of worshipping her through the ages. Yet, according to the author, “While the Goddess has indeed had many names, many manifestations throughout human history, she is ultimately one supreme reality.” The richly illustrated accounts reveal the feminine deity as earth-centered and body-affirming; not otherworldly; holistic; immanent and part of nature. The way of lie she inspires is peaceful and promotes harmony among men and women and with the natural environment. To bring her spirit into our times, contemporary artists from many backgrounds are reimaging the Goddess as a symbol of resacralizing the feminine in our male-dominated world, and their creations are well represented in the book.

Again, the author's thesis is appealing. But when she tries to recreate the mindset of preliterate peoples, we could wish that she would distinguish more clearly between fact and interpretation and back up her interpretations more thoroughly. Still, this is a book that those who appreciate the Goddess will treasure.

The Heart of the Goddess by Hallie Iglehart Austen is not a scholarly treatise about the Goddess. Rather it is a visual meditation on some of her manifestations. The author has assembled beautiful images of seventy  Goddesses from cultures throughout the world, each a piece of sacred art that was at one time worshipped and revered. A description of the cultural background of each image is given. And for each Goddess a bit of a story or myth or a poem or song offers another mode for sensing her essence, as does a visualization, prayer or ritual prescribed for each. The gentle, meditative practices suggested for restoring an appreciation for the sanctity of life are a welcome complement to the more aggressive methods of some environmentalists and feminists.

As more and more Goddess books come out every year, we realize, as a bumper sticker says, that “The Goddess is alive and magic is afoot.”

-SHIRLEY NICHOLSON

Summer 1991

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