The Great Heart Way: How To Heal Your Life and Find Self-Fulfillment
Zen meets self-help: the two authors, both Zen Buddhist teachers, present an adjunct technique to meditation that offers therapeutic benefits. Their "Great Heart Way" combines meditation, introspection and journaling to uncover hidden roots of psychological problems and resolve the issues. The book is structured to be helpful, with how-to appendixes. The result is uneven, telegraphed perhaps by the misleading subtitle that doesn't sound much like Buddhism, although Buddhism is the book's strength. The heart-mind connection the book champions is solid Buddhist teaching, and the meditation approach is convincing because it is rooted in a deep base of Eastern wisdom. The authors offer a fresh and creative application of Zen that can benefit people who are psychologically stuck. The psychology framework they depend on is less persuasive, drawn from a particular school of understanding the mind—bioenergetics—and concomitant therapy. A little more science would have tested the authors' observations and strengthened the final text. Still, the personal stories sprinkled throughout offer some empirical testimony for the method, and any self-help system that cultivates personal discipline and compassion for others is always worth considering.(Jan.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.