Evolving dharma
Subtitle: meditation, Buddhism, and the next generation of enlightenment
By: Jay Michaelson
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 245
ISBN-13: 9781583947142
Subjects: Meditation; Buddhism
Description: "Evolving Dharma is a next-generation book about meditation, Buddhism, and the contemplative path. It explores how the dharma (the path, the way, the teachings of the Buddha) has evolved in astonishing ways and how dharma practice evolves in one's own life. Instead of approaching the dharma as spirituality, therapy, or self-help, scholar and practicing Buddhist Jay Michaelson presents it as a set of technologies for upgrading the brain, for physically enhancing its capacity for wisdom and compassion. In the last twenty years, Buddhism has exploded well beyond its former boundaries. Meditation is being taught to prisoners, cancer patients, and children. It is being practiced online--by geeks, hipsters, and punks; by atheists, Christians, and Jews; by people who are not "spiritual." It's not even "Buddhism" anymore, having evolved out of its original religious context and into dozens of new ones. Evolving Dharma is the first book to take stock of these trends, and to speak in real-life terms about how they affect the practice of meditation and the path to upgrading the mind. Michaelson is fearless, unorthodox, and irreverent, yet his book is also based on his decade of meditation practice and teaching as well as his ten years of work as an LGBT activist. Including forays into neuroscience and cultural criticism and Michaelson's personal stories of his five months spent in silent retreat, life-changing realizations, pain, joy, and insight, this is not an ironic, wading-into-spirituality memoir but a thoughtful, important work that takes its subject seriously, both as discipline and as individual narrative. Chapter titles include "The Dharma Evolves By Disappearing," "The Evolution of Enlightenment," and "When Every Mystical State You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough.""--

""A next-generation book about meditation, Buddhism, and the contemplative path, this work explores how the dharma (the path, the way, the teachings of the Buddha) has evolved in astonishing ways and how dharma practice evolves in one's own life"--Provided by publisher"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Ground. New forms : the dharma evolves by disappearing ; New evidence : the science of brainhacking ; New communities : post-traditional, post-speculative, post-Boomer Buddhism; title: Path. Beyond bliss : when every mystical state you've ever wanted isn't enough ; Beyond now : the evolution of enlightenment ; Beyond peace : what it's like to spend lots of time in silence, and get to know your shadow; title: Fruition. After integration : the imperfect is our paradise ; After the self : postmodernity, spirituality, and identity ; After the fall : Occupy Buddhism; title: The future.