How to See Yourself As You Really Are by Dalai Lama XIV

How to See Yourself As You Really Are Reviews

• 
  Lorina Stephens

  I'm sure I'm about to be damned for writing this, but if this is supposed to be a book about discovering yourself, I'm afraid that for me it failed completely. Perhaps I'm guilty of all the things the Dalai Lama says most of Western Society is guilty. But, to be honest, I found the book not particularly well-written. It was repetitive, unclear, even nonsensical in parts, and much of it smacked very much of the tired-old Christian harangue of guilty, guilty, guilty, which I found startling for a book written by the head of one of the most sacred of Buddhist sects.
  But perhaps this is to be expected from a reader who feels that without passion (something the Dalai Lama puts forward as a 'sin' and undesirable), while causing many of the world's problems, has also created some of the world's finest moments in art, science, literature, social reform and more. Without passion there would be no impetus to create, to achieve a state closer to the divine.
  So, for me, because of a fundamental difference in essential paradigms, and the lack of quality writing, I'm going to give a thumbs down to this book, and likely give a pass to other of the Dalai Lama's works.
• 
  Barbara

  Don't recommend as first book on Buddhism for the uninitiated. Very abstract and conceptual, and other authors have explained same concepts better. But this will definitely bend your mind about reality, especially if you're used to Westernized/ego/material-driven concepts of self and reality.
• 
  Joanna

  I really tried to grasp the concepts in this book, but it just scrambled my brain. Only very rarely do I ever shelve a book that I've started, and I really hate to do this to the Dalai Lama, but I just can't keep going with this one. I give up.
  
  
  Original review:
  I am the first to admit, I place very little faith in self-help books - it's a genre that I traditionally ignore. But, this book sort of leapt off the shelf at me. I am naturally drawn to Buddhist theory, and would certainly be open to any advice His Holiness the Dalai Lama might choose to throw in my path. Thus, I found it hard to ignore this one and it spontaneously made its way into my messenger bag when I really only stopped at the Harvard Coop to use the loo.
  
  But tell me seriously, who couldn't use just a little enlightenment on the way to the loo?
• 
  Mark

  His Holiness shares a universal humanist philosophy. Simple concepts: discipline and altruism. The delivery, however, is cumbersome. Simple concepts become heady and abstract. My favorite part of the book? the meditational exercises that close each chapter.
• 
  Renée Paule

  Lots to think about in this lovely book.
• 
  Marina

  2.5
  "You are living amidst the causes of death."
  
  The writing is abstract, vague, repetitious, and somewhat contradictory.
  It would have been possible to say what he's trying to say better formulated and explained and in fewer pages.
  Reifications such as "morality/moral values" and "cyclic existence" weren't defined, so it took me almost the whole book to figure out most of them. While I may have thought somewhere at the beginning "Oh, ok, he means that", later on I got confused again about how the term was used. And I think it was only possible for me to figure them out at all because I already was familiar with the concepts using different (more common) words. I doubt that someone who's new to this would understand what he's talking about.
  Also, he's forcing the concept of "cyclic existence" on us (while saying at the beginning that what he's about to tell us could be applied without having anything to do with religions) and basing the concepts he's talking about on it.
  Furthermore, he uses word games which are supposed to be arguments for his points. Like this it seems as if he accepted those view points to be true and then just went back and tried to construct arguments for them.
  
  So here are the basic concepts he's talking about:
  - nothing and noone exists in and of themselves (not even "I" or "you") because everything is being influenced and shaped by causes, its parts & thought
  -> by not seeing this we create afflictive emotions, and thus suffering and problems
  - the way we see things is shaped by our perceptions (body functions as well as mindset)
  - everything is impermanent and subject to change, thus we shouldn't get attached to persons, things & situations or else it'll cause afflictive emotions
  ["You are living amidst the causes of death."]
  
  -> if we understand and train ourselves in these concepts, we have insight and can act with empathy and compassion
  
  [My advice: Pick one thing every day and think about how it came into being (causes) and what parts it consists of. Also you might want to think about how your thoughts may affect how you think about it, for example if you like its color or its shape, you might take a liking to it.
  You could do the same with people and their behaviors (How did the behavior come into being? Which of your thoughts/mindsets make you dis/like it?)]
  
  I like how the "Meditative Reflections" (short summaries of each chapter or parts of a chapter) are all to be found at the end of the book, though, so if you found anything useful and need to remind yourself, you can just look it up at the back (and maybe get an overview, so you know to which chapter you need to get back to).
  
  I can't say the book is bad. It's possible to draw something out of it and it could've been worse. So I gave it an average score of 2.5 .
  
  P.S.: Steer clear of labels.
  
• 
  James Perkins

  At one point the author appears to have proved you do not exist. However, that would be missing the point. Of course we exist, but we do not exist in the way we think we do. Our perception through physical senses has created an illusion, like a magic act, where the magician appears to have pulled a rabbit out of a hat. It did not really come from the hat, but it appears to have done so. In the same way, we all appear to be separate from each other, but we are not. Nobody exists wholly independently of anything else; we are all here due to some manifestation of thought. He then goes on to describe meditations whereby if you dwell on these concepts, and understand the true nature of reality, it is much easier to exercise compassion and love for your fellow beings, because we are all interrelated. It can be a little heavy-going, and I would not recommend it as the first thing you ever read by this spiritual leader. Still, its teaching was fascinating, and one to ponder. One of the more esoteric works by the Dalai Lama, this is a treatise on the nature of reality, and how everything is not how it seems.
• 
  Sonja

  I enjoyed the book over all. I found lots to think about. I did feel like it was geared more towards someone more familiar with Buddhism. They do try to include instruction for beginners.
• 
  Mary Overton

  "To overcome the misconception that things and people exist as self-sufficient entities, independent of consciousness, it is essential to observe your own mind to discover how this mistake is being conceived, and how other destructive emotions arise with such ignorance as their support. Given that lust, hatred, pride, jealously, and anger stem from exaggerating the importance of qualities such as beauty and ugliness, it is crucial to understand how persons and things actually exist, without exaggeration.
  "The only way to gain this understanding is internal. You need to give up false beliefs you are superimposing on the way things really are; there is no external means of removing lust and hatred. If you are pierced by a thorn, you can remove it forever with a needle, but to get rid of an internal attitude, you must see clearly the mistaken beliefs on which it is based. This calls for using reason to explore the true nature of phenomena and then concentrate on what has been understood."
  Kindle location 410 - 419
  
  "In all areas of thought, you need to be able to analyze, and then, when you have come to a decision, you need to be able to set your mind to it without wavering. These two capacities - to analyze and to remain focused - are essential to seeing yourself as you really are.... All these improvements are made in the mind by changing how you think, transforming your outlook through analysis and focus. All types of meditation fall into the general categories of analytical meditation and focusing meditation, also called insight meditation and calm abiding meditation."
  Kindle location 784 - 795
  
  "When you advance toward understanding that people and things cannot be found under analysis but take to mind that they do indeed exist, you may begin to feel the impact of the statement that they exist through the power of thought. This, in turn, will challenge you to consider further how people and things appear to your mind and will undermine your confidence in the goodness or badness of these appearances, which you previously automatically accepted as intrinsic to the objects. You will will begin noticing how you assent to the appearance of objects and how you latch on to them.
  "In this way, meditation is a long journey, not a single insight or even several insights. It gets more and more profound as the days, months, and years pass. Keep reading and thinking and meditating."
  Kindle location 1451 - 1459
  
  "If you understand that, no matter what appears, whether to your senses or to your thinking mind, those objects are established in dependence upon thought, you will get over the idea that phenomena exist in their own right. You will understand that there is no truth in their being set up from their own side. You will realize emptiness, the absence of inherent existence, which exists beyond the proliferation of problems born from seeing phenomena as existing in themselves and provides the medicine for removing delusion."
  Kindle location 1730 - 1736
• 
  Dave Brothers

  A good, purposeful study in observation, not just of the self, but of all things.
  
  Delves deeply into the concepts of dependent arising, the fallacy of inherent existence, and emptiness: reminders that our typical patterns of thought are our own worst enemies. Its rote reiteration of thoughts can feel slow and very dense, but that's the point -- these aren't ideas that are easily unpacked without hours, days, and years of reflection.
  
  Good jumping-off points for personal practice wrap up each chapter. This is definitely a good handbook to keep and study.
• 
  Blanka_S

  If you want to start with buddhism, this is one of the books you should read at first because it introduce you to the basic terms of buddhism and helps you to understand them through meditation suggestions.
  If you are exhausted from this modern world, the pressure and the way of living today, you should read it as well, it could help you sort out your thoughts and relieve the anxiety and you may start to perceive the world from another angle.
  Read it. It is healing in a way.
• 
  Jason Smith

  I should stop listening to books by the Dalai Lama and read them instead. Very insightful, and comes across as a treatise on applied Buddhist teachings. I appreciated the insightful writing and the inviting tone of it. There is much to contemplate with a book like this. I was impressed by the concept of emptiness and the implications of it.
• 
  Zarathustra Goertzel

  Good book. Is a bit repetitive and moralizing with too much stressing how life is suffering and all.
  Nonetheless, quite a good explanation of what Buddhists mean by selflessness:
  
  That is, selflessness is actually a refutation of soul as independent of mind-body and a refutation of homunculus like theories of self. Taken a step further, one encounters an ancient description of the phenomenological realization that we don't know that 'reality' inherently exists but only our sensory observations.
  
  The view that many difficulties in life stem from ignorant or faulty estimations of things, including thinking (we know things to) inherently exist.
  
  From there some nice points are made about meditation: even if many of us analytically/intellectually know the above realization about reality, to what degree have we thoroughly integrated it into our being such that the insight influences every thought and reaction we have? Does your arm feel intrinsically there? Do you take offense if someone falsely accuses you? Well, meditation can help you weave insight into the fabric of your being! ;-)
  
  The comments on focusing on the laxness/tightness of one's focus is interesting too.
  
  The take on cyclic existence and karma sorta resembles the pattern-completion ideas laid out by Ben here:
  http://eurycosm.blogspot.dk/search/la... . If you do plenty of action type X, there will be more morphic resonance with worlds of action type X. If you take yourself as a fleshy meatbag and the world around you to inherently exist in some concrete way, then when you die pattern-completion will bias you to be reborn in a similar fashion... whereas when you integrate selflessness into your being and die, you will not be biased like that. ... or something :P
• 
  Kylie Young

  An honour to read and be a part of Dalai Lama's teachings however I felt like I needed to be on some good drugs to understand what he was getting at. I don't do drugs so I didn't understand. Perhaps my mind is not yet open enough.
  
  I felt like there was way too much recycling of whole pages. The "I" segment could have been explained in one paragraph perhaps even in one sentence, not half of the book.
  Plus it was a very simple subject and hardly worth being the main subject. I was expecting to read more mind blowing subjects yet it was just about understanding "I". Literally the word "I" and how it is portrayed and when you use it and how you say it.
  
  I even found it to be quite negative. Don't go after the dream job, don't go after your dream house. While I get the sentiment of being free from things and being happy and grateful for what you have (which I am), I felt like it was telling people to not go after what makes them happy which is the point of the book.
• 
  Petter Nordal

  It's been many years since a book really changed the way I see the world and my life. What is matter? Who are we? Big questions. It took me about five months to read this book, because after every few pages there's a meditation to do and mostly i wouldn't go on until i felt that i had satisfactorily completed the meditation. Eventually i realized that this is actually the work of several years; in the chapter on single-point meditation, The Dalai Lama shows nine stages: i made it from stage one to stage three in about eight weeks.
  
  This is not a good introduction to buddhist thought, but if you want to understand yourself better and are willing to put work into it, i recommend it highly.
• 
  Dan

  How to See Yourself As You Really Are is a simply written book full of very complex, even daunting, ideas. The Dalai Lama discusses Buddhist beliefs relating to inherent existence, compassion, love, and impermanence. This isn't a theoretical treatise, though; there are instructions on mediation and meditation exercises (helpfully compiled in an appendix).
  
  You don't need to be a Buddhist, or even religious, to get something out of this book. The Dalai Lama invites the reader to engage in analysis and reason, and draw his or her own conclusions.
• 
  La-Shanda

  According to the book: How to See Yourself As You Really Are - there are four general concerns known to mankind. The first focuses on a universal concern for all humanity which is essential to solving global problems. The next, is that love and compassion are the pillars of world peace. Another is that all world religions seek to advance world peace, as do all humanitarians of whatever ideology. The final, is that each individual has a responsibility to shape institutions to serve the needs of the world.
• 
  Oyuttsetsen Bayarsaikhan

  Not really sure if this book did really help me. I do love the concept and philosophy of Buddhism and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. However, this one was way too much. Too repetitive. It might do a better job for those who are reading a book by Dalai Lama for the first time, but knowing all the main concepts of emptiness and compassion this book won’t do much.
• 
  Rk

  This is more than a book. it is direct instruction by HHDL. Reading it daily, I am still at the beginning. I think many people dont like it cuz it's very deep tibetan buddhist practices. I am amazed and honored he put such secret and pith instructions out there for us all.
• 
  Alison

  This book requires some concentrative muscle to work through all of the contemplations and analysis of self and selflessness. Nevertheless, it serves well as a detailed and concise guide but it may be challenging to those new to Buddhism.
  
• 
  Christina Klein-Bissett

  I tried so hard with this book, I wanted to learn and understand but it left me with a feeling between" I must be to stupid to understand this" and deep despair. The I that I am not hopes that other readers have a better experience. It's certainly not for beginners or people suffering from depression. Your thoughts might get more suicidal. Hopefully good for the advanced disciple. Good luck.
• 
  Nadine

  nice. more things made sense to me than the first time i read it. good book to come back to abt life things i got a hard copy to put in my room
• 
  Antonio Arroyo

  Por el poder de la conceptualidad se establece el mundo
• 
  La gata lectora

  Es un libro para leer, y releer, y releer. Tanto en los malos como en los buenos momentos porque todos son efímeros y pasajeros.
  
  Feliz vida⁣
• 
  Vikrant

  Still not clear as to 'I' is singular or plural! :-)
  
• 
  Elly Sands

  This is an important book on Buddhism but a very difficult book to read. The Dalai Lama discusses the three principal characteristics of human existence; impermanence, emptiness and suffering, particularly emptiness. Doesn't sound like fun does it? But these aspects of existence are not as gloomy as they sound. Quite the opposite is true if we understood what they truly are. I do not consider myself a Buddhist but have been attracted to it's philosophy for a long time. I appreciate the Dalai Lama's attempt to convey these principals to the lay person. I could feel his determination and caring to get these thoughts across but I would not recommend this as a first read on Buddhism. But personally,this book took me several steps closer to understanding the nature of human existence. I've a loooooong way to go but it's a fascinating journey.