Book description
Insight meditation, which claims to offer practitioners a chance to escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality, is one of the most popular forms of meditation today. The Theravada Buddhist cultures of South and Southeast Asia often see it as the Buddha's most important gift to humanity.ā¦
Why read it?
1 author picked The Birth of Insight as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Did you know that todayās āmindfulnessā movementāwhich promises everything from greater corporate productivity to more passion in the bedroomāoriginated in nineteenth-century resistance to the British Empire?
After the conquest of Burma, meditationāpreviously something mostly the domain of wilderness hermitsābecame a technique everyone could use to strengthen Buddhist Burmese society against cultural imperialism. Burmese teachers brought this practice to America, and Americans came to Burma to learn it directly.
It was fascinating to follow meditationās journey in these pages from a tool of resistance against globalization to a technique brought around the world by globalization today. This book helped me appreciateā¦
From Luke's list on The best books for making sense of religious history.
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