The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path

by Ethan Nichtern

Overview

In this wise and witty invitation to Buddhist meditation, Ethan Nichtern, a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, investigates the journey each of us takes to find where we belong. Drawing from contemporary research on meditation and mindfulness and from his experience as a teacher and practitioner of Buddhism, Nichtern describes in fresh language the basic existential experience that gives rise to spiritual seeking—and its potentially dangerous counterpart, spiritual materialism. He explains exactly how, by turning our awareness to what’s happening around us and inside us, we become able to enhance our sense of connection with others and, at the same time, change for the better our individual and collective patterns of greed, apathy, and inattention. The Road Home shows us that, in order to create a truly compassionate and enlightened society, we must start with ourselves. And this means working with our own mind—in whatever state we find it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374536718
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	07/12/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	563,991
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 4.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Ethan Nichtern is a Shastri, a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, and the author of One City: A Declaration of Interdependence. He is also the founder of the Interdependence Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to Buddhist-inspired meditation and psychology, integral activism, mindful arts, and meaningful media. Nichtern has taught meditation and Buddhist psychology classes in New York and around the country for the last ten years.

Table of Contents

Foreword Sharon Salzberg ix

Introduction: Where Do You Live? 3

Part I The Journey of Self-Awareness

1 Meditation: Accepting Your Own Friend Request 35

2 Karma: Taking Responsibility for Home 51

3 Coming Home 24/7/365: Ethics in Everyday Life 75

4 Being Human: Buddha Nature and the Cocoon 90

Part II The Journey of Relationships

5 Where I End and You Begin 107

6 Ears, Mouth, and Fingertips: Communicating with Mindfulness 123

7 Spiritual Bypassing: What Emptiness Means and What It Doesn't 138

8 A Bodhisattva's Boundaries: Compassion, Idiot Compassion, and Knowing the Difference 147

9 Eye to Eye: The Student-Teacher Relationship 161

Part III The Sacred Journey

10 Religion, Secularism, and a Sacred Path 179

11 Imagining a Basically Good Home: The Practice of Visualization 193

12 Sacred Emotions, Sacred Environment 205

Part IV Society's Journey

13 The Wisdom of No Escape from the World 223

14 Scared World vs. Sacred World: 3 S's and 3 C's 239

15 The Culture of Awakening: Art and Transformation 252

16 Conclusion: Coming Home 259

Suggested Reading 267

Acknowledgments 271

Editorial Reviews

Ethan is the future of Buddhism.” —Sharon Salzberg (from the foreword)

“Grounded in compassion, Nichtern's teaching offers a profound, lucid, and complex education in self-awareness, interdependence, and enlightenment.” —Publishers Weekly

“A wise, humane, and deeply sympathetic introduction to the practice of Buddhism . . . Those wondering what Buddhism is all about will find plenty to think about in these pages, which make for a gentle and user-friendly invitation to explore further . . . Thoughtful and helpful alike.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Makes ancient Buddhist teachings and texts approachable, contemporary, and relevant . . . Valuable for readers looking for an introduction to Buddhist teachings as they relate to meditation practice or for those searching for ways to live their lives in the here and now.” —Library Journal (Starred Review)

“A beautiful guide and invitation to a sane life. Refreshingly straightforward, accessible, skillful and kind.” —Jack Kornfield, author of The Wise Heart

“Ethan Nichtern is as gifted and compassionate a teacher in writing as he is in person. In The Road Home, he proposes that we move past our destructive repetitive patterns not by shellacking over sadness or anger or fear with some sort of enlightened-guru positivity but by accepting them, in all their contours, as an inevitable part of what makes us human. I've dog-eared my copy so thoroughly, it's swollen to twice its normal size.” —Maud Newton

“The Road Home potently takes traditional Buddhism and makes it beautifully accessible and relevant for today's spiritual seeker and skeptic alike. This book has the power to cure apathy in today's society, and I think the world of it.” —Lodro Rinzler, author of The Buddha Walks into a Bar…

From the Publisher

03/16/2015
Nichtern (One City) points out that the contemporary search for a place to call "home" never comes to fruition, because the search has been misguided. He turns readers inward to discover that home is, in fact, within themselves all along. He prescribes a path of connecting with one's "heartmind" through the Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana schools of Buddhist tradition. One begins working on the self, examining the ways in which meditation, karma, ethics, and self-transformation are intricately connected. Next, one infuses that understanding with awareness of emptiness and compassion to more genuinely connect with other people. This view is then expanded so that the everyday world becomes suffused with the sacred, where anything is a possibility for learning and for furthering practice. Finally, because this work reveals the fundamental interdependence of humanity, Nichtern offers discussions on integrating these personal discoveries on a communal and societal level. Grounded in compassion, Nichtern's teaching offers a profound, lucid, and complex education in self-awareness, interdependence, and enlightenment. Agent: Lisa Weinert, Lisa Weinert Consulting. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 02/15/2015
Nichtern (founder, Interdependence Workshop; A Declaration of Interdependence) writes that "Buddhist teachings are only meaningful if they positively inform the way we live our lives." With this in mind, the author makes ancient Buddhist teachings and texts approachable, contemporary, and relevant. Using an informal and engaging style, Nichtern applies the metaphor of a commuter to describe the way people often feel when trying to become more present in their daily lives or feel at home in their minds: as though they are always trying to get to a different place. The content is grounded in meditation practice, although this book will not serve as a how-to guide to meditation. Rather, Nichtern presents the bigger picture as to why such techniques are important to cultivating meaningful and compassionate relationships with self, others, and society in our fast-paced and hyperconnected world. The author provides a helpful list of suggested readings for more in-depth exploration into Buddhism and meditation practice. VERDICT Valuable for readers looking for an introduction to Buddhist teachings as they relate to meditation practice or for those searching for ways to live their lives in the here and now.—Amanda Folk, Univ. of Pittsburgh Lib., Greensburg

Library Journal

2015-01-28
"The pond never stops rippling." Buddhist teacher Nichtern (One City: A Declaration of Interdependence, 2007) offers a wise, humane, and deeply sympathetic introduction to the practice of Buddhism. The pond never stops rippling indeed, which means that each of us must be mindful of the stones we throw into it. As the author writes elsewhere in his vade mecum, karma may not quite work as the popular conception has it, but what we get out of life certainly depends on what we put into it. Karma hinges on the acceptance of responsibility for how things turn out, though without interpreting it as "a kind of spiritual libertarianism, a way to praise the privileged and blame the oppressed." (Take that, Ayn Rand!) Embracing the celebratory, friendly spirit of Thich Nhat Hanh rather than the austere solemnity of Robert Aitken, Nichtern examines the question of emptiness, which he insists is anything but nihilistic, and detachment, which is anything but uncaring, as well as the hows and whys of meditation and self-cultivation ("no fast food in this garden"). He also looks at such things as whether Buddhism is a religion, his finding that it is essentially humanistic being a matter of dispute among the many schools of thought that make it up, and at the problem of being mindful in an age of continuous partial attention. Longtime practitioners may find Nichtern's approach a touch simplistic, but those wondering what Buddhism is all about will find plenty to think about in these pages, which make for a gentle and user-friendly invitation to explore further—understanding, of course, that there are many flavors of Buddhism, some of which would reject the author's interpretations out of hand, others of which would embrace them wholeheartedly.Not to be confused with Jim Harrison's book of the same name, the product of another bodhisattva, though both are steeped in the same spirit. Thoughtful and helpful alike.

Kirkus Reviews