August Read/3

Title: 

Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960-1969

Author: Watts, Alan

Book Description (from amazon.com):

Alan Watts introduced millions of Western readers to Zen and other Eastern philosophies, but he’s also recognized as a brilliant commentator on Judeo-Christian traditions as well as a celebrity philosopher who exemplified the ideas — and lifestyle — of the 1960s counterculture. In this compilation of controversial lectures, delivered at American universities throughout the decade, Watts challenges readers to reevaluate Western culture’s most hallowed constructs. Watts treads familiar ground, interpreting Eastern traditions, and also covers new territory, exploring the counterculture’s basis in the ancient tribal and shamanic cultures of Asia, Siberia, and the Americas. In the process, he addresses some of the era’s most important questions: What is the nature of reality? And how does an individual’s relationship to society affect this reality? Filled with his playful, provocative style, the talks show the remarkable scope of a philosopher in his prime, exploring and defining the '60s counterculture as only Alan Watts could.
My Read:
Page: 142
"The art of living is to operate in the world as if you were absent." 
This sentence stays with me after I finished the book. It reminds me of those books I have read about "mindfulness," "live in the moment," "enlightened life." But this book also provoked me in some ways. For instance, as I was walking I wondered where the ancient sages got their ideas/perceptions about life. There were no printed wisdom in ancient time. The answer must, in my own personal thinking, come from the nature: the changes of the time and seasons, the ever-changing landscapes and the shapely clouds, mountains, rivers, and creatures roaming the earth. Sometimes, I figure, the answers are simple and straight; they are right in the plain sight and around us. It just needs an aware mind to be conscious about life, living, and beyond. Life is to live.

August/John

THE WINTER FORTRESS

This non-fiction book was written by Neal Bascomb. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, it is 322 pages of narrative, two pages of acknowledgements, 34 pages of notes, and 20 pages of bibliography and index. Archives were researched in five different countries. And yet, it reads like a novel, urging the reader to keep turning pages to follow the action which detail the pursuit to destroy the 'heavy water' and the equipment required to manufacture atomic weapons. 

The movie based on this story, 'The Heroes of Telemark', as it turns out, barely covered the story - as films can only do. Although it was very good and with much action, it does not hold a candle to the whole saga delivered in the book. Chapter one begins on February 14, 1940 and this fascinating story does not conclude until 1945, plus its contextual follow up. 

As a race between the Allies and the Axis powers to first develop the atomic bomb, this story, in spite of already knowing the ending, is a nail-biter. Obviously I enjoyed reading about the story's background, all the personalities involved from various countries and backgrounds, the rugged training, and the various operations to thwart the Nazis. It gives merit to the expression "The Greatest Generation." 

August Read/2

Title: Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior

Author: Mlodinow, Leonard

Book Description (from amazon.com):

Over the past two decades of neurological research, it has become increasingly clear that the way we experience the world--our perception, behavior, memory, and social judgment--is largely driven by the mind's subliminal processes and not by the conscious ones, as we have long believed. As in the bestselling The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, Leonard Mlodinow employs his signature concise, accessible explanations of the most obscure scientific subjects to unravel the complexities of the subliminal mind. In the process he shows the many ways it influences how we misperceive our relationships with family, friends, and business associates; how we misunderstand the reasons for our investment decisions; and how we misremember important events--along the way, changing our view of ourselves and the world around us.

August Read

Title: Is Nothing Something?: Kids' Questions and Zen Answers About Life, Death, Family, Friendship, and Everything in Between
Author: Thich Nhat Hanh
Book Description (from amazon.com):
In Is Nothing Something? Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh answers heartfelt, difficult, and funny questions from children of all ages. Illustrated with original full-color artwork by Jessica McClure, Is Nothing Something? will help adults plant the seeds of mindfulness in the young children in their lives. Beginning with the most basic questions, "What is important in life?" and "Why is my brother mean to me?" and progressing through issues that we all wrestle with, such as "How do I know if I really love somebody?", "How long am I going to live?", and "What does God look like?", each page presents a question with a short answer from Thich Nhat Hanh, appropriate for beginning readers to work with on their own. The back of the book has the first complete children’s biography of Thich Nhat Hanh, along with basic, kid-friendly instructions for mindful breathing and mindful walking. Both humorous and profound, Is Nothing Something? is the perfect resource for kids with questions, adults looking to answer them, and anyone with questions of their own.

July Read/2

Title: The Seat of the Soul
Author: Zukav, Gary
Call Number: 299.93 Z94S 2014
Book Description from amazon.com:
With the same extraordinary skill that he used to demystify scientific abstraction and the new physics, Gary Zukay, the award-winning author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters, here takes us on a brilliant and penetrating exploration of the new phase of evolution we have now entered. 
With lucidity and elegance, Zukav explains that we are evolving from a species that pursues power based upon the perceptions of the five senses -- external power -- into a species that pursuesauthentic power -- power that is based upon the perceptions and values of the spirit. He shows how the pursuit of external power has produced our survival-of-the-fittest understanding of evolution, generated conflict between lovers, communities, and superpowers, and brought us to the edge of destruction. 
Using his scientist's eye and philosopher's heart, Zukav shows how infusing the activities of life with reverence, compassion, and trust makes them come alive with meaning and purpose. He illustrates how the emerging values of the spirit are changing marriages into spiritual partnerships, psychology into spiritual psychology, and transforming our everyday lives. The Seat of the Soul describes the remarkable journey to the spirit that each of us is on.
Note:
What I could remember after closing the book is as followed:
There are 3 things to remember: compassion, clarity, and boundless love.
The chapter(s) I like the best are the chapters titled "Intention," and "Intention II."
In the book there are two things the author refers again and again: personality(the five-sensory being) and soul(multisensory being). 
I found the term useful for meditation: reverence.
Thing to remember: one has to learn to forgive others and accept oneself to complete this life journey with certain degree of accomplishment and satisfaction.
Happy read.

July Read

Title: When Breath Becomes Air
Author: kalanithi, Paul
Call Number: 616.99424 K14W2016
Subjects: Health; neurosurgeons; Husband and wife; Personal Memoirs; Death & Dyingi
Book Description from amazon:
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.

Praise for When Breath Becomes Air

“I guarantee that finishing this book and then forgetting about it is simply not an option. . . . Part of this book’s tremendous impact comes from the obvious fact that its author was such a brilliant polymath. And part comes from the way he conveys what happened to him—passionately working and striving, deferring gratification, waiting to live, learning to die—so well. None of it is maudlin. Nothing is exaggerated. As he wrote to a friend: ‘It’s just tragic enough and just imaginable enough.’ And just important enough to be unmissable.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“An emotional investment well worth making: a moving and thoughtful memoir of family, medicine and literature. It is, despite its grim undertone, accidentally inspiring.”—The Washington Post

“Possesses the gravity and wisdom of an ancient Greek tragedy . . . [Kalanithi] delivers his chronicle in austere, beautiful prose. The book brims with insightful reflections on mortality that are especially poignant coming from a trained physician familiar with what lies ahead.”—The Boston Globe

“Devastating and spectacular . . . [Kalanithi] is so likeable, so relatable, and so humble, that you become immersed in his world and forget where it’s all heading.”—USA Today

“It’s [Kalanithi’s] unsentimental approach that makes When Breath Becomes Air so original—and so devastating. . . . Its only fault is that the book, like his life, ends much too early.”—Entertainment Weekly

June Read

Title: Enter the Quiet: Everyone's Way to Meditation
Author: Whitehill, James
Call Number: 158 w592E
Subject: Meditation
My read:
In the book there are many ways to practice meditation. The one I have been practicing is walking meditation. Though the practice I have taken was different from the book the purpose of the practice stayed the same: to have a calm and balanced mind. While reading this book I took on the sitting meditation practice. It's too early to say how effective this practice would be. At page 139 it states: Meditation should be a freeing discipline, not another habit. Yet at page 136 it also says: Since meditation is a daily practice, the exercises you can best fit in  are exercises done as part of your daily routine.
I believe in practices and routines; it helps me to improve self-discipline.
Key words: centering meditation, just sitting, relaxed and alert, awareness, quiet, calm