If would map the non-fiction books that made an impact in my life, I can say that there are basically five that speak aloud regarding my views about my so-called spiritual journey in this world. Though the third book, I would say, is not a book but a series of Dharma talks with translated text from the original Buddhist works written long ago.
The first is M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled, the second Carlos Castaneda Journey to Ixtlan, third the abhidharma(?) and other Dharma lectures, Don Miguel Ruiz The Four Agreements and Eckhart Tolle Practicing the Power of Now.
Now, the journey, borrowing from the terminology of Tolle, started with the problem and tackling of life situation. That is reading M. Scott Peck’s series of the Road Less Traveled. Peck dealt the subject of life on the perspective of western psychology and from there tries to define and give a form to something that is created by the mind and the issues it faces. Though the book is an intellectual discussion of life’s many facets, the genuine respect of M. Scott Peck to individuals who displayed an uncanny wisdom regardless of their religious background influenced, or rather, reinforced in me the reality that there is no race, religion or culture that has the monopoly of wisdom – that wisdom that looks life in a strange yet truthful manner. Since the Road Less Traveled is a western psychology that tries to explain life according on the expectation that what that can make us happy is external, the knowledge that I got from Scott Peck only convoluted the issues of life. It is as if there is an infinite need for formal studies and research for something that is an external phenomenon of life and how this can solve the wound of the human soul.
Next in line is Carlos Castaneda Journey to Ixtlan. I have written a lot about this book and there is no need to state it again in this essay to drive my point. The only thing that I still have to say about this book is that it gave me the perspective of shifting my consciousness to something that is mystical. No, no. There are no esoteric powers or knowledge. Just the intellectual religious experience of life. And for the first time also, looking back, Castaneda taught me that the river of life is ever in a flux, nothing is permanent. As I said in my essay about the book, we are on a journey to our own Ixtlan but we are bound not to reach it because everything already has changed.
I can no longer remember where or from whom did actually my tendency to study Buddhism started. Before Jack Kerouac introduced me to the idea of Buddhism, the Dharma and Satori, I’d already the notion or wanting to meet the different buddhas in this present time and I think that wanting was written here in my profile. I cannot say that I mastered or learned Buddhiss. The belief or if it can be said to be a belief, showed to me something that I could not imagine was known all along 2.5 millennium ago. The power of the actual and scope of knowledge of Buddhist is just so awesome, intellectually nourishing and stirring. Yet, with all of these teachings, the most important thing is not the theory or dogma but the religious experience. Buddhism is basically an experiental religion. You have to experience it than merely knowing it. What is ‘it’ is something that you have to find and experience for yourself.
I have read a lot of book, mostly literary, but there is nothing that blew up my mind and woke me up to a certain degree than by reading and following the basics of Buddhist teachings. There was a time that I would remain silent in the company of my friends just watching the strange, dry an bare awareness of life unfolding before me.
Now, the next two books: Don Miguel Ruiz Four Agreements an Eckhart Tolle Power of Now and Practicing the Power of Now. These two books are to me a subsidiary readings to what Buddhism is preaching. The reader just have to be intelligent enough to put and understand the terms used in the book that correspond to the realities that were discovered long ago by Buddhism. Just to give an example, the first agreement in Ruiz’s book says be impeccable with you word. This agreement is on the eight-fold path (if I remember it right) where Buddha says that one should practice right speech. This teaching is the most hard for me to follow since I usually would blurt out unskillful words to the detriment of my relationship with my family, friends and acquaintances. Regarding Tolle’s Power of Now, this is basically what Buddhism is teaching and practicing. Be mindful. Be present. Be in the Now. Walk the narrow razor edge of the present Now: the only thing is what you have.
From these readings and books plus the actual practice of doing their guided lessons, life for me is better. I don’t mean financially better. But better in the sense that there is more joy that I continue to mine inside of me than totally relying on the external things to make me happy. And to those people that I have said mean thing, intentionally or not, and to those that I hurt in any way because of my actions, I ask for forgiveness as I already tried to forgive myself for those things.
And a trickle of water falls down in the bucket…
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