The condescending tone towards all non Buddhists really bothers me. I'm reading this because a friend asked for a copy, and I'd like us to be able to talk about it. I see a lot of cognitive behavioural therapy in how mindfulness is described, and I keep tripping over stuff that jars me, it feels like a lot of arrogance and condescension, I dislike that. ( )

At one level this is an introduction to Buddhism suitable for modern Western young people. At another level it is a reflection of the author's perspective and approach. These two levels also get tangled a bit - to what extent is the sort of authorial persona presented here actually helpful for the audience of the book?

This book takes a practical, down to earth, non-mythological approach to Buddhism, even an anti-mythological approach. This brings to mind the philosophical outlook of Robert Cummings Neville, e.g. The High Road Around Modernism. One can transcend modernism by amplifying it, a hypermodern post-modernism. Actually the whole punk heavy metal music scene gets caught up in this puzzle. Are the old myths merely clip-art to be paraded in the ever shifting collage, the play of identities, of brands, tribes as the principal axes of focus group analysis? Or are tribes actually channels to help us rediscover our roots, revealing that the free play of signifiers is anything but free. is deeply connected to the past and the future.

Noah Levine seems to be playing a game similar to that of Stephen Batchelor, to Batchelor's Buddhism Without Beliefs etc. This kind of anti-traditionalism is characteristic of modernity, the Descartes - Voltaire sort of modernity. Yeah, to some extent any Buddhist teaching must be adapted to the audience. But the purpose is always medicinal. Our modern age is nihilistic and this nihilism requires correction, cure. Sure, the language of cure will have to be something that a nihilistic audience can comprehend.

One of the fundamental insights of the Buddhist tradition is the mutuality of emptiness and interdependence. The middle way is not some third way apart from nihilism and eternalism, but this understanding of their mutuality.

By now it ought to be a tired joke, the way radical revolutionaries just repeat the same tired totalitarian power structures they'd fought to demolish. Sure, the Buddha was a radical revolutionary, but with a kind of subtlety and humor and exquisite sensitivity.

Instead of a warning the reader to "Beware of Teachers!", maybe Levine could have warned "Beware of Me!" and referred us to whatever sources of inspiration he has come to rely on. ( )