Tricycle | Awake in the World

The discussion of Sharon Salzberg's Real Happiness is going so well at the Tricycle Book Club, we figured we should open up a forum to discuss another book as well. So now, in addition to Sharon's book, we're talking about Martine Batchelor's The Spirit of the Buddha.

From the Winter 2010 issue's "Books in Brief": 

In The Spirit of the Buddha (Yale University Press, 2010, $15.00 paper, 192 pp.), the first volume in a new series from the International Sacred Literature Trust, Martine Batchelor provides commentary on the most fundamental Buddhist teachings and practices as they are found in the Pali canon, the earliest Buddhist sources. Batchelor does this primarily by exploring quotations from Pali translations by Bhikkhu Nanamoli, and in doing so she make the spirit of the historical Buddha accessible to modern English speakers. Don’t let the “spirit” metaphor in the title mislead you, as it is indicative neither of the Buddha’s metaphysics nor Batchelor’s analysis—which is always straightforward, pragmatic, and grounded in her personal experiences as a teacher of Zen and Vipassana meditation. The Spirit of the Buddha is a helpful, fresh reminder of what makes the Buddhist path so attractive.

Have something to say? Join us here. (Also, on the discussion page there's a video of Martine reading from the book).