Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be: Lessons on Change, Loss, and Spiritual Transformation (Paperback)
From Publishers Weekly
Das, an American-born lama in the Dzogchen lineage of Tibet and author of the bestseller Awakening the Buddha Within, here explores the losses and changes that inevitably mark our lives. He argues that what is important is not that difficult things happen (Buddhism’s first truth, after all, is that life is suffering), but how we deal with them. Pure detachment from loss and sorrow is not sufficient, he says; the goal is non-attachment to circumstances that are by nature impermanent. Despite losses and pain, we still need to be fully engaged with the world: “Spiritual detachment or equanimity should never be equated with indifference or complacent resignation.” One of the strongest sections of the book is Das’s simple chronicle of various losses he has suffered, both enormous (the death of his father) and mundane (a stolen bike). Thus acknowledged, his echoing pain prevents the book from being self-help pabulum about how bad things make good people (more…)
