How to See Yourself as You Really Are

Product Information

Good book. Is a bit repetitive and moralizing with too much stressing how life is suffering and all. Buddhist psychology is known for its detailed descriptions of the mind's workings, and His Holiness uses these insights in a practical way by helping readers catch hold of these processes through their own experience. His central theme is that our skewed perceptions of body and mind lead to disastrous mistakes, ranging from lust at the one extreme to raging hatred at the other, so that we are consistently being led into trouble as if pulled by a ring in our nose. By developing insight into this process, we can free ourselves, and those around us, from these endless scenarios of pain. The only way to gain this understanding is internal. You need to give up false beliefs you are superimposing on the way things really are; there is no external means of removing lust and hatred. If you are pierced by a thorn, you can remove it forever with a needle, but to get rid of an internal attitude, you must see clearly the mistaken beliefs on which it is based. This calls for using reason to explore the true nature of phenomena and then concentrate on what has been understood." Some people are naturally more comfortable with being honest. Others learn to be honest once they become comfortable with someone. You should have one or both of these types of people in your life.

The book “How to See Yourself as You Really Are” by the Dalai Lama, is good book that talks a lot about human nature. It goes through chapters of how the human mind sees itself. Then he goes on to tell you helpful ways of understanding yourself, or “how to see yourself as you really are.” He explains all of this from a Buddhist perspective, and helps to give good tips on how you can reach the proper state of mind. If you understand that, no matter what appears, whether to your senses or to your thinking mind, those objects are established in dependence upon thought, you will get over the idea that phenomena exist in their own right. You will understand that there is no truth in their being set up from their own side. You will realize emptiness, the absence of inherent existence, which exists beyond the proliferation of problems born from seeing phenomena as existing in themselves and provides the medicine for removing delusion." You can make people comfortable with the idea of criticizing you by learning to criticize yourself. If you can demonstrate constructive self-criticism, the people around you may feel more comfortable telling you the truth as they see it. nothing and noone exists in and of themselves (not even "I" or "you") because everything is being influenced and shaped by causes, its parts & thought Like the two wings of a bird, love and insight work cooperatively to bring about enlightenment, says a fundamental Buddhist teaching. According to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, we each possess the ability to achieve happiness and a meaningful life, but the key to realizing that goal is self-knowledge. In "How to See Yourself As You Really Are," the world's foremost Buddhist leader and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize shows readers how to recognize and dispel misguided notions of self and embrace the world from a more realistic -- and loving -- perspective.If you notice carefully, Part IV obviously contains more chapters i.e. 9 chapters compared with only 2 or 3 chapters as in other Parts. I think this is done on purpose (again) because this Part contains the very essence teachings of the entire book which need to be broken down into smaller chunks of information for easier absorption. You will find some ideas are repeated throughout these chapters of this particular Part because the point is if you cannot get it the first time you read it, you'll get it later as your understanding progresses along the reading. everything is impermanent and subject to change, thus we shouldn't get attached to persons, things & situations or else it'll cause afflictive emotions This book itself is an illustration of Tibet's contribution to world culture, reminding us of the importance of maintaining a homeland for its preservation. The light shining through the Dalai Lama's teachings has its source in that culture, offering insights and practices that so many of us need in ours. Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He frequently describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk. Born in northeastern Tibet in 1935, he was as a toddler recognized as the incarnation of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and brought to Tibet's capital, Lhasa. In 1950, Mao Zedong's Communist forces made their first incursions into eastern Tibet, shortly after which the young Dalai Lama assumed the political leadership of his country. He passed his scholastic examinations with honors at the Great Prayer Festival in Lhasa in 1959, the same year Chinese forces occupied the city, forcing His Holiness to escape to India. There he set up the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, working to secure the welfare of the more than 100,000 Tibetan exiles and prevent the destruction of Tibetan culture. In his capacity as a spiritual and political leader, he has traveled to more than sixty-two countries on six continents and met with presidents, popes, and leading scientists to foster dialogue and create a better world. In recognition of his tireless work for the nonviolent liberation of Tibet, the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. In 2012, he relinquished political authority in his exile government and turned it over to democratically elected representatives. The book's third part describes how to harness the power of meditative concentration with insight to achieve immersion in our own ultimate nature, which undermines our problems at their very foundation. The fourth and fifth parts discuss how people and things actually do exist, since they do not exist in the way we assume. The Dalai Lama draws readers into noticing how everything depends on thought -- how thought itself organizes what we perceive. His goal is to develop in us a clear sense of what it means to exist without misconception. Then the final part of the book explains the way this profound state of being enhances love by revealing how unnecessary destructive emotions and suffering actually are. In this way self-knowledge is seen as the key to personal development and positive relationships. Once we know how to put insight in the service of love and love in the service of insight, we come to the book's appendix, an overview of the steps for achieving altruistic enlightenment.

On 17 November 1950, at the age of 15, he was enthroned as Tibet's ruler. Thus he became Tibet's most important political ruler just one month after the People's Republic of China's invasion of Tibet on 7 October 1950. In 1954, he went to Beijing to attempt peace talks with Mao Zedong and other leaders of the PRC. These talks ultimately failed. Like the two wings of a bird, love and insight work cooperatively to bring about enlightenment, says a fundamental Buddhist teaching. According to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, we each possess the ability to achieve happiness and a meaningful life, but the key to realizing that goal is self-knowledge. In "How to See Yourself As You Really Are, " the world's foremost Buddhist leader and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize shows readers how to recognize and dispel misguided notions of self and embrace the world from a more realistic -- and loving -- perspective.Step-by-step exercises help readers shatter their false assumptions and ideas and see the world as it actually exists. By directing our attention to the false veneer that so bedazzles our senses and our thoughts, His Holiness sets the stage for discovering the reality behind appearances. But getting past one's misconceptions is only a prelude to right action, and the book's final section describes how to harness the power of meditative concentration to the service of love, and vice versa, so that true altruistic enlightenment is attained. Like the two wings of a bird, love and insight work cooperatively to bring about enlightenment, says a fundamental Buddhist teaching. According to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, we each possess the ability to achieve happiness and a meaningful life, but the key to realizing that goal is self-knowledge. In "How to See Yourself As You Really Are, " the world's foremost Buddhist leader and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize shows readers how to recognize and dispel misguided notions of self and embrace the world from a more realistic -- and loving -- perspective.His Holiness frequently states that his life is guided by three major commitments: the promotion of basic human values or secular ethics in the interest of human happiness, the fostering of interreligious harmony, and securing the welfare of the Tibetan people, focusing on the survival of their identity, culture, and religion. As a superior scholar trained in the classical texts of the Nalanda tradition of Indian Buddhism, he is able to distill the central tenets of Buddhist philosophy in clear and inspiring language, his gift for pedagogy imbued with his infectious joy. Connecting scientists with Buddhist scholars, he helps unite contemplative and modern modes of investigation, bringing ancient tools and insights to bear on the acute problems facing the contemporary world. His efforts to foster dialogue among leaders of the world's faiths envision a future where people of different beliefs can share the planet in harmony. Wisdom Publications is proud to be the premier publisher of the Dalai Lama's more serious and in-depth works.

Drawing on wisdom and techniques refined in Tibetan monasteries for more than a thousand years, and adopting as its structure traditional Buddhist steps of meditative reflection, How to See Yourself As You Really Are includes practical exercises and gives readers a clear path to assess their growth and personal development. To overcome the misconception that things and people exist as self-sufficient entities, independent of consciousness, it is essential to observe your own mind to discover how this mistake is being conceived, and how other destructive emotions arise with such ignorance as their support. Given that lust, hatred, pride, jealously, and anger stem from exaggerating the importance of qualities such as beauty and ugliness, it is crucial to understand how persons and things actually exist, without exaggeration.Also, he's forcing the concept of "cyclic existence" on us (while saying at the beginning that what he's about to tell us could be applied without having anything to do with religions) and basing the concepts he's talking about on it.