The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still - Hardcover

Moore, Dinty W.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1565121422 ISBN 13: 9781565121423

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 1997

Synopsis

Buddhism is on America's mind. TV commercials embrace it: Michael Jordan runs to the top of a Tibetan mountain to find the true meaning of sports drinks. A hillside of Buddhist monks meditates on hard drives. The famous (like Richard Gere and Tiger Woods) fight stress with it. From coaches to cops, from stockbrokers to schoolchildren, Americans are learning to love the lotus position. But many of us are more curious than we are committed. Dinty Moore was, too. So he decided to find out what exactly was going on. Are we becoming Buddhists behind our own backs? Why is this ancient, Asian religion suddenly such a big part of American pop culture? Moore set out to see Buddhism for himself by attending Buddhist retreats, meeting the monks face to face. Before long he was hooked on breathing. And what the Buddhist monks were telling him was starting to make good sense. With humor and humility, Moore takes us into the physical and spiritual geography of Buddhism American-style: from Change Your Mind Day (a sort of annual Buddhist Woodstock in Central Park), to a weekend at a mountain retreat for corporate executives learning effective ways to cope with stress, to a visit with a Zen teacher holding classes in an old Quaker farmhouse, to a meeting with a Catholic priest who's also a Zen master.

About this title

Review:

"Moore's hilarious and sometimes irreverent look at Buddhism is a perfect primer for the budding Buddhist." - "Publishers Weekly" (Sept 15, 1997)

About the Author:

Dinty W. Moore is the director of Ohio University's BA, MA, and PhD in creative writing programs. He has authored various books of literary nonfiction as well as textbooks and craft guides, most notably Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy, and his memoir, Between Panic and Desire, won the GrubStreet National Book Prize. Moore has been published in Harpers, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Utne Reader, Salon, Okey-Panky, the Southern Review, the Georgia Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is the founder and editor of Brevity and is a frequent speaker and teacher at writers' conferences.

About this edition

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1565121422
• ISBN 13: 9781565121423
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208