Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles to Psychological Balance and Compassion

If you are familiar with the Mind and Life institute and the many books its produced (Destructive Emotions, etc), you will find many similiar issues covered. This book goes into those "Buddhist" topics in vaster detail, with emphasis on translating many Buddhist terms into a "Western Psychology" viewpoint. This is a must have book for a broad audience, including skeptics of Buddhism, any level of Buddhist practioner, Ekman/Darwin fans or anyone interested in psychology/self-help in general. Ekman and the Dalai Lama have a unique bond, and this book brings out a wealth of information in a conversasion type format. Throughout the book you will find many excerpts ranging from half a page to over a page long from the likes of B. Alan Wallace, Paul Ekman, Geshe Dorji Damdul, and many others. The only thing that might steer you away if you are looking for information only on body language/facial expressions, which Paul Ekman has written some books on.

The ideas and opinions that are shared by the Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman are absolutely invaluable. It is also a very good comedy album in some places because it is edited together pretty poorly. Richard Geere did not do an exceptional job of reading the lines...to be kind. It might have helped if he and Ekman had been in the same room. I guess we will never know. If you are like me, you can get through the deficits to the real gems that are inherent in the conversations. I simply can't more strongly recommend it.

Ekman gets a whole 39 hours with the Dalai Lama, discussing the world of emotion. The two trade personal stories and research findings, basically talking like friends at the coffee shop. How are emotions triggered? What causes the big differences in intensity, duration, and quality of emotion between people? What aspects of emotional life are shared with animals? (This comes up a lot, and it's fascinating.) What kinds of emotion have survival value? How do moods shape and limit our fields of awareness? What works in overcoming our emotional blinders towards life? Throughout the discussion these elder gents pull in brief testimonies from social scientists or Buddhist teachers. They think up whole new directions for psychological research. It's fruitful.

This augmented transcript of talk between these two men highlights several interesting ideas and the best and most helpful information comes out when they drop any pretense of being "learned" and just talk like a couple of guys. I listened to the audio book and Richard Gere plays the part of the Dahli Lama, affecting the speech pattern with a curious tone and pace.

I have been looking for someone who really would build a bridge between psychology and Buddhism. In many talks, people seem to draw similarities between buddhism and psycholgy but Paul ekman has brought to light both the similarities and differences. He asks straight questions to Dalai lama who answers with no-nonsense approach. The areas of Hatred, Mindfulness and compassion are explored in great depth. Paul Ekman is true scientist with sincere motivation to help mental health realm by borrowing Buddhist concepts. He brings his own life experiences to light in the book which adds authenticity to the discussion. Psychology focuses mainly on psychopathology whereas Buddhism is for mainly geared for normal people seeking higher happiness. However there is lot of overlap and the books brings them to light. I wish Paul Ekman had shared more about his observation apart from the conversational style. Worth reading this interesting, open and lively discussion between honest and sincere people seeking truth.