How the World Can Be the Way It Is: An Inquiry for the New Millennium Into Science, Philosophy, and Perception

It is hard for people to grasp how profound this book is because we tend to read it with the commonsense mind that Hagen is telling us fools us. So it takes a patient reading to understand that this book actually is pointing to the answer to ALL difficult questions. There is a bit of math which I had to skip or read several times, but I got it from the rest of the pages with examples. I wish there were more examples. But the time I spent going slow on this book was so worth the time. It is adding greatly to my thinking about how to work with people and systems in a more consciousness way, which is my work. This book is about learning that we have two levels of engaging with, seeing, the world and we are not using the second or more perceptive one very often or very well and it is the one that would remove paradox for us and contradictions. Our on common sense which gets trapped in our categorizing and conceptualizing, gets in our way of really seeing. Learning to see the flow of life that makes things more complex than we every imagined but also very graspable if we look with the right mind is the reward. I almost have the feeling that it is like squinting to shut out part of what gets in our way so we can see more clearly. But that is too simple. It you value the idea of Systems thinking, which has become very popular now days, you can see what it is really about when you submit yourself to understanding this work. It is not what the popular folks say systems thinking is, because they have used Hagen's first level commonsense view to define and decribe it and not the consciousness view offered by Hagen from the Buddhist way of seeing. REad it if you love philosophy which can really make a difference

The passing white clouds do not obscure the bright blue sky! Read this book!

Steve Hagen clearly emphasizes again and again throughout the book, through numerous examples, how the habit of the human mind to immediately conceive (package in terms of words, in terms of memories, in terms of the known) what it sees inevitably leads to contradiction in Reality. By proving Nagarjuna's tetra-lemma, the author demonstrates how conception of objects leads to an artificial, man made, mind made, separation of the object from the Whole and why this is the root of human misery. Hagen shows us that the assumption about "I", the individual ego that is distinct from the Whole, is the most deep rooted concept of all that the entire humanity suffers from. The discussions here echo the principles of Jnana Yoga from ancient Indian Upanishads. Hagen clearly shows how inspite of all the progress that science has made, we still remain distanced from the Ultimate Reality and also how no matter how much progress science makes, this will ever remain to be the case because science, by its very nature, is enmeshed in concepts. An absolutely enthalling book that I would recommend to all readers whose minds are ripe.

Steve Hagen spent a number of years as a "science researcher" prior to embarking on the study and practice of Buddhism, and his writing is largely reflective of that orientation. Steve Hagen has managed to express the ancient wisdom of Buddhism in a language which resonates for me with the greatest clarity and force. And for that I am deeply grateful.