Open to Desire: Embracing a Lust for Life Insights from Buddhism and Psychotherapy

Epstein's masterful weaving of western psychology, buddhist and hindu teachings and contemporary relationships yields a sum that is definitely greater than its parts. Without explicitly stating it, he has been able to describe extremely well the impossible circumstances humans find themselves in on this planet. The experience and pursuit of desire leads to the experience of the divine, if ever so brief. However, Epstein successfully points out that we can never possess the divine and unify with it through romantic love. This sets up the inevitable process that leads each individual to love and yet fail to possess the divine experience that is so badly sought. This leads to the birth of the spirtiual impulse or the birth of greater awareness or expanded consciousness which then sets the individual on one of the many paths, Kaballah, Sufi, Zen etc. that will lead to the divine. It is just a wonderful book as so many people are buried in mythical notions of love and are completely confused by their ongoing troubles in this area. Most people don't understand that the whole process is designed with purposeful flaws to ensure spiritual growth. I particularly liked Epstein's description of the Stupa and the path surrounding it. A great physical representation of a complex concept.

I was really impressed by this book. Epstein explains the possibility of feeling desire but not succumbing to cravings. He draws on Buddhist principles to explain the difference between desire and craving. Desire is acknowledgement of something you want, without clinging, while craving involves seeking satisfaction (which is rarely, if ever achieved). I found the various examples he used to be instructive in learning how desire can become an obsession, and ways for being mindfully aware of desire and still enjoying it in your everyday life. The lession here isn't that you need to get rid of desire, but rather acknowledge it in such a way that understand its effects on you. I highly recommend the book. It will help you see how you treat others and yourself and recognize the impact desire has on you.

I've read some of Epstein's other books and they are all very good, very thoughtful. He writes with a genuineness that comes from a good heart. This book intrigued me because it was about desire, sexual desire and lust for "fun," for life-experiences that really "blow us away." Such desires are often denigrated, and I feel that Zen and Theravada masters are as Puritanical as some Christians. So I read Epstein's book with keen interest, and he didn't disappoint, but he did challenge me to learn *WHY* the left-handed path is okay to follow, rather than just give me permission to chase after my own lusts. Chapter 8, "A Facilitating Environment," was clearly the best part of the book. But the final short chapter, "Jumping In," was wonderfully delicious and surprising. I won't spoil it, but it was truly beautiful. And his very last sentence tied in with a crucial experience eating lobster roll in Manhattan much earlier in the book. All in all, a truly wonderful book! Thank you, Dr. Epstein!!!!

I recommend this book to anyone who has ever desired for anything that he or she can never achieve. Though I found this book in Religion/Buddhist section of the bookstore, I will encourage non-Buddhist to read this book as well. This book brought enormous amount of peace to me during difficult times. I am a neo-Buddhist and for the past two years, I had been working on the "cessation of attachment" to objects. I felt that I was almost there. Then I met a remarkable woman who simply swept me off my feet with her beauty and intelligence. As it happens in life, I will never be able to "have" her. All my self-training on "cessation of attachment" were forgotten. I was missing her so badly that one evening I developed symptoms of a heart attack and had to be admitted in the hospital. It was at the time of despair and heartache when I found this book. This book has afforded my the best psychotherapy I could ever imagine. This book has taught me to separate my desire from craving. I have learned to preserve and not feel guilty for my desire and fight, to some extent, defeat the craving I had for my friend. I have learned to acknowledge and respect my friend as "whole person" and not only the perspective of her that I see. I recommend this book to every man and woman of this earth.

I am a meditation teacher (since 1968), and I am really enjoying this book. It is brave of Mark to go against the doctrine of Buddhists to complain bitterly and mindlessly against desire. I find his writing enriching, for he is speaking as a meditator, a lover, a father, an analyst, and a wonderer - someone who is willing to just LOOK at what is going on. And opening to desire makes meditation juicier and more electrifying. Since the late 60's, most of my friends have been Buddhists or Yogis, and in the early 70's I noticed how deadened many of them were becoming, as they worked inwardly to kill their desires. You can watch over the years as meditators lose vitality as they cultivate a detached, dissociated, suspicious attitude toward the flow of life. Then they become fascinated by and dependent upon authoritarian "masters" to tell them what to do. Lorin Roche, author of Meditation Secrets for Women and Meditation 24/7.