Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realization in the Body

I was a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche back in the 1980's. He was, and remains a brilliant and very difficult teacher. Ray has been a senior student of Trungpa since the Tibetan came to the USA in the early 1970s. I wandered for many years in the spiritual wasteland until I saw an interview with Dr. Ray on a website called the Chronicles of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. What Ray said in that interview rang me like a clapper in a bell. I went to my book shelf and pulled down this book which had been sitting there for 8 months and began reading. If you are interested in meditation and Buddhism, and particular if you are a little stale in your practice, please read this book. It could change your life.

I don't give many reviews unless I consider what I've just read as great or awful. This book is great. If you wish to develop a meditation practice that will retain your enthusiasm for what many consider a boring exercise, this book could very well be for you. It first provides the basis for this particular practice then, at the end, provides a few sample meditations. I have been practicing zen for a year; the instruction given by Reginald A. Ray is compatible with my zen practice. It is based on the basic teachings of the Buddha which incorporate the mind with the body which is the first step toward developing mindfulness in one's life with, gradually, the reduction of mental and physical pain. I have found it so helpful that I will be going to one of Dr. Ray's teaching retreats when he comes to NYC.

I strongly echo the sentiments in Mr. Bucher's review. This is an important book. Mr. Ray appears to be a rare example of someone who is both a serious scholar and a deep practitioner. By the latter, I mean someone who is not just talking about the realization that is contemplated by Buddhist philosophy as an intellectual exercise, but who has experienced it personally through his practice. Anyone who has embarked on that path with any seriousness comes to realize that language and ideas, no matter how eloquent, can't change us in the ways described by the Buddha; only direct experience, unmediated by the conceptualization implied by language, can be transformative. The practices Mr. Ray discusses, derived from Tibbetan Yoga traditions, are a very direct path to this experiential wisdom. Ray seems also well positioned to speak to the particular needs of the modern person, including Westerners. His body-based approaches also, as eluded to by Mr. Bucher, seem especially appropriate for people who have experienced trauma. Although not discussed in the book, this is consistent with recent neuropsychological research, which is revealing the extent to which emotions and "unconscious" material are experienced and held throughout the nervous system, and hence, the body (see, e.g., the work of Allan Schore [[Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development; and Bessel Van Der Kolk Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society. I'm not sure how objectively I can evaluate the "tone" of the book--which two reviewers describe as a bit intellectual--having seen Mr. Ray at several talks prior to reading it. In person, he is warm, engaging, humorous, and most essentially, human. In fact, he emphasizes that the purpose of these practices is not to transcend our humanity, but to become fully human for the first time. I personally experienced the tone of the book in the same way I experienced Mr. Ray in person, but it's possible one may have colored the other. I found this book, and most especially the practices Ray describes and teaches, to be extremely beneficial to my personal practice and growth. I'm not sure where the Publisher's Weekly reviewer is coming from, but my best suggestion is to ignore that review and read this book.

Reginald Ray has written a beautiful book full of important thoughts on how our bodies are front and center to the spiritual path. I cannot recommend this book enough for the spiritual seeker. So much of our time is spent moving away from our bodies as a result of pain or some other trauma. But the running away is the last thing we need to do. Going deeper into the wisdom of our body is the call by Mr. Ray and one that I find important. Our bodies are the gate way to truth inside ourselves. I think Ray's book is timely in that so many seekers are searching for a deepening into the presence they find in their meditation. Yet unfortunately the body is not involved for many teachers and practitioners. But that should be the beginning point not an add on. In Ray's words: "It is my belief that we modern people can arrive at the full embodiment that has always been a possibility for our species. The impact and the implications of such a recovery are nothing less than revolutionary. For to recover our original or primary body as our own involves experiencing the totality of oneself, without judgment; living with a directness that is not filtered or distorted by the thinking mind; rediscovering ourselves within the network of relations with others; coming to awareness again of the primordiality of the natural world as a subject; and, perhaps most surprising, beginning to sense and see what has been called the "unseen world," the "other world," the world of "others" who, while not flesh and blood, are nevertheless living presences around us and with us, to inspire, guide, and protect. Recovering our basic, inborn body has, then, profound implications for healing the self, mending our broken relationships, restoring a healthy relationship to our world, seen and unseen, and healing the planet. All that we need is a method to enable us to reclaim our original body, the body that is our most basic being at this moment, but that we cannot clearly feel or see. That method is offered to us in the body work introduced in this book, the somatic practices of Buddhist meditation." It is time to use our bodies for more than survival but as the real entryway for our experience.