The Feeling Buddha

David Brazier is a practicing psychotherapist and Zen Buddhist. His previous books include Zen Therapy and Beyond Carl Rogers: Towards a Psychotherapy for the Twenty-First Century. He lives in London.

Robert Aitken Roshi writes in New Wine in Old Bottles: A Review From News from Kaimu May 1, 2000

Contrary to what I have learned to expect, The Feeling Buddha is not just another psychology book with Buddhist examples, but rather a study of what the Buddha said. The author folds in his psychological views, but the work rings true as Buddhism in the Buddha's own words as we have them in the Pali . . . Brazier sets out to show what the Buddha really said and what he really meant, and for my money he succeeds.

Editorial Reviews From Booklist October 1, 1998
Buddhism does not offer an escape from suffering, writes Zen Buddhist psychotherapist Brazier, but rather teaches us how to live "meaningfully in an afflicted world." Believing that this is but one of many widespread misconceptions regarding core Buddhist teachings, Brazier offers a new and clarifying approach to the Four Noble Truths in this commonsensical and quietly radical treatise. He begins with a fresh definition of the phrase "noble truth" itself. The "truth," he asserts, is not that life is suffering but that "suffering will always be a part of our lives." Pain and pleasure, life and death are inextricably connected, and it is this paradoxical dynamic that makes life rich and compelling. Nobility implies courage and states of mind and actions worthy of respect. What the Buddha understood, Brazier explains, is that "pride and dignity play a central role in human psychology." This helpful elucidation leads to a discussion of the Middle Path, or the Eightfold Way, that will guide Westerners to a genuine understanding of Buddhist precepts and to applying them to everyday life. Donna Seaman

Book Description India's great sage emerges as passionate human being in this guide to the Buddha's basic teachings.

With astonishing simplicity, David Brazier distills the essence of the Buddha's message from "Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dharma," the talk he gave after he attained enlightenment. Here the Buddha spelled out the path of the Four Noble Truths as the basis of his teachings. In a refreshingly unorthodox approach to what the Buddha was really saying to us across the centuries, Brazier construes the Buddha's meaning in ways that are, in some important respects, very different from standard beliefs. The Buddha did not seek enlightenment to escape affliction, Brazier says. Indeed, the Buddha embraced the inevitable suffering of the human condition as the beginning of the path to enlightenment. Nor does Brazier hold with the common idea that Buddhism implies the elimination of feelings. In Brazier's interpretation of what the Buddha taught, feelings are natural, inevitable, and noble. The Feeling Buddha gives easy access to the earliest teachings of India's greatest sage, who emerges here as a very human figure. It also serves as a practical guide for living life fully and deeply today.