Rev. Danny Fisher

Just a Buddhist Minister Trying to Benefit Beings

A Gift of Dharma for 12.29.09

Today’s quote is from Buddhist psychiatrist Mark Epstein.

A graduate of both Harvard College and the Harvard Medical School, he has been a practicing Buddhist “since his early twenties.”  His main teacher have been Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield.

A contributing editor to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Dr. Epstein is also the author of such vital works as Thoughts without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective, Going to Pieces without Falling Apart, Open to Desire: The Truth About What the Buddha Taught, Going on Being: Life at the Crossroads of Buddhism and Psychotherapy, and Psychotherapy without the Self: A Buddhist Perspective.

He has a private practice in New York City.

Here’s the quote, from Thoughts without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective, pg. 19:

If aspects of the person remain undigested–cut off, denied, projected, rejected, indulged, or otherwise unassimilated–they become the points around which the core forces of greed, hatred and delusion attach themselves.

Dude-ology

There’s a great story in the New York Times today about a new book of academic articles from various disciplines about the Coen Brother’s 1998 comedy classic The Big Lebowski, and the burgeoning field of “Lebowski Studies.”  I’ve posted a couple of times in the past about the film and its Buddhist connections.  It’s also just a terrific, very funny film–highly recommended if you haven’t seen it.