Book Review Taking the Leap Reviewed by Futoon

Taking The Leap is not just a book about meditation. Pema Chödrön is able to deliver guidelines for changing & freeing ourselves from certain bad habits in her book by only taking moments to think.

In the book “Taking the Leap”, Pema Chödrön demonstrates how we can break free of toxic standards in our daily lives in a sense of way that is more free and satisfying by only taking some moments to think and evaluate based on her meditation expertise. She first mentions individuals who are tempted by harmful stories, emotions and actions within the instability of their experiences. In addition, Chödrön discusses clear descriptions of how this process works by simple techniques to begin to breakdown the cycle. Furthermore, she suggests that it can be easily practiced by anyone at any time without meditation training, although she shows the benefits of sitting meditation. Moreover, Chödrön illustrates that people can stop their suffering and access their natural intelligence, warmth and openness with anecdotes from her teachers and examples from her own and others' lives. To be specific, this transformation happens by trying to quickly look upon the shenpa, which is the moment of attachment, as an opportunity rather than an obstacle to be overcome. She also emphasizes the common effects of personal change. Additionally, Chödrön explains that among her strengths are concern about the difficulty of human existence, and her willingness to acknowledge her own flaws. Thus, this short guide provides valuable tools for transformation in uncertain times.

In this book, Chödrön helps us to open our eyes to how certain old habits holds us to a state of mind where we can feel heated, criticizing, insecure and addicted. This book gives us keys and practices we can easily prepare to use in our lives to motivate these necessary aptitudes. In addition, in her friendly and encouraging approach, Pema Chödrön inspires us to take a brave leap towards a new way of living, a way that will bring positive transformation for ourselves and for our disturbed world. Furthermore, the significant secret is to learn a new way to face the unavoidable troubles and insecurities of our daily lives, which is by learning how to stay present and liberate ourselves. Moreover, she revels three important traits that were all along in us, but only discovered when we take this path. These qualities are natural intelligence, natural warmth, and natural sincerity. Thus, she mentions that everyone, all over the globe, has these capacities and can rely on them to help themselves and others as well. Shenpa is a central theme in Taking the Leap. "Each of us can be an active participant in creating a nonviolent future simply by how we work with shenpa when it arises. How individuals like you and I relate to being hooked, these days, has global implications." The key to working with shenpa in a different way is to remain open and even curious about the energy that arises when we are 'hooked', instead of acting out to distract ourselves.

          I didn't really find much difference between the chapters of the book. they seem to repeat the teaching of not getting hooked, which is good, but personally, I found I would like to have read a bit more life-experience examples, as that helps me to better take in and understand what I'm reading. One interesting thing is that this It has great exercises that I would never have thought of such as trying to feel others pain to gain compassion and peace of mind. Lastly, it has equal parts of Buddhist philosophy and down to earth advice, and one shouldn’t be scared off by the Buddhist philosophy because all that she writes about can be put into action without needing any religious spin to it. Highly recommend this book, she is so straight forward with her words of wisdom. She puts herself at the same level as everyone else and is crystal clear. 

Book Review The Undomestic Goddess Reviewed by Shoya

The Undomestic Goddess gives you tips about the important things of life. Samantha Sweeting, late-20s, works at the best law firm in London and spend extremely busy days, but she starts thinking about what the important things in the life: honored or love.

            Samantha Sweeting, who is 29 years old, works as a lawyer at one of the best law firm in London. She works seven days per week and does not know how to relax. One day, she made a huge mistake and became unthinkable. She thought everything was over. She left her office in London, took a random train, and finally arrived in the middle of nowhere. She got to one big and beautiful house to ask about some headache medicine, however, the owner thought she came for an interview. As a result, she accepted as a housekeeper of the house. She has never done any domestic things and the owner does not know she is actually a lawyer. While she struggles about housekeeping, she met Nathaniel, a gardener of the house, and falls in love. She gradually understands how to relax and enjoy her new life. However, the law firm tells her that it was not her mistake, and they offer an important position that Samantha was looking for. What is Samantha’s decision?

            This book gives a big question for today’s society: what is the satisfaction of the life? Some people work very hard as an office worked in downtown while others work at agricultural industry in countryside. Many people think that working at town can earn more money than at rural area. However, earning much money is not always related to the satisfaction of human life. In the book, at first, Samantha says the wage of housekeeping is quite a few comparing to working as a lawyer. Instead, she is allowed to have days off on weekends and realizes how rest is important and fun. Because of today’s globalization and capitalism, people especially in urban areas are busy making money. However, especially Asian countries, people tend to overwork so that the numbers of people who get kinds of mental illness are increasing. The brave to take vacation is so important.

            In this book, many people appear, and their personalities are well described. However, it is slightly difficult to follow their who they are. Readers might have to reread previous pages to make sure. Nevertheless, you are worth reading this book. Especially, Samantha’s mood is well illustrated so that readers might get into the world of the book. Although you do not like to read a book, I guarantee readers cannot stop reading it.

Book Review The Picture of Dorian Gray Reviewed by Erika

The Picture of Dorian Gray, written by Oscar Wilde, indicates a message that ugliness inside would someday represent the outside.

            The story begins when Basil, an artist with excellent skills, was in his apartment room, painting a portrait of a beautiful young man named Dorian Gray. Dorian is a very handsome young man. He did not know his real beauty until he looked at his portrait. Henry, who knows Basil since their Oxford University days, mentions that appearance would change as people grow old. Growing old is a thing that everyone could not ignore. Although Basil promises he would adore Dorian forever, Dorian gets into panic from the fear that he would lose his beauty someday and never be loved again. Standing in front of the portrait, Dorian says his wish to be young forever like the portrait, and the portrait to be old instead. From that day, strange things happen to the portrait. Everytime Dorian does selfish, terrible things to people around him, the portrait’s face becomes creepier and creepier. Dorian remains perfectly beautiful on the outside, but selfish, mean, ugly on the inside. Dorian’s wish lasts forever in his life, but at the end, a very horrible ending awaits for him.

            This book has a main lesson for those who believe that appearance is more important than what people have inside. Of course appearance is important, but what really makes life is the heart that creates good relationships. Dorian himself is a perfectionist about beauty. Soon after Dorian makes his wish, Dorian falls in love with Sibyl, a beautiful new actress at a theater. Sibyl is a great actress but once she knew real romance with Dorian, her play gets awkward and terrible. Dorian is disillusioned and breaks up with her, which made her kill herself from shock. Wilde means that to love, is to understand and accept what he or she has inside. If Dorian had loved all of her, he would not have done such a thing. Dorian only loved and thought important of Sibyl’s acting, which is "appearance". Another lesson from this book is that effortless happiness can have horrible sides. Dorian wishes to be beautiful forever and the dream comes true easily. Since he got everything he wanted without efforts, he forgets the purpose of being beautiful. Being beautiful, to Dorian, was something that kept him being loved. If he wanted somebody to love him, he should have loved too. Because Dorian knew his beauty would last forever, he stopped having interest in others and he became being cruel to others, which he did not think it would make him isolated.

           　One point that I think should be improved in this story, is to increase the number of appearance of Henry and Basil. From the middle part of the story, Dorian was the main character all the  time. If the author had included Basil’s thoughts against Dorian’s heartless change, the story would have been more dramatic and nervous in a good meaning. Other points that I liked about this book is that the author is homosexual, which is rare. The relationship like the  three men, Dorian, Basil, and  Henry have, can not be seen often in other books. The Author is also a hedonist, which describes Dorian more selfish. The significance about the author expressing some personalities in his book by using fiction characters is that we are able to think deep of those specific characteristics without prejudice. Overall, I liked the story because the theme is something realistic that we do not say out loud but always are curious about.