The book is a philosophical primer, a spiritual handbook and a roaming inquiry into human history.
by Philip Shepherd
This book challenges the primary story of what it means to be human, the random and materialistic lifestyle that Shepherd calls our “shattered reality.” This reality encourages us to live in our heads, self-absorbed in our own anxieties.
Drawing on diverse sources and inspiration, he reveals that our state-of-head consciousness falsely teaches us to see the body as something we possess and try to care for without ever really learning how to inhabit it.
Shepherd articulates his vision of a world in which each of us enjoys a direct, unmediated experience of being alive. He petitions against the futile pursuit of the “known self” and instead reveals the simple grace of just being present.
In compelling prose, Shepherd asks us to surrender to the reality of “what is” that enables us to reunite with our own being.
Each chapter is accompanied by exercises meant to bring Shepherd’s vision into daily life — what the author calls a practice that “facilitates the voluntary sabotage of long-standing patterns.”
The book is a philosophical primer, a spiritual handbook and a roaming inquiry into human history.
$19.95 — North Atlantic Books, P.O. Box 12327, Berkeley, CA 94712.
Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 29, Number 6, December 2010/January 2011.
April 13, 2012
Book review