Scott Snibbe takes deep Tibetan Buddhist teaching, removes it from its religious framework, and offers it in the form of self-help advice, practice, and wisdom. The effect will be helpful to many people, and the project of doing so is “blessed” by none other than H.H. the Dalai Lama in the form of the book's foreword.
Snibbe is a long-time student of Tibetan Buddhism whose teachers have included Lama Zopa Rinpoche. He is also the executive director of A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment (www.skepticspath.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching secular forms of Tibetan practice as a science designed to improve people’s lives.
Otherwise complicated practices are distilled in helpful ways with “how-to” approaches, and the path to discovering the preciousness of life is offered in “stages” for those who are ready to apply teachings to everyday situations.
So, for example, Snibbe shows how “science is confirming the benefits of meditation,” as he offers what are Tibetan Buddhist meditation techniques, with a presentation that does not require any of the trappings of Tibetan belief and practice. In many ways, this is a return to what for many decades was the primary way that Buddhist teaching came to the west.
Analytical meditation is introduced. There are also interesting discussions of how the mind works and how a “skeptic’s path” to enlightenment, and even renunciation (where “giving up suffering requires the courage to dive deep into your mind and face the innermost causes of your suffering”), make sense in the twenty-first century.
The preciousness of life, the meaning of love, and making sense of personal identity, all come into new focus in this interesting, secular, approach to Tibetan Buddhist teaching and practice. Highly recommended.
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