Joan Duncan Oliver has written on spirituality for many publications and is the author of three books including Good Karma. In this spiffy volume she imagines sitting down with the Buddha and chatting with him about things that matter most. Their engaging and thought-provoking conversation is fictional, of course, and yet it covers an amazing amount of interesting material on the ideas and ideals of this popular religion which has grown rapidly in the West thanks to many well-known spiritual teachers.
After a foreword by singer Annie Lennox and a brief biography of the Buddha, Oliver zeroes in on his philosophy of living. She covers the following subjects: suffering, impermanence, non-self, reincarnation, karma, desire, morality, mindfulness, compassion, love, the body, the way of the bodhisattva, and interdependence. Here are a few nuggets of wisdom from the interview:
On Nirvana
"Nirvana means freedom from obsessive self-concern and self-grasping, freedom from attachment to the notion that you have an 'enduring self' or eternal soul. Nirvana is true happiness than brings inner peace."
On Impermanence
"As you become aware that nothing lasts forever, you can deepen your appreciation for things as they are now, and not pin your hopes on what may or may not happen in the future."
On Karma
"A successful person may be reaping the rewards of past generosity or delight in others' good fortune. Someone who's poor in this lifetime may have been miserly in a previous lifetime."
On Mindfulness
"The more aware you are — the more fully present to your experience — the easier it becomes to react spontaneously and appropriately to whatever happens. That's very freeing. Trusting you can handle life as it arises allows you to surrender the need to control and still feel secure."
