Dharmavidya

Latest publication

I have just received a copy of 

La Cura della Consapevolezza, edited by Massimo Tomassini

published 2012 by Techniche Nuove in Milan ISBN 9788848128001

in which I have written a chapter: L'approccio centrato sull'altro: una psicoterapia senza il se

Book republished in Flemish

The Feeling Buddha is Zonder Gruis Geen Parels in Flemish (No pearl without grit). Asoka have republished it and a swatch of copies arrived on our doorstep this morning.

Quien Ama Muere Bien

Have just received the cover design for the Spanish version of Who Loves Dies Well which comes out in September. Here is the blurb on the back cover.

ISBN: 978-84-330-2575-3
Quien Ama Muere Bien es una conmovedora introducción al Budismo
Tierrapura. También denominado Amidismo, el Budismo Tierrapura
aborda en profundidad la compleja relación entre la vida y
la muerte. Además, nos habla tanto acerca de ir al cielo como del
cielo en la tierra. Se trata de una forma de Budismo enormemente
espiritual, aunque muy práctica a la vez, en el reconocimiento de
las limitaciones de la naturaleza humana. No insiste en la perfección
ni fomenta el sentimiento de culpa por nuestros fracasos. Es
para la gente común, para todos nosotros que cometemos errores
y nos lamentamos por las miserias de la vida.
Esta obra le acercará a la intimidad de la vida espiritual budista,
única pero universal. Sin ornamentos, nos muestra la confrontación
con la muerte y el amor que siente un hijo por su madre cuando ésta
se halla a las puertas de su último viaje.
Se trata de un libro práctico, emotivo y rebosante de amor para
el lector, por lo que se convierte en la guía perfecta tanto para los
que se inician en el Budismo como para los más experimentados.
Jim Pym, autor de You Don’t have to Sit on the Floor
(No tienes que sentarte en el suelo)
David Brazier (Dharmavidya) es maestro de la Orden budista
Amida. Tiene un doctorado en psicología budista y ha publicado
cinco libros. Bajo su dirección la organización Amida ha fundado
centros budistas en Inglaterra y Francia y ha establecido proyectos
de ayuda sin fines de lucro en la India y África. Da cursos de budismo
y psicología budista.
Desclée De Brouwer Desclée De Brouwer
+ información:
DHARMAVIDYA Quien ama muere bien David J. Brazier

 

Her Mother's Eyes now available through Amazon

http://dld.bz/a2ktT

book in another language

I've just heard that my book The Feeling Buddha is going to be translated into Hebrew.

local press reports of the launch of "Her Mother's Eyes"

Reports in the Malvern Gazette and in the Worcester News

launched "Her Mother's Eyes & Other Poems" in Malvern

 At The Grange, Malvern, a house where George Bernard Shaw spoke and many artistic events have taken place, we had a very pleasant evening marking the launch of my book of poetry.

two poems from my new collection

A Secret Line of Pearls

The irony of history is Allah’s they say,
For He, by right, is king of night and of day.
When we look back and see the path we’ve wended
We know by Allah we were unknowingly befriended.
A line we see direct from A to B to C, no deviation;
Though at the time it seemed diverse peregrination.
Intending a certain goal, as we thought, we set out in care
And by mishap, mischance, misadventure, arrived elsewhere.
We arrived exactly where He’d have us be and know our state,
Near to the merciful, the compassionate, along a line that’s straight.


Travelling Friend

Tom knew me since the world began:
with restless spirit he theorised,
avoided work, womanised,
catch as catch can;
he was a travelling man,
liked to indulge, oversized,
obsessive, mesmerised,
couldn’t settle, tried to get even.
He was not one to rely upon
- now you see him, now he’s gone -
but a jovial friend
who’d come and go
telling his tale - the joy, the woe -
and I found my own way to correspond
with the world’s most dapper vagabond.

the title poem of my new book

Her Mother’s Eyes

Her mother’s eyes:
of it all that is what she will never forget:
Mother’s face, as she saw her there...
That is what has become engraved
on the marrow of who she is,
so much more deeply did it penetrate
than all that had gone before.

The face of a mother
who knows...
Who knows what has been done
to the daughter she bore,
who knows she has been unable to protect her own:
“If only I could have spared her that,
”they each thought, for the other.

And with the remembrance of that face
sometimes there comes
the rending, yet now fragmentary, details:
the roughness of the uniforms bruising her breasts,
the pinch pain where they gripped her,
the smell of alcohol and sweat,
the music she would never want to hear again.

She does not remember their eyes,
though they must have been glowing
- or were they dead? -
nor does she remember
her own impossible defence:
how her dress got torn away
nor, even, how she acquired the cuts and the burns.

Why did they not finish her
there and then
or a day or two later
with a bullet,
like they usually did?
She will never know.
A mistake perhaps.

But she rarely remembers the event itself,
now consigned to darkness,
though she always seems to carry
the sense of dirt
on the inside of her flesh,
on the soul side,
where no ordinary cleansing can erase.

No, all she remembers
is her mother’s eyes.

Bosnia, 1996

Never Die Alone coming out in Japanese

I've just heard that the Japanese edition of "Never Die Alone" [English language edition http://www.jsri.jp/English/Resources/publications.html] is just coming out. This is a book on death and dying from a variety of Buddhist perspectives with contributions by Mark Blum, Yoshihara Tomatsu, Carl Becker, myself and others.