cover image Buddha's Nature: A Practical Guide to Enlightenment Through Evolution

Buddha's Nature: A Practical Guide to Enlightenment Through Evolution

Wes Nisker. Bantam Books, $23.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-553-10601-5

At first glance, Nisker's book is a beginner's guide to Buddhism. It simply and clearly lays out, in a series of straightforward how-to steps, different Buddhist meditation techniques. At a deeper level, however, the book is not so simple. Nisker combines the practices and principles of Buddhist meditation with current breakthroughs in cosmology, evolution and molecular genetics. For instance, he argues that, in meditating on the body, one can pass through the cells into their evolutionary origins. While Nisker's remarks on Buddhism are informed by careful study, his exploration of science is less successful. Nisker often chooses scientific viewpoints that are outside the mainstream, and he presents them, often out of context, to justify his idiosyncratic points. Moreover, Nisker's rambling prose, which reads more like a disjointed diary than a refined, considered personal reflection, results in a flat, joyless book. The author's interpretations of the Buddhist view on the lack of God, the self and consciousness fall like afterthoughts in the last few pages. (Oct.)