The Buddha’s Dream of Liberation

Coleman (The New Buddhism) dashes through the sacred texts of Buddhism in this theological guide. Writing for readers with some rudimentary understanding of the tradition, he articulates the three turnings of the Dharma Wheel that form different schools of thought and routes to practice. The first and most familiar turning features the four noble truths, the eightfold path, and nonattachment as the route to escape suffering. The second shockingly undoes the first, focusing on the emptiness of all things. In the third, a more mystical turn leads practitioners to dwell in unspeakable realities and realize their non-egotistical true natures. Coleman ties together history and explication of text to provide brief overviews and reconciliation of these turnings as being directed at different audiences by the Buddha, observing that each contains value without there being a progression from one to the next. However, he offers few practical applications and moves rather quickly through key points. The additional chapters by well-known teachers Reb Anderson Roshi and Lama Palden Drolma contain more concrete trajectories. Despite the clear writing and useful updating of some of the Buddha’s metaphors for our current age, the work awkwardly falls between introductory and intermediate without meeting the needs of either. [em](June) [/em]