Book Review: The Buddha in the Classroom
burnout
what to do?
after 12 years as a mental health counselor, i chose to leave the field. though i have gone thru the gyrations to keep my license, i no longer see clients. in fact, my job is as far from psychotherapy as you can get.
Donna Quesada, however, chose a different path. She looked to Zen to deal with her burnout as a professor of philosophy. Her book, The Buddha in the Classroom, is an outgrowth of that process. This is the kind of book with manageable length chapters that will appeal to anyone who likes to read in short bursts whether it’s due to schedule or temperment.
The Buddha in the Classroom is written in a two pronged format where each chapter starts with a real life story from the author’s teaching life and then finishes with a dharma lesson. I could tell from her stories and style that these were examples from the trenches of working with the masses. I think if you are working with a large enough group of people, you also will recognize the patterns of behavior even if they show up differently in their particular expression.
Because the patterns of people’s behavior are common, Quesada’s examples (though focused on teachers) are quite universal. If you replace the word “teacher” with whatever your personal example is: “customer service rep”, “cable installation tech”, “parent”, there are many great nuggets of wisdom in this book. Anyone can benefit from keeping expectations in check and not taking other people’s behavior personally…two lessons covered multiple times in the 20 chapters.
As an old counselor, I kept seeing a recurring theme of maintaining appropriate boundaries inside and out and doing so with compassion for self and others. Not doing so leads to multiple leaks in the system and when the juice is gone, you’re left with burnout…I learend that one the extra hard way. Reading this book made me wish I had known about Zen back then…dammit, had a ‘past’ thought. Maybe I can use Zen in to improve my job as credit analyst tommorrow…eeek, ‘future’ thought. Getting caught in the past/future routine is one of the first lesons in the book but I think it resonates throughout.
Regardless of who you are or what your profession is, The Buddha in the Classroom, is a recommended read. Remember, life is a classroom too.
Contemplative Photography part 2
If you read part one of this book review and were wondering when this book is going to be released, you are in luck as it’s just around the corner…like next week April 12th, according to Amazon.com. If you are a person who enjoys the process of photography, it’s a worthy read. If you are interested in a Buddhist perspective on how we envision the world, it is a worthy read. I was lucky in that both of those things interest me, so I thoroughly enjoyed going thru this book.
The last few chapters of the book are mostly technical with details on basics like the mechanics of the camera and the workings of light. It’s not enough to overwhelm you, but if you are reading the book for the reasons I mentioned above, you may find your eyes glazing over and it’s ok to skip those chapters, tho do be sure and check out the pictures.
This book overall has been a nice intersection for me of where meditation, study, and real world action all come together in a beautiful and harmonious way. This intersection is, for me, the type of sweet spot I look for in all spiritual paths I’ve skipped along over the years. Andy Karr shared with me in some of his emails that this kind of sweet spot is what his teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche emphasized in his teachings. The Practice of Contemplative Photography, for this reason, is again, a read worth your time and money.
