Living with the Devil A Buddhist Meditation on Good and Evil By Stephen Batchelor [pdf]

pdf | 5.5MB |

Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Trade; Reprint edition (June 7, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594480877
ISBN-13: 978-1594480874

A bestselling Buddhist philosopher offers a personal meditation of extraordinary insight.

Whether we are religious or not, the Devil-evil incarnate-is a concept that can still strike fear in our hearts. What if he does exist? What if he is causing all our problems in his determination to keep us from reaching our full potential?

Stephen Batchelor takes the concept of the Devil out of literature and history and brings him to life in his many forms and guises: the flatterer, the playmate, the caring friend, the stranger who offers rest and solace, the person who knows you best and shows you your greatness in the world. And, most of all, as the great obstructer that blocks all paths to goodness and true humility.

For the first time, Batchelor fuses Western literature-Milton, Keats, Baudelaire-with Buddhism and the Judeo-Christian traditions in a poetic exploration of the struggle with the concept and reality of evil. Living with the Devil reveals the voice of a new poet and philosopher for our times.

Stephen Batchelor's seminal work on humanity's struggle between good and evil

In the national bestseller Living with the Devil, Batchelor traces the trajectory from the words of the Buddha and Christ, through the writings of Shantideva, Milton, and Pascal, to the poetry of Baudelaire, the fiction of Kafka, and the findings of modern physics and evolutionary biology to examine who we really are, and to rest in the uncertainty that we may never know. Like his previous bestseller, Buddhism without Beliefs, Living with the Devil is also an introduction to Buddhism that encourages readers to nourish their "buddha nature" and make peace with the devils that haunt human life. He tells a poetic and provocative tale about living with life's contradictions that will challenge you to live your life as an existence imbued with purpose, freedom, and compassion—rather than habitual self-interest and fear.