Travel Scene International - 26 January 2005 (Australia)
BUDDHISM FOR BUSY PEOPLE
Finding Happiness in an Uncertain World
David Michie
Allen & Unwin
David Michie is a good example of a busy executive having to deal with the stresses of multiple businesses and homes on two continents. He well and truly knows that material success does not guarantee happiness.
Buddhism for Busy People is the story of how Tibetan Buddhism provided David with a way of dealing with a busy, pressurised lifestyle and helped him find true happiness.
Michie reveals that for him, as for everyone on the path, the quest for happiness is an on-going process: "Through meditation I access a reservoir of calm and objectivity from which I benefit every day."
As a result he believes he has become "more resilient in the face of personal upset" and the objective of this book is to provide the reader with the same tools Michie has found effective to this end.
However Michie does emphasise that he does not hold himself as some kind of master or leader of Buddhist teaching.
He credits leaders such as his Vajra guru, Geshe Loden, his teacher Les Sheehy, Western Buddhist nun Tenzin Palmo, and the Dalai Lama as inspiring him with their ability to live "with a radiant immediacy and a compassion which is observable…and can be quite overwhelming."
Michie de-mystifies Buddhism for the novice lay reader, revealing it not so much as an 'escape' mechanism, but as a life-transforming process for better appreciating and enjoying career, family and the fruits of success.
Simply and subtly packaged, and written from the perspective of personal experience, Buddhism for Busy People is a beautiful guidebook to "finding happiness in an uncertain world" from someone who has actually done it.
Review by Kerry Hennigan
Book from Allen & Unwin