Stephen Batchelor

Nov 15, 2024 | kirkusreviews.com | Anne Heche |Stephen Batchelor |Lillyin Love

A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness. The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy. Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love.

Jun 1, 2024 | tricycle.org | Stephen Batchelor

I said to myself: “These painful austerities have not led to any transcendent states, any knowledge or vision able to ennoble one. Could there be another way?”Then I recalled: “Once, while my father the Sakiyan was at work, I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree. Untroubled by sensual desires or unskillful ideas, I entered into and dwelled in the first meditation, which is accompanied by thought and reflection, by rapture and well-being born of solitude.

Feb 1, 2024 | kirkusreviews.com | Norman Ohler |Marshall Yarbrough |Anne Heche |Stephen Batchelor

A winning addition to the literature of psychedelia. An idiosyncratic trip through the annals of LSD. German author Ohler, author of Blitzed, took on the study of the history of lysergic acid, he recounts, when his father began to give Ohler's mother microdoses to help mediate her Alzheimer’s disease.

Nov 17, 2023 | kirkusreviews.com | Mohamad Jebara |Albert Camus |Stephen Batchelor

A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life. A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude. “As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars.

Oct 14, 2023 | kirkusreviews.com | Marilynne Robinson |Albert Camus |Stephen Batchelor

A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life. A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude. “As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars.