Into the Mirror: A Buddhist Journey Through Mind, Matter, and the Nature of Reality

"Into the Mirror is an integrative presentation of the Mahayana Buddhist view of the nature of reality, combining insights from modern Western philosophy, science, and physics to guide the reader on an experiential journey. Andy Karr invites the reader to engage in complex Buddhist ideas with guided contemplations, such as how to bring awareness to the textures of thoughts and feelings that come and go in meditation practice, how to investigate the way we impute qualities onto the objects we crave, and how to generate compassion without a sense of grasping on to things as having a concrete essence. Turning the classical mind-body problem of contemporary philosophy on its head, he guides the reader to investigate the mind's role in creating experiences of the external world. The book consists of three parts. The first is a highly accessible summary of the Buddhist path to the cessation of suffering, presenting foundational concepts such as the four truths, the notion of enlightenment, and the practice of meditation. The second part offers methods for deconstructing our presumptions about the relationship between consciousness and matter, incorporating modern philosophy and science into a traditional Buddhist presentation of the true nature of mind. Part three then explores the progressive stages of insight of the Mahayana tradition, introducing the reader to key premodern Buddhist thinkers such as Nagarjuna and Asanga. This history of Indian Buddhist thought, and the Yogacara tradition in particular, is used a guide for an inquisitive journey that offers transformative insight into ordinary human experience"--