Format: Paperback

 

Condition: New

 

Publishing Info: Simon & Schuster, 2018

 

ISBN: 9781439195468

 

From one of America’s most brilliant writers, a New York Times bestselling journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness.

At the heart of Buddhism is a simple claim: The reason we suffer—and the reason we make other people suffer—is that we don’t see the world clearly. At the heart of Buddhist meditative practice is a radical promise: We can learn to see the world, including ourselves, more clearly and so gain a deep and morally valid happiness.

In this “sublime” (The New Yorker), pathbreaking book, Robert Wright shows how taking this promise seriously can change your life—how it can loosen the grip of anxiety, regret, and hatred, and how it can deepen your appreciation of beauty and of other people. He also shows why this transformation works, drawing on the latest in neuroscience and psychology, and armed with an acute understanding of human evolution.

This book is the culmination of a personal journey that began with Wright’s landmark book on evolutionary psychology, The Moral Animal, and deepened as he immersed himself in meditative practice and conversed with some of the world’s most skilled meditators. The result is a story that is “provocative, informative and...deeply rewarding” (The New York Times Book Review), and as entertaining as it is illuminating. Written with the wit, clarity, and grace for which Wright is famous, Why Buddhism Is True lays the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age and shows how, in a time of technological distraction and social division, we can save ourselves from ourselves, both as individuals and as a species.

 

About the Author: Robert Wright is the bestselling author of Three Scientists and Their Gods, The Moral Animal, Nonzero, The Evolution of God (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), and Why Buddhism is True. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages and his awards include the National Magazine Award for Essay and Criticism. A contributing editor for The New Republic, Wright has also written for The Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, Time, and Slate.com. He is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and editor in chief of the website Bloggingheads.tv. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife and their two daughters.