Status
Available
Call number
Publication
HarperCollins (1990), Edition: 1st, 240 pages
Description
As men and women find that they can no longer rely on old roles and formulas to get along, intimate relationships call for a new kind of honesty and awareness, a willingness to let go of old patterns and cultivate new capacities. Journey of the Heart shows how we can rise to this challenge by learning to use whatever difficulties we face in relationships as opportunities to expand our sense of who we are and deepen our capacity to connect with others. This is the path of conscious love.
User reviews
LibraryThing member kukulaj
I was introduced to Buddhism around 1980 through Chogyam Trungpa's books and his organization. Over the years I have read many of his books and deepened my involvement in Buddhism in a variety of ways.
Welwood does explicitly mention Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Chogyam Trungpa in this book,
I've been quite single for most of my life but now in the past six years I have somehow jumped tracks and find myself deep in a relationship. It is a struggle! I found Welwood's book to be wonderfully supportive and encouraging. I'm not sure any of the ideas were new for me. But Welwood has put them together in a very coherent way and given them clear expression. This clarity and coherence fits nicely into my thinking so that when I am getting lost in the confusion of the struggle I can bring these ideas back to mind more easily and confidently.
While this book does seem very practical to me, it is not very concrete. I thrive on abstraction so the book fit my style... perhaps a little too much. There are no explicit exercises or any detailed program for how to bring this kind of vast scope alive in a relationship... beyond perhaps shamatha meditation, i.e. classical Buddhist practice. But for me, the usual how-to manual is missing that vastness and vision and leaves me unmotivated to tackle all that hard work. Welwood's book provides a very nice sketch of what a relationship can be, a good motivator for engaging in that struggle yet again.
One interesting minor theme in this book is how relationships have changed along with the broader patterns of society. He doesn't analyze this in any depth but clearly that kind of correlated shift is a major reality. The great challenges of our times present equally great opportunities. I usually think of this in terms of geology and ecology, but it is just as true in interpersonal and intimate relationships, and maybe more importantly true there too. That's where the truest and deepest flowering of our humanity occurs.
Welwood does explicitly mention Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Chogyam Trungpa in this book,
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though not very frequently. But I hear the ideas of Buddhism and the language of Trungpa Rinpoche on practically every page. I don't think Welwood was abusing or distorting these either. I do wonder, though, whether folks who are not so comfortable with Trungpa-style Buddhism will find this book so useful. Of course, ultimately the truth that religions strive for must be the same. But that truth is an odd bird, inexpressible - nothing formal or propositional, indeed beyond language. Even in Buddhism that sort of perspective is not always acceptable! I imagine less so elsewhere, though perhaps never quite entirely and utterly rejected. So perhaps Welwood's book can be yield some nourishment for any reader... yet in widely varying degree.I've been quite single for most of my life but now in the past six years I have somehow jumped tracks and find myself deep in a relationship. It is a struggle! I found Welwood's book to be wonderfully supportive and encouraging. I'm not sure any of the ideas were new for me. But Welwood has put them together in a very coherent way and given them clear expression. This clarity and coherence fits nicely into my thinking so that when I am getting lost in the confusion of the struggle I can bring these ideas back to mind more easily and confidently.
While this book does seem very practical to me, it is not very concrete. I thrive on abstraction so the book fit my style... perhaps a little too much. There are no explicit exercises or any detailed program for how to bring this kind of vast scope alive in a relationship... beyond perhaps shamatha meditation, i.e. classical Buddhist practice. But for me, the usual how-to manual is missing that vastness and vision and leaves me unmotivated to tackle all that hard work. Welwood's book provides a very nice sketch of what a relationship can be, a good motivator for engaging in that struggle yet again.
One interesting minor theme in this book is how relationships have changed along with the broader patterns of society. He doesn't analyze this in any depth but clearly that kind of correlated shift is a major reality. The great challenges of our times present equally great opportunities. I usually think of this in terms of geology and ecology, but it is just as true in interpersonal and intimate relationships, and maybe more importantly true there too. That's where the truest and deepest flowering of our humanity occurs.
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Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1990
Physical description
240 p.; 9.5 inches
ISBN
0060164751 / 9780060164751
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