Tag Archives: Buddhism

Book Review: The Power of Now (1999)

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A guide to spiritual enlightenment… by Eckhart Tolle
Review by Brian Wright
Major insights with transformative potential
1999, New World Library, 191 pages

It’s an enchanting thought, isn’t it?  In the middle of a society whose centers of political power are emanating stale rot to the accompaniment of bugles, we’re beginning to see a vibrant coalescence of awareness (COA) among ordinary people.  Extraordinary ordinary people that is. Spiritual enlightenment has become sort of a preoccupation of mine, not to say I’ve made stellar progress on my own but I like to see it and comment on it in others.  For example, I reviewed The Celestine Prophecy, a personally liberating book that gathered numerous devotees through the 1990s and beyond.  A fair amount of my other work on my site has had a theme of self-improvement or self-discovery or both, e.g.

book reviews of:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Think and Grow Rich
Building a Bridge to the 18th Century
The Secret behind Secret Societies
The Secret

movie reviews of:
The Matrix
Ulee’s Gold
V for Vendetta (revenge-oriented but still spiritually gratifying)
The Da Vinci Code

and articles or columns of:
The Sacred Nonaggression Principle
The 15-Minute Spirit Charge
Brew Pub Nation (beer is proof God wants us to be happy)
Reflections on a Noble Soul (loss of my brother) Continue reading →

Book Review: Goldie: A Lotus Grows in the Mud (2005)

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by Goldie Hawn (with Wendy Holden)
Reviewed by Brian Wright
2005, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 446 pages

GoldieGoldie I picked up from a lady friend in Okemos, Michigan, who has always been a book person… and a fan of Goldie Hawn: entertainer, actress, producer, director, and human person seeking enlightenment, in no particular order.

It’s a nice respite from heavier fare, the sort of nonfiction I’m constantly drawn to dealing with the freedom movement and the eternal search for justice.  Goldie Jean Hawn (her real name) was born in Washington DC, and grew up in a suburb of DC, Takoma Park, Maryland.  She took dance lessons early and became quite accomplished in ballet, then in drama school, worked as a dancer, and found her way into TV and the entertainment business.  Most of us remember her goofy “dumb blond” act on the series Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Life of Pi (2012)

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Rudyard Kipling meets the Dalai Lama ____ 9/10
by Brian Wright

A remarkable experience, this film by Ang Lee. A significant cinematic achievement on several levels, three that I can think of immediately:

  1. the exploration of faith and spirituality as it develops in a freethinking Indian boy whose father is an advocate of reason
  2. an unusual, gripping adventure story that captures the imagination of young and old alike
  3. a technical marvel integrating spectacular computer-generated imagery (CGI) with live action seamlessly

And to top it all off, perhaps the most important quality lies in the story’s tug on the heartstrings as one puts oneself in the shoes of the protagonist at the end. The emotional scale is huge in this resolution, amplified by the fact that the viewer has been through the wringer of a 200+ day ordeal of survival at sea. Continue reading →