Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil

by Stephen Batchelor

Book Overview

A personal meditation by the best-selling Buddhist philosopher considers the existence of evil in the world, drawing on western and Buddhist literature to profile the devil as a deceptive or distracting obstacle to true goodness and humility. 40,000 first printing.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573222763
• ISBN13: 9781573222761
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Deeper Understanding

Living With the Devil was so deeply affecting I had to slow down to read and absorb it. I didn't want it to end and, because I'd borrowed the book, knew I had to have it as part of my permanent library so ordered it. I raved about it so much a friend gave me a copy so now I have one to keep and one to lend. I'm reading it for the second time which is very unusual for me and am marking the passages which resonate so I can come back, on the fly, and find them quickly. Never have I had a clearer understanding of Mara or the obstacles in life. Ones we create and ones we encounter on our journey. Batchelor has an uncanny way of articulating complexities and ambiguities in a highly accessible manner.

Simply Brilliant

Stephen Batchelor nails this topic with beautiful articulation. He uses many references, most especially from his own teaching of Buddha Dharma, to capture the reality of this concept of the devil in our daily lives. The devil is in the details of our lives, weaved into the fibers of our existence, and the author reveals the workings of satan, or Mara, as the very product of our ego-driven selves. Stephen pulls from Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other Eastern mystic traditions, psychology, science, and art to drive home the point of the intricacies of the dichotomy of humankind. This book is a fascinating, eye-opening read that even non-Buddhists can enjoy.

not bad

Coming from a very religious family and having been educated in Catholic Schools and following the Christian faith most of my life, I already thought I knew what the war between good and evil was, especially with studying history and philosophy in college. I found this book very easy to read, most noteably the parts between Buddha and Mara, the Buddhist's counterpart of Christ and the Devil. Other areas in the book I found difficult to follow, especially since I haven't studied Buddhism indepth as I did Christianity. But what the book tells its readers is how evil is everywhere, how easy it is to fall into a cycle that is acting as an agent of evil, how to break from it, etc etc. If you have ever seen Star Wars, more specifically The Empire Strikes Back, you can see parallels between Yoda and Buddhism, especially where when it gets into a meditation on how to be at peace with oneself within a world filled with obligations, stress, problems and chaos. This is an easy book to read and would recommend it to those who are interested in meditation, becoming at peace with theirselves, and finding out who they are and where they are going.

Truly insightful and practical

I feel like Batchelor is someone who truly wants to face existence as it is and find an authentic respond to it. Consequently, his insights were really heart-felt. He is like the stubborn kid on the block who refuses to go home until he has resolved the question about the stars. Living With the Devil has helped me to create a different perspective on mortality. For example, as he had suggested that our existence is "contingent rather than necessary." To illustrate this point the best, I will give an example of how it helps me in my specific situation. I am an Asian immigrant in America. And just few weeks ago, I was walking one early morning to class on a college campus and saw a white football player type of person walking toward me. That morning I was in a fairly good mood and was in fact planning on saying hi to that person, despite the fact that few hate crime incidents had just happened in the last couple of weeks on campus and I was fairly frustrated because not a lot of people including the faculties, which were essential, were willing to participate and show support in the discussion about the hate crimes after they had happened. Anyway, as we are about to approach each other, he suddenly cut in front of me, so that I had to actually force my self to stop so that I don't bump into him. I looked at him in surprise and he gave me a nasty stare. PLEASE NOTE: this is not a racial comment, it can happen to anyone, for example, maybe in the case of a Chinese soldier to a Tibetan in Tibet. I had thought about this incident and couldn't really think of anything. I am like 6-3, so if I have to fight I can, but I am also a psychology major and am interested in public service, so there is a conflict in me. What is more important is that I feel like I might look at white people more negatively afterwards and I really don't want to do that. Then I read Batchelor's book. My solution is to look at the whole incident as a contingent event. I reason, 1st If I were to brush my teeth that morning or ate my breakfast, I would not have encountered him. 2nd what happens is not personal, it can be anyone else of my race, so it is really about him. 3rd Next, I just accept him as he is. Just like I accept a tiger; a tiger for some reason by nature or nurture functions differently, though it is potentially threatening to me, but I don't hate a tiger, in fact I think tigers are exotic and beautiful. Instead of projecting my self-centered compulsive reactivity (that has helped our ancestors to survive though-out natural selection) onto the contingent world, (which freely plays itself), I face myself. I face my own biological and psychological self-preserving compulsions. One's life is "contingent rather than necessary", there is no special reason why so and so bla bla bla, our urge to think of life as a story that revolves around us is a trick that the "devil" plays on us. We live in that fixation or routine way of thinking as if

Excellent!

This book is an interesting and intelligent approach to the dualistic struggle of Good and Evil that is rooted deeply in the human character. Most of the expositions are Buddhist, but parallels in literature and in other religions are also considered with cultural poise and maturity. (Although the author used to be a monk in the Tibetan and Zen traditions, the Pali Nikaya is the predominant source of his quotations.) Many subtle points in Buddhist philosophy and meditation practice are made surprisingly accessible in lucid and poetic prose. If you have read "Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime," you will find that the author's wonderful explanations of "contingency," "emptiness" and "path" are reintroduced in this book. Yet, Buddhism goes beyond the moral connotations of Evil and Good: the meditator looks directly at Concept and Reality, at Fabrication and Truth. Freedom from suffering is ultimately freedom from all fixations, or "absence of resistance" as the author aptly puts it.This book could serve as a better introduction to Buddhism than most books that are so dry and doctrinal they put you to sleep. If you are a Buddhist scholar or meditation practitioner, read it too, as it may give you a few fresh perspectives (or take away some of your beloved opinions). Enjoy the book, and its reminder: There is no Buddha without Mara; there is no Nirvana without Samsara.