Yixiao

Shentong understanding of Emptiness

Revisado: 10-28-24

I strongly suggest readers to have at least some basic understanding of this century long controversy: Shentong vs Rangtong, before touching this book for this is a book that promulgates Shentong view of things.

I have no personal opinion regarding the subject matter. Whatever idea you might have, or the lack thereof, the book is a highly useful, well presented, and unrivalled by few in its depth, breadth and clarity.

Enjoy!

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A hallmark movie with excellent prose but still...

Revisado: 07-26-24

(Minor spoiler ahead )

This is the first full length Stephen King novel. I picked it up because of rave ratings and comments. After trudging over near 50 hours of apocalyptic land, I feel exhausted and glad that it is over.

The book has excellent writing. I mean the physical components of it are just outstanding. King knows how to use words and how to write dialogues. But the story itself is basically a Christmas hallmark, lacking any sort of thought provoking quality or intellectual depth. It really feels like the hobby project of some highschooler's, though much fancier in appearance.

Onto some details on why I think it is a terrible book:

1. utterly predictable linear plot where the good triumphs and the evil perishes. Lots and lots of words fitted in there just to make you like the good characters more and the bad characters less. Plus a few ounces of dramatic reversal to give some artificial depth (though largely failed) to the characters: okay the good guy can turn bad, and the bad guy ain't so bad ( because he is American! yeah Whitney! )
2. Why the hell did Mother Abigail send those four to the West if in the end, hand of God (literally) appears in the sky and triggers off an atomic bomb and clears the whole area? Ridiculous as it already sounds, it makes you cringe hard to then realise that the four had served zero purpose ! Well, I guess god sure knows not to put all eggs in one basket and nothing is more reassuring than nuclear annihilation. Great writing King!
3. King fails miserably in his character crafting. Perhaps you haven't noticed, though starting off as distinctive characters, Stu and Larry later grew to be the same character. They talk the same, they think the same, they serve identical purposes and it is because they are the same. the same goes with Judge Ferris and Glen Bateman, Lucy Swann and Frannie.
4. Wordiness/ verbosity/ whatever you call it. It is something that King himself mentions in his introduction to this new, "uncut" edition of The Stand. And oh boy is he right. The whole story could be told better with at least 25% fewer words. Senseless repetitive descriptions (though well written, in terms of prose quality) that serve zero purpose in either crafting the character or propelling the plot. I guess he just enjoys to write, a little too much.

The best part of the book is certainly the narration. This Grover Gardner is phenomenal, crisp enunciation and masterful portrayal of each character. In then end I realised I was still reading the If it had been a less capable narrator, I would have put down the book long long before the end.

I don't think this review will see the light of day as Audible makes an effort to mostly include positive reviews. None of my previous reviews appeared on the title pages as they are worried less than sterling reviews will affect sales. Still I wrote it. Do whatever you want with it.

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Some very good, some very lackluster

Revisado: 06-22-24

Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream, The Dreamers and The Answer Man are excellent. Good prose, impeccable storytelling, great character crafting.

The Two Talented Bastids is mostly good though I don't think the alien component quite fitted the story as a whole, just a tad too cliched.

The Dreamers started off great though the i feel like it rushed off to a very hasty end. There's gotta be a right balance between the explained and unexplained for a mystery to work. This work veers too much towards the latter with an "all goes up in flames" sudden end, quite literally.

While Rattlesnakes starts off with much verbosity that neither propels the plot nor adds to the story, it picks up nearing the end and oh boy was it satisfying!

The rest of the tales like Laurie, Finn, the Turbulence Expert, On Slide Inn Road range from quite alright to downright boring.

Red Screen stands alone in that it reads like some undergraduate's hobby project - plain bad writing.

Overall I don't think it's one of the author's best works even though it is a popular seller. Still, for King's fans it is not to be missed.

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overall good but an interesting observation...

Revisado: 12-18-20

In the first chapter, the text ( as published by Penguine Classics translated by Martin Hammond) has " putting a stop to homosexual love of young men;" after "to reward impartially, giving everyone their due; experience of where to tighten, where to relax;"

It is deliberately skipped by the narrator. It does say a lot about the narrator. This political correctness BS that has gone so far that we are deliberately manipulating ancient texts.

Kinda scary.

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A right wing Sufi interpretation

Revisado: 08-26-20

Before you get the book there are a couple of points you need to be aware of.

1. The book is written by a controversial Turkish politician for the Turkish audience, and in many senses for them alone.
If you do not know this fact and that you are unfamiliar with modern Turkish history, you might be at a loss to many small references he is making, and also the reason of the uncalled-for anti-secularism voiced throughout the book. Basically the author is a proponent of Turkish re-Islamisation, championing a version of Islam that's both highly nationalistic and has little tolerance towards anything unIslamic. He was once a fellow political-ambitionist of the current Turkish president Erdogan. They both vied for absolute control of Turkey and dream of bringing back a fantasised version of "Golden age Islam". Things went out of hand in 2013 and the author fled the country till this day.

2. Ironically, despite the typical uneasy relationship between right wing Islam and Sufism in Turkey and in the Islamic world, the author is very obviously, heavily influenced by local Sufism. Unbeknownst to most westerners who romanticise Sufism as some kind of sacred inner path (whatever that might mean) , the core of most Sufi schools is built on their single minded devotion to the Prophet, frequently in a way that is blatantly unislamic. Muhammad (s.a.w) is portrayed in Sufism and of course in this book as an infallible God-man, much like the Christian understanding of Jesus. Unreliable hadith such as " God created the universe out of his love for the prophet alone " is paraphrased by the author in the opening chapters without scruple. The author goes as far as to say the only thing that attracts young men to go to mosque on a friday is their love for the prophet. While on a sentimental level it is correct and even praiseworthy, it is very problematic from an Islamic point of view. No, Muslims do not go to mosques because of Muhammad (S.A.W) alone, they go in order to worship Allah.

Aside from the above points the book is essentially a fine work, very devotional and very informative albeit being so obviously "Sufiastic" ( As a Western reader, your eyes might shine when the word Sufi appears, but as just said, it is not what you might think Sufism is about. )

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Truth is never singular

Revisado: 07-21-20

It is a book written by a muslim scholar for muslim scholars. If you don't know in details the four sunni madhhabs, shi'i traditions , early islamic history, the Quran in arabic ( yep key terms are not translated to English), the sufi orders of North Africa - especially the tijanni tariq, then the book will be likely incomprehensible to you. It is an excellent read however for those equipped with such knowledge.
Now about the book:
1, the recording quality is poor but listenable. The narrator is reasonably good, her pronunciation of Arab is very good (likely done by a bilingual arabic/ english speaker grown up in England)
2. The beginning of the book is very engaging. It narrates the young man's intellectual and actual journeys, his confrontation with Shi'i scholars and etc...
3. the latter half of the book is largely a shi'i propaganda. Yes, I have chosen my word carefully. The narrator went from open, intellectual, sympathetic to a full blown, one sided shi'i jihadist. Hence it fails to present Shi'ism in the best light.
Conclusion:
The book is a good read, despite my criticism in point 3 it is still a well researched book containing many verifiable facts that Sunni scholars fail to acknowledge or deliberately ignore. It also shows me that truth is never singular, a nation, a religion's collective truth is simply the culmination of a collective emotion forged in a succession of decisive historical moments. And we, trying to discern such "truths" must take both opposing sides into equal consideration.

Furthermore, my own intention of starting this book was due to my growing curiosity and sympathy towards shi'ism. By and large, The book somehow unintendedly did the opposite job. I am able to see clearly why such significant portion of Sunni muslims hold Shi'ites in contempt. Having said this, it still confirmed some of my positive views on Shi'ism and I am grateful for the author's effort.

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40-50% contents overlap with Pathways to Bliss

Revisado: 09-29-19

It is a great book because it is Joseph Campbell. three different narrators take turns reading terse short lines. It is annoying. they should have used one narrator.
40-50% contents overlap with Pathways to Bliss exactly, word for word. They are taken from the same source.
Pathways to Bliss is better for my taste because it is coherent and not made up of hundreds of disjoint Nietzsche-ian aphorisms.
If you bought either one, don't buy the other.

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Very useful. By no means a beginner's book

Revisado: 08-07-19

First of all occasionally the pdf contains some typos. No big issues.
The performance is solid. Good voice. A tad too fast for most beginners.
Though most stories/sentences are simple enough, at times the grammatical complexity and the range of vocabulary can be somewhat daunting. I have a B1/ B2 level-ish arabic and still find it challenging at times. The language is very, very formal even as Al-Fusha goes. If you manage to digest the whole book and are able to make your own sentences/ speeches accurately on a similar scale, your Arabic would be considered more than solid.

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There you have it, a thousand years new

Revisado: 12-15-17

Concise and terse sentences, absolute authority and persuasiveness. It says so much with so little- a stark contrast to mainline protestant commentaries which say so little with so unnecessarily much.
I resisted this recording for a long time-indeed what could it have to offer being written so long ago while there are an abundance of Gospel commentaries available? Well, apparently almost every single theological question I formulated during bible study classes and sunday liturgies are answered here. To say something is as relevant today as it was a thousand years ago is a cliche, but in this case it is true. The narrator does an excellent job with his calm seemingly monotonous reading, a book like this has a kind of sanctity that any kind of emotional reading would ruin.

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A Gem

Revisado: 12-05-17

For years and years I have repeated come to the same conclusion on my own: it's not necessary to confine oneself to a particular place and time to practice meditation. If a person is unable to maintain awareness from moment to moment then all seated practice is in vain. Satipatthana sutta somehow confirms my view. Yet how difficult it is to do this? To use too much energy I exhaust myself completely in less than a week and to do it too casually I slip away from mindfulness in a few minutes. This book essentially offered me all tips and advices to avoid these two pitfalls.

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