In fresh and inviting language, making frequent use of strikingly clear diagrams and illustrations, Unlearning the Basics challenges many our commonsense understandings of who we are, of what the mind is, of the relationship of the self to the world. The book also offers a new way of seeing that enables to us live more serenely, more compassionately, and more free from the slings and arrows of our busy lives. Grounded in the Buddhist tradition yet completely free from the formulas of traditional, tired presentations, this book is written in an informal style designed to maintain the reader's attention. The author examines concepts of love and grasping, as well as what happens when the need for love meets "the great unfixables." Also covered are how impermanence, vulnerability, and pain feed the "evolution of character," personal agency, "wise resistances," and the necessity of experiential training in new ways of using the mind and of returning to our true home and finding new ways to flourish.

Dr. Rishi Sativihari was born Richard Wright and grew up in the inner city of Detroit during the 1960s and 70s. Prior to monastic life, Rishi worked as the clinical director of La Casa, a drug abuse treatment center in southwest Detroit, and as a staff psychologist for the University of Toronto, Department of Psychiatry. Rishi received his monastic training and ordination from the Venerable Wattegama Dhammawasa at the Subodharama Monastery in Sri Lanka. He also trained in the Tibetan (Gelug) tradition under the Venerable Geshe Tashi Tsering at the Chenrezig Monastery in Australia, and under S.N. Goenka at the Dhammagiri Centre in India. In 2003, Rishi left monastic life and began training in the contemplative foundations of Judaism and Christianity at the Toronto School of Theology. He currently offers teaching on contemplative living and guidance in spiritual formation to individuals and groups in the Toronto area.

	Contents: unlearning the basics - A New Way of Understanding Yourself and the World
	Foreword by Mu Soeng	ix
	Preface	xiii
1.	Introduction	1
2.	When the Need for Love Meets the Great Unfixables	15
3.	The Flight from Pain into Fantasy	23
4.	Home Is Where We Flourish	43
5.	Self-Possession and Mature Spirituality	55
6.	Dependent Origination, Personal Agency, and the Silent Watcher	71
7.	The Path as Spiritual Discipline	79
8.	The Eight Disciplines of the Path	87
9.	The Primacy of Wisdom and the Root of Virtue	93
10.	The Disciplines of Training in Virtue	105
11.	The Disciplines of Training in Meditative Awareness	113
12.	Conditioned and Unconditioned Levels of the Path	121
13.	Taking Spiritual Refuge - A Ritual of Commitment to the Path	125
	Index	133
	About the Author	145