This book is a gem. It's structured in the form of a 7 day retreat, with each chapter dedicated to a specific day, with suttas and daily reflections included. However, you don't need to read it while being on retreat, I read it during daily life.
Delson does a great job of clearly explaining the most important concepts in Buddhism and meditation, making them easy to understand and put into practice. Well, everything except for the reincarnation/kamma stuff, and forgive me for a bit of a rant.
First and foremost, this is not the author's fault, he is genuinely trying to explain traditional reincarnation doctrine in detail, and he provides lots of examples and clarifications. For those people who accept this doctrine, those chapters will be very helpful. The problem is that it doesn't make much sense to me. Everything else in Buddhadharma is clear, practical and straight to the point. When it comes to past/future lives and reincarnation, everything gets really confusing and seems to blatantly contradict a teaching about annata (no self). In my view, it's an attempt to smuggle in some sort of a self where it doesn't belong (called a string of lives, or mind stream, or whatever). Of course, death is not the end - beings are born and die constantly in this interconnected reality. The problem occurs is if you are taking this body and mind to be a self, something special, separate and self-existing. Of course there are past lives, we wouldn't be here now if there were no past lives, but were any of them "mine" or "yours"? Were any of the dinosaurs living 65 million years ago "you"? What does it even mean to claim it was your past life? There is no self even now, just a stream of causes and conditions, and putting a "me", "I" or "mine" label on any of them, is missing the point.
Of course, there are future lives, and kamma does matter and will bear fruit in the future, but again, why is there such a certainty that all this kamma will be inherited by one being, which will be "your" future life? Why not many beings? Some parts of kamma take fruit in one being, some in another, everything is interconnected and all boundaries are illusory and impermanent. Otherwise, some form of an enduring self (or string of selves between lives) is being smuggled in, where it shouldn't be. I am also not saying that you can't see past lives while doing some practices, but again, those are not your past lives. Everything is interdependent and interconnected, and it's completely plausible that you can tap into other aggregations of consciousness, present or past. This is my overall concern with the way this doctrine is traditionally taught in religious Buddhism circles, and it makes me think that this is a later addition to the Buddha's teaching, a misinterpretation of the texts, or something he just pragmatically decided to use as part of his teaching not to repel people (because this belief was so prevalent at the time). Because everything else Buddha taught was clear (at least intellectually), non-contradictory and of great practical significance. Of course, I am also humble and mindful of the possibility that I just don't understand it. Fortunately, belief in reincarnation is not required to practice Dhamma effectively, and Delson also mentions that in the book.
Despite all that, I still highly recommend this book and give it 5 stars. The 6R practice was a game changer for me, I had been doing TMI practice for 6 years (developed by Culadasa) , and integrating Relax and Re-smile steps made a huge difference in my practice and propelled it forward. I also really like how down-to-earth Delson is, how clearly he teaches the Dhamma, and the level of detail he is willing to go into, while still keeping things easily digestible. I like that a huge emphasis was put on not taking things personally, to be self. This was repeated so often that I get an impression that it is the core message of this book. Which makes a lot of sense, because craving is dependent on an ignorant view of self. To have a Mind Without Craving, don't take anything that happens personally.
As a side note, I really liked that full suttas are included in the beginning of each chapter. This is a great idea!
P.S, before or after reading this book, I highly recommend watching an interview on Guru Viking podcast Ep. 120, called "Meditation Virtuoso", this is how I found out about Delson. It will be a great supplement to this book.
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