What a gift this book is. Like the life of the beloved Vipassana (Insight) meditation teacher Anagarika Munindra, “Living This Life Fully” combines scholarship with meditation practice. Its unique format focuses each of the sixteen chapters on a different quality of the awakened mind and heart, and tells the story of how Munindra taught and embodied these qualities through the words of his students. In the process we learn about how to understand and practice these qualities ourselves: mindfuln More...

Munindra was the meditation teacher for Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Larry Rosenberg, and a number of other American vipassana teachers. He is definitely an admirable person, and an inspiration; he has a remarkable life story. This book--composed of stories that his students told--is probably about a third too long; the stories just go on and on, and they're all admiring. Apparently Mirka Knaster didn't want to leave anyone out. Still, I found it an inspiring book to my meditation pract More...

I was one of Munindraji's many students. He was dear to me and this book opened his life up to me--new respect and more love. At the same time I wish Knaster hadn't shrunk from digging into some of his human foibles and mistakes. She frequently alludes to 'problems' and then moves on. I understand not wanting to speak ill of the dead, yet it would have felt more truthful and satisfying, a true biography of a human being and less a hagiography that keeps talking about its subject's humanity ha More...