An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology

by Padmasiri De Silva

An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology is a lucid, intelligible and authentic introduction to the foundations of Buddhist psychology. It provides comprehensive coverage of the basic concepts and issues in the psychology of Buddhism and thus it deals with the nature of psychological inquiry, concepts of mind, consciousness and behaviour, motivation, emotions, perception, and the therapeutic structure of Buddhist psychology. For the fourth edition, a new chapter on 'emotional intelligence' and its relationship with Buddhism has been added.

Genres: Buddhism, Psychology, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2000

Reviews

[Sharath]

The book successfully communicates the information it intends to transmit, especially with respect to conceptualizing the idea of mind. The first few chapters specifically are a fascinating read which personally for me made a lot of sense in terms of how dynamics of mind can be interpreted and analyzed. However the chapters on dealing with disturbances of mind seemed a bit too generic and didn't seem to add much value to me. On the whole the book was a wonderful read that successfully removed the religious elements of Buddhism and explained the psychological interpretations of it in such a way that it can objectively be absorbed by the reader. I would recommend this to anyone looking to gain a buddhist perspective on the working of mind and a basic understanding on a buddhist approach to life without delving into the religious elements. Also one other point that was impressive is that the book is absolutely to the point without any unnecessary exaggerations of ideas, thus its consistently maintains high quality across all its ~200 pages.

[DT27]

Goes easy once you get into it, although hard at the beginning with all the terms and philosophical discourse.

2 Questions as the outcome: 1) Egolessness vs self spiritual development (nibbana) 2) Householder balance (tranquility vs not caring/dully accepting everything that comes at you)

[Derek Baldwin]

Very good indeed, making some clear connections between basic Buddhist Dhamma and western psychology and pretty clearly demonstrating that the former gives as good an explanation as any of the modern discourses does. I would have liked more details of many of the ideas, and I think the reader with little background in Buddhism would struggle, I also found it frustrating that some lines of thought just petered out. For example very near the end there’s a brief discussion of alexithymia and the suggestion that this can be mitigated via mindfulness of the body, and I strongly agree, but it seems something of a throwaway comment. I gather there have been two further editions and I would certainly be interested to read the latest one. Less than excellent simply because of the brevity, but to be fair it _is_ described as an introduction. *4.5

[Jennifer]

I read the Fifth Edition. Interesting topic and useful tips. Somewhat difficult read and better editing is needed.

[Shawn Khalilullah]

Decent book, not what I expected. It was more educational akin to a school psychology textbook. The last 20 pages were very insightful.

[Aaron Xue]

PHIL410

[Pannasami]

Introduction to Buddhist Psychologyintroduction to buddhist psychology

[Michael]

Gave a very clear outlook on Buddhism without all that rubbish in between.. :d

[Richard]

Not bad, but certainly not what I was hoping for. I suppose its up to me to write the book I want in this arena.

[M.J. Mandoki]

This is a great book! It explains the psychology and philosophy of Buddhism really well!