Field Notes on the Compassionate Life

Published Book Reviews

“Barasch uses humor and fine reporting to ask: What is compassion? Instead of casting himself as a guru…he notes that in most religions compassion is a core value (Do unto others…). Rather than a whifty compendium of spiritual musings, Field Notes builds upon relevant observations from surprising sources...”

-- PEOPLE MAGAZINE (3 1/2 stars out of 4)

-- READER'S DIGEST (June 2005) - Editor's Choice Review

"Walking the Heart Beat"
By Garret Keizer,
April 21, 2005
...Barasch brings several enviable strengths to his subject. He shares with the best science writers an ability to make you feel the excitement of scientific discovery. He is also able to re-create dramatic scenes with engaging vividness, as when, in a chapter on forgiveness, he goes to interview both a murderer and the father of his young victim. Not surprising in a practitioner of Buddhist meditation, his keen attention to his own states of mind, whether in a shopping mall or during a long-delayed attempt at reconciliation with an old enemy, will interest anyone who struggles to be kinder in a not-so-kind world…

---WASHINGTON POST

Best Sellers, April 8, 2005 - Local best sellers

• Nonfiction

1. Blink - Malcolm Gladwell

2. Field Notes on the Compassionate Life - Marc Ian Barasch

3. The Purpose-Driven Life - Rick Warren

--ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS

"The beauty of this book is that just by opening the thing you are stepping down a thought-path that Marc Ian Barasch, in his infinite wisdom, allows to meander through the halls of hospitals, academia, institutes in the wild backwoods of America and other byways... He visits a murderer in Georgia's Telfair State Prison, a Rwandan refugee, a camp for Middle Eastern teenagers struggling to forgive their enemies, a group of scientists sending kindly messages into outer space. He is led to conclude, after all his travels, "that maybe we are more than just connected; maybe we are saturated with each other…. I know for a plausible fact that people do change for the better and incrementally change others."

-- LA TIMES

“Barasch delves into the question of compassion and comes up with building blocks and some plans for an architecture, not to mention tips for embarking on our own voyages of the heart….Almost the opposite of didactic, Barasch has a gentle touch. Even his prose is comforting, and his arguments are sometimes so subtly made that readers may not realize there even was an argument in the first place. The more who read Barasch, the better the world will be.”

--KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review)

Writing in a friendly, upbeat voice, Barasch (Healing Dreams) is never pious as he ponders the meaning of compassion, its healing properties and the wisdom of the compassionate, from St. Francis and the Dalai Lama to caring individuals in Barasch's own life. Touching on psychology, social science and evolutionary biology, Barasch, former editor-in-chief of New Age Journal, explores his theme in a lively autobiographical style, with firsthand reportage, such as living temporarily as a homeless person. The compassionate life is not only liberating, it genuinely feels good, he says. But how do we overcome our innately self-serving tendencies? Barasch finds among bonobo chimpanzees a model for caring group behavior that he believes undermines Darwin's evolutionary idea of the survival of the fittest. He reports on new research that shows how love and caring may actually drive the bodily system, and he converses with an extraordinarily altruistic kidney donor and a father who has forgiven the killer of his daughter. He also observes an Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative, and reconciliations in Rwanda. Melding accessible reportage with spiritual quest, Barasch's stirring account is thought-provoking and inspiring. (Mar. 28)

FORECAST: With a flurry of blurbs from the likes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Arianna Huffington, a 10-city author publicity/speaking tour and other media promotion, this unusual spiritual self-help book could rise above the pack.

--PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY

http://evergreenmonthly.com/2005/em2104/editorsnote2104.html

-- EVERGREEN MONTHLY - From the Editor

http://www.scienceofmind.com/site/magazine/feature_02.html

-- SCIENCE OF MIND Magazine - Cover Story

"Surprise! Barasch approaches his task with refreshing skepticism and a disarming acknowledgment of his own less-than-kind thoughts. Equipped with a dizzying array of nuggets from literature, philosophy, and religion, he describes his journey in a breezy style that weaves broad-ranging pop-culture references with personal encounters on pristine mountaintops and grimy city buses."

-- LA CITY BEAT

"Compassion is not an easy practice since the ego and its enticements resist unlocking the heart. Barasch cites a poll that shows most people in the world favor this spiritual virtue as the one that can solve many of our global problems. He concludes: "A society based on universal compassion is not just our only hope; it is an evolutionary imperative." This highly readable book is an impressive achievement."

--SPIRITUALITY & HEALTH Magazine

Interviews

Preaching Incivility

By Jabari Asim

Monday, April 18, 2005; 10:56 AM

..."A big part of our incivility crisis," writes Stephen L. Carter in "Civility: Manners, Morals and the Etiquette of Democracy," "stems from the sad fact that we do not know each other or even want to try; and, not knowing each other, we seem to think that how we treat each other does not matter." The result is behavior and language that House Majority Leader Tom Delay might call "inartful."

Marc Ian Barasch says our volatile society has enabled the rise of demagogues and media personalities "who can crystallize your grievances into one primal yawp of venom."

The author of "Field Notes On The Compassionate Life," Barasch described our social and political climate as "a schoolyard sort of paradigm in which you have some really loud kids taking over the monkey bars and drowning out everyone else."

He told me civility isn't possible without empathy, which he defined as the basis of kindness. "Everything that lasts in society is based on understanding that the other person exists."

Sounds good, I said, but don't nice guys finish last? What's the use of advocating tolerance, civility and compassion if your less tenderhearted opponents will simply stomp on you and laugh in your crushed remains?

"I think there's such a thing as righteous anger," Barasch said. "You don't just roll over. I'm with Emerson, who said your goodness must have an edge to it, else it is nothing. Kindness isn't necessarily weak."...

-- WASHINGTON POST

Needed: a revolution of the heart

DENVER POST - By Colleen O'Connor

Radio Interviews

KGNU's CONNECTIONS - By Duncan Campbell

listen to the full interview here
Once on the page, click on the file for 2005-03-25 (date of show)

GRACE CATHEDRAL

Recorded Live: Sunday, April 17, 2005, 9:30 am PST

Moderated by : The Very Rev. Alan Jones,
Dean of Grace Cathedral

http://www.gracecathedral.org/forum/for_20050417.shtml

Recommends Lists

"Marc Ian Barasch, a friend of Greengrants, recently published a book that offers a glimpse into the underpinnings of the work we support."

- GLOBAL GREENGRANTS FUND

http://www.greengrants.org/pressreleases.php?news_id=32

"I guess I need to put down the People pick up some Compassion."

- MURPHY & JO's MORNING SHOW KOSI, Denver Radio

http://www.kosi101.com/airstaff/murphyandjo/index.php

Featured Religious/Spiritual/Ethical Book Selection for 2005-March

ONTARIO CONSULTANTS ON RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

- Author: B.A. Robinson

Reader's Comments

Rather than place the "self-help" label on Barasch's book, I would consider the work a "personal journey" into the meaning and practice of "compassion," that somewhat elusive concept which so often befuddles us and is so often ignored because it smacks of "do-goodism" and "touchy-feely" pop-psychology. Fortunately, Barasch doesn't descend into that muddy swamp; instead, he conducts his search for the "soul of kindness" in a most empirical way by actually doing some field work on the subject (hence, the "Field Notes" in the title), somewhat like a cultural anthropologist going about trying to find out how some specific characteristic of a tribe functions and what its "meaning" is to the members of the group.

--Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty - president of the Center for Applied Philosophy, a think-tank in cyberspace, and webmaster of The Radical Academy website - read the full review here

"I found Field Notes to be very personally revealing, and brave. What I particularly related to was your struggle to be good. Most books on quests for our higher selves seem to be written by saints I can't relate to at all. Your book on the other hand resonated deeply. Trying to rise above my baser, crasser instincts is my most difficult battle. Thanks for writing and sharing. I felt hopeful having read it."

--E.G., Los Angeles

"I am 30 pages from your book's conclusion, and in no big rush to finish it. I simply love how I feel when I read it...heart swelling, laughing aloud, tears flowing. You've accomplished a transmutation of substance (starting with your own--I sense you were being transformed as you wrote). This emanates from every page, and I pray it affects every single reader and all those to whom they pass it along. It is more than a report on your discoveries,it is a transmission. And I got it. I am inspired to be a better person because of it.
This book came to me as I sat in a quiet interlude on a gorgeous island in Australia, feeling somewhat empty and hopeless. An election of despair, a tsunami of destruction, and a sense of smallness had taken a toll. My heart felt as if it was involuntarily contracting. You may not believe this, but after reading the book, I actually started a small foundation to aid the flood victims. So your words have already changed the world in a small way. And I personally feel I am open to the next stage of believing in that which I know is possible."

--L.T., Tasmania

"...I am devouring your book. It has come at a perfect time in my life, as I have been on a bit of spiritual journey recently (having been raised Roman Catholic was enough to make me reject anything even smelling of the spiritual for about 30 years or so, and am only now just lifting my head up to have another look). Your book is exactly what I want to be reading right now. For it is precisely this - the search for my own compassion, my own ability to do something good, to be kind - that I am trying to sort out. Thank you for a treasure, and a treat."

--A.H., Vancouver, Canada