I May Be Wrong by Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)
| I May Be Wrong by Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator) | |
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| Category: Autobiography | |
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Reviewer: Lesley Mason
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| Summary: A manual for living with uncertainty – told in simple everyday language through the perspective of a man who chose to live an extraordinary life, but recognises that most of us will stay closer to home and can nevertheless benefit massively from what he learned along the way. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 256 | Date: February 2022 |
| Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing | |
| ISBN: 1526644827 | |
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When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of the world responds to your book. I know, having read the book in question, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to this book, because it tells the truth as it is, in the early 21st century.
Philosophically, there is nothing new in here. The parables that Lindeblad quotes, mainly from the Buddhist tradition (as that was his training) are stories that many of us will have heard told countless times before in one variant or another. They are parables, the story can change, the song remains the same.
What is new in the book is Björn's personal story. He grew up in Sweden, studied economics (without questioning whether it was what he really wanted to do), started to forge a very successful career (without questioning whether it was what he really wanted to do). And then he questioned it.
And – the short version would go – he threw it all up and became a Buddhist monk. The fuller version shows us that it wasn't quite as easy as that. More importantly, that isn't where the story ends.
We follow him through his years in Thailand, pre-monk, monk-in-training, full-monk, and then his years in 'forest monasteries' outside of Thailand. The inverted commas are mine, because I'm not sure from the reading that the European variants are in anything that could truly be called a forest. The term applies though because, as I understand it (and I may be wrong) the term forest monastery refers to a concept / ideology / tradition / denomination / family as much as it does to the location of the building.
After 17 years, he disrobes and returns to 'trousered life' in Sweden. No spoiler there, it's on the cover page that he is a former monk. Also, in the prologue he announces that he is in Death's waiting room earlier than [he] would have wished.
His life post-monkhood is as extraordinary as anything that happens up to his taking his robes. And here I will refrain from telling you what happens next because it underlines exactly why the book and the precise way it is written makes it important.
The next important thing is something else he throws at us up front, and I am going to quote it in full because I can speak to the fact that it utterly encapsulates why you should read this book.
Let me tell you what this book is not. It's not about religion. It's not about telling you how to live your life. It's not about taking on a new set of beliefs.
Plain and simple, it's about how to relate to your own thoughts and emotions in a way that makes your life more enjoyable, more free, brighter, clearer, and wiser.
I'm not going to try to put those words any differently, because that is EXACTLY what this book is not and what it is. It's also a very personal story that is at times, if not quite laugh-out-loud-funny, definitely chuckle-making and self-recognition-smile inducing. And also at times, towards the end stunningly sad.
I quickly found myself reading with a green pen in my and because there was so much I wanted to highlight and quote. It is an easy read. If I tell you that there are 38 chapters in the 230 pages you can do the maths for yourself. Chapters are short. The tone is conversational. If I understand the acknowledgements correctly that is because Lindeblad didn't write the book as a book. What he did was go on tour and talk, without notes, about his life and his beliefs and his practice. He credits his co-authors Caroline Bankler and Navid Modiri for both getting his words down and editing them into cohesion. The result – here I have to give credit to the translator as well – is that it does sound like this strange Swedish guy is sitting next to you just chatting about how it was and more importantly how it is, and most importantly why this matters.
I can tell a good book by how many page corners I've turned down. Lots.
I can tell a good book by how soon I start reading bits out loud to the people around me. Before page 20.
I can tell a good book by who I want to give it to next, and a REALLY good book by how long I'm going to hang on to it before I do so. Not passing this one on anytime soon – it's going on my tell me what I need to know random opening shelf.
If you only read one philosophical book a year, read this one. It's simple. It's heart-warming and at times heart-breaking and those two things are intrinsically linked. It's thought provoking. And it's so quotable that if I started, I wouldn't know where to stop. So let me just summarise the core messages:
* You are not your thoughts
* You can change your thoughts by simply bringing your awareness to something else
* Meditation isn't easy – that's the point
* Thoughts are thoughts – they may or may not be true
* Maybe so, maybe not is a good thing to bear in mind, always
* Even monks and nuns are not perfect beings
* There can be humour as well as hardship in being reliant on the kindness of strangers
* Karma is a real thing
Actually, no, I am going to finish on a quote, because I love this one so much. He quotes one of his teachers, Ajahn Jayasor as saying The important thing here is not how efficiently we do this, but how we all feel afterwards.
My working life was focussed on efficiency and how I felt most of the time, I now recognise, was 'angry'. The more people who read Lindeblad's story and his thinking and for themselves think, ok I'm not going to chuck it all in and run off to a monastery but I can use some of these ideas and principles, the better. The better for the individuals and I believe the better for the planet.
Thank you Björn, Caroline and Navid. And Agnes Broomé for the English edition. Björn died in January of this year (2022) but the world is a better place for his having been in it.
If you're up for a deeper read on the development of Buddhist philosophy we can recommend The Open Road by Pico Iyer – if lighter ways to well-being are more your thing we heartily recommend the Bear of Very Little Brain (not least because Lindeblad also quotes him!) Try Winnie-the-Pooh's Little Book Of Wisdom by A A Milne and E H Shepard if you're not familiar with the stories.
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