Praise for Faces of Compassion
Winner of the 2013 Nautilus Book Award Gold Prize
“Vigorous and inspiring, Bodhisattva Archetypes guides the reader into the clear flavors of the awaking life within both Buddhist tradition and our broad contemporary world. This is an informative, useful, and exhilarating work of deeply grounded scholarship and insight.—Jane Hirshfield, author of Woman in Praise of the Sacred
“Such a useful book. Mr. Leighton clarifies and explains aspects of Buddhism which are often mysterious to the uninformed. The concept of the Bodhisattva—one who postpones personal salvation to serve others—is the perfect antidote to today’s spiritual materialism where “enlightened selfishness” has been enshrined as dogma for the greedy. This book is useful as a fine axe.” —Peter Coyote
“I appreciate Taigen Daniel Leighton’s elucidation of the bodhisattva as archetypes …. In naming, describing, and illustrating the individual bodhisattvas, his book is an informative and valuable resource.” —Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.
“In Bodhisattva Archetypes Taigen Leighton provides us with a clear-as-a-bell introduction to Buddhist thought, as well as a short course in Far Eastern iconography and lore that I intend to use as a desk reference. What astonishes me, however, is that along the way he also manages, with surprising plausibility, to portray figures as diverse as Gertrude Stein, Bob Dylan, and Albert Einstein, among many likely and unlikely others, as equivalent Western expressions of the bodhisattva archetype. His discussion provides the sort of informed daring we need to make Buddhism our own.” —Zoketsu Norman Fischer, Co-Abbot San Francisco Zen Center, author of Jerusalem Moonlight
“Like boys flying kites, spiritual writers tend to let their teachings jounce high in the clouds somewhere. Not so Taigen Daniel Leighton. He resolutely reels them down. In Bodhisattva Archetypeshe presents Buddhist ideas and ideals embodied in flesh-and-blood people, examples whom we can love, admire, emulate: a stroke of genius. The result: A sparkler among contemporary Buddhist writings.” —Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B., author of Gratefulness the Heart of Prayer