Spacious Minds

Trauma and Resilience in Tibetan Buddhism

De: Sara E. Lewis

Narrado por: Margaret Wakeley

Spacious Minds argues that resilience is not a mere absence of suffering. Sara E. Lewis's research reveals how those who cope most gracefully may indeed experience deep pain and loss. Looking at the Tibetan diaspora, she challenges perspectives that liken resilience to the hardiness of physical materials, suggesting people should "bounce back" from adversity. More broadly, this ethnography calls into question the tendency to use trauma as an organizing principle for all studies of conflict where suffering is understood as an individual problem rooted in psychiatric illness.

Beyond simply articulating the ways that Tibetan categories of distress are different from biomedical ones, Spacious Minds shows how Tibetan Buddhism frames new possibilities for understanding resilience. Here, the social and religious landscape encourages those exposed to violence to see past events as impermanent and illusory, where debriefing, working-through, or processing past events only solidifies suffering and may even cause illness. A big mind view helps to see suffering in life as ordinary. And yet, an intriguing paradox occurs. As Lewis deftly demonstrates, Tibetans in exile have learned that human rights campaigns are predicated on the creation and circulation of the trauma narrative; in this way, Tibetan activists utilize foreign trauma discourse, not for psychological healing, but as a political device and act of agency.

The book is published by Cornell University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2019 Cornell University (P)2024 Redwood Audiobooks

Reseñas de la Crítica

"An important and engaging work..." (Medical Anthropology Quarterly)

"This is a wise and thoughtful book." (Tanya Luhrman, Stanford University)

"A brilliant illustration of how the anthropological study of the mind provides an innovative avenue to illuminate and engage with the very material world of policy, politics and power." (Anthropology in Action)

Incredible

A brilliant ethnographic study that everyone should read. It gives practical steps toward healing and resilience by studying the Tibetan refugees who have endured so much trauma