Minding What Matters: Psychotherapy And the Buddha Within

Minding What Matters could be considered part of a new genre, the “literary self-help” book. Echoing the style of Kundera and the insights of Jung, with dashes of The God of Small Things and Thoughts Without a Thinker, this timely book alternates between discursive sections on Buddhist topics and engrossing fictional scenes between a psychotherapist and a patient. Sometimes going so far as to directly address the reader, the book shows how anyone can intimately explore their mind. By encouraging readers to create a state of inquiry and allowing them to put themselves into hypothetical situations — such as participating in therapy or engaging in Buddhist practices — the book shows how to discover inner thoughts and act on them in positive ways. At once informative and evocative, Minding What Matters offers an entrancing vision of, in Robert Coles's words, "what it is possible to do and to be."

Robert Langan, PhD, is a Fellow, Training and Supervising Analyst, and Director of the Center for Applied Psychoanalysis at the William Alanson White Institute in New York City, where he maintains a private psychotherapeutic practice. His interest in Buddhism began in college and led to the Peace Corps in Nepal, where he developed a fascination with Tibetan culture. Torn between East and West, he pursued doctoral and post-doctoral training in Western psychology only to find it led him once again, but without conflict, to Buddhism. He is a longtime member of the Jewel Heart sangha and the Insight Meditation Society.

Robert Coles is the author of The Spiritual Life of Children. He lives in Concord, Massachusetts.
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