The Mandala of Being: Discovering the Power of Awareness

by Richard Moss

Book Overview

Many people obstruct their innate potential through repeated patterns of emotional struggle and suffering. This practical, hands-on guide explains why and how people habitually fall into this trap and provides a program, easily incorporated into everyday life, that frees them from this destructive behavior. Using a simple mandala, the book illustrates the four places humans go when they feel threatened, uncomfortable, or aren't fully centered or grounded...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1577315723
• ISBN13: 9781577315728
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: New World Library
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A Classic

I suppose there are lots of reasons why a book becomes a classic in it's field or a best seller in the marketplace. I believe this book has the potential for both. It's rare that a book combines such depth of wisdom in both spirituality and psychology in an integrated, comprehendible guide to self awareness. The book presents an approach for self transformation from a fear-based to a trust-based life. It's clear the author has been living and teaching this subject for 30 years. The book has the humility and maturity of an alchemist's wisdom, refined by the author's own transformational life journey. With so much of our world consumed by fear, it seems a very timely book. I can't imagine a better gift to share.

The Mandala of Being

This book is the Rosetta Stone for those seeking understand and transform their outer consciousness, to end their suffering, and to live deeply: fully alive and joyful. Richard Moss's deep understanding of self awareness has brought forth a way of approaching self understanding and self healing that takes the deepest spiritual truths and helps Western Man grasp-( or maybe un-grasp as it turns out to be....) the core issues and obstacles to joy and illumination in our lives. Unlike many writers and teachers who struggle to communicate the deep truths that set us free, Richard writes straight forwardly, clearly, and practically. Many of us need answers to the What? and Why? questions as part of our journey home. The spiritual and metaphysical communities have a shortage of teachers who can and will answer a straight question with a straight answer. Sometimes a wise look and a cryptic koan are just someone faking it. Hand waving and self proclaimed authority are not sufficient bedrock on which to wisely rebuild your whole life. The Mandala Of Being is the condensation of Richard Moss's life's work and teaching. It gives a good taste of the foundation of his work helping people transform their lives. By itself, it is illuminating and it will help a motivated seeker to begin their own work. It is a taste of what working with him is like, and for many, it will lead to more direct relationship experience. I highly recommend this book as a key to understanding our own minds and how our stream of consciousness stories hypnotize us with continuous misery causing distractions which lead us to miss the truth of who and what we really are. If you are tired of life seeming like a never ending soap opera and feel like saying "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off." then this is the book to show you what to do and how to do it. Day by day you will chip away at the painful stories and delusions that trap you in fear, anger, jealousy, loneliness, and sorrow. In a few weeks you will realize that you have a little more space and breathing room. In a year you will be astounded at how the dramas and misery are dropping away and peace now has space to grow. For some, just this illumination will be sufficient. If you can see it, but need an energetic boost to bring it into play, I highly recommend direct work with Richard through his Radical Aliveness 10 Day Seminar. That will be life changing. Craig J Brown MD FACS

Many Will Find This a Very Valuable Book

Richard Moss's new book, "The Mandala of Being," is another contribution to that increasingly popular literary genre describing methodologies for personal improvement or personal growth. This genre is sometimes simply referred to as "self-help," but I think that term is too broad for books of this type and so I prefer the more limiting classification. What Moss is attempting to do in this work of personal improvement is provide a framework for conceptualizing the Self in ordinary life (the "mandala") and then using that to suggest certain practices through which one may use it to improve personal growth. In this particular conception, the "Now" becomes essential. As he writes, "The power to return our minds to the Now allows us to communicate more of our inborn authentic and spontaneous natures. The present moment becomes our ground of being, because that's where we'll find the juice of life and the truth of who we are and why we are here." According to Moss's schema, there are only four places our minds go when they leave the Now: the past, the future, judgments of ourselves, and judgments of others. These places, plus the Now, become the primary ingredients of the "mandala of being" and are illustrated in the relevant diagram as Past, Future, Subject (me), Object (you), and the Now, the "beginning of ourselves." The mandala is then further retuned, and called the mandala of lower-self functioning, so that Past includes guilt or nostalgia or regret, Future includes inherent uncertainty or fear or infinitive possibility or hope, Me (the subject) includes grandiosity or depressiveness, and You (the object) includes anger or jealousy or envy or hurt. The Now remains in the center of the diagram. A still further retunement, called the mandala of higher-self functioning, is offered wherein Past includes forgiveness, Future includes trust and nonattachment, Me includes self-inquiry (who am I?) and doubting the truth of stories, and You includes compassion and empathy. The Now remains in the center but is itself encircled by joy, love, stillness, gratitude, and presence. The specifics of these three diagrams are discussed in detail by Moss. Part One of the book provides the background for understanding the mandala or, as he puts it, the "fundamental principles of awareness: the journey from self to Self." Here he raises the question, "Who are we really?" and explains the power of awareness. He includes a provocative discussion of "who we aren't really" and notes the "tamed" and "untamed" emotions. The last chapter in Part One is entitled "The Beginning of Ourselves" and leads directly into Part Two of the book, "utilizing the power of awareness: welcoming ourselves home." Here he raises the interesting question: "where do we go when we are not at the beginning of ourselves?" Then Moss continues on to a detailed description of the mandala, using the mandala of being as a map, and some exercises for experiencing the mandala of being. There is, of c

With gratitude to my teacher!

I confess: Richard Moss is my teacher. Reading his latest book, The Mandala of Being, brings me back to the many hours spent sitting in a circle, learning the concepts he so eloquently describes. The journey to the place where fear of nonbeing exists is an essential part of the process of living consciously. Meeting that place with "nonreactive awareness" is challenging, but not impossible. Richard has given us tools with which to meet our "survival personality." I have felt the enormous change in energy by "simply" stepping into the NOW, as compared to being caught up in stories about me, or others, or the past or the future. The Mandala of Being offers readers the tools to look at our "self" with more awareness. Those tools can take us on an inward journey that all of us are called to take, if only we say "yes" to living life more fully. Richard's heartfelt teachings provide much needed guidance on that journey, and they are a testament to the integrity of this man I call my teacher and my friend.