George Burr LeonardCritiques

Contains a compelling synthesis of theoretical physics, brain research, evolutionary theory, social psychology, and studies in consciousness.

from cover 'George Leonard is a remarkable man who embodies what he teaches: an amazing curiosity, a passionate intelligence, and the rare combination of someone who has both a broad vision and the focused mastery of details.'-Dean Ornish Drawing on Zen philosophy and his experise in the martial art of aikido, bestselling author George Leonard shows how the process of mastery can help us attain a higher level of excellence and a deeper sense of satisfaction and fulfillment in our daily lives. whether you're seeking to improve your career or your intimate realtionships, increase self-esteem or create harmony within yourself, this inspiring prescriptive guide will help you master anything you choose and achieve success in all areas of your life. 'If he's right-and Leonard has been right so many times about prevailing zeitgeists that you have to wonder if he has a third eye-the upcoming decade might be known as the decade of mastery.'-San Francisco Chronicle 'George Leonard translates the wisdom of Zen into a self-help program for sticking with it-whether you want to learn aikido or need support in realizing long-held goals.'-The New Age Journal Contents Introduction Part One: The Master's Journey Introduction 1. What is Mastery? 2. Meet the Dabbler, the Obsessive, and the Hacker 3. America's War Against Mastery 4. Loving the Plateau Part Two: The Five Master Keys Introdukciton 5. Key 1: Instruction 6. Key 2: Practice 7. Key 3: Surrender 8. Key 4: Intentionality 9. Key 5: The Edge Part Three: Tools for Mastery Introduction 10: Why Resolutions Fail-and What to Do About It 11. Getting Energy for Mastery 12. Pitfalls Along the Path 13. Mastering the Commonplace 14. Packing for the Journey Epilogue: The Master and the Fool

from dust jacket

'Aikido, the most recent and fastest-growing of the major marital arts, is also the most revolutionary. Supremely physical, it is at essence purely spiritual. It is also eminently practical, with nearly endless applications for home, school, and work.'-George Leonard

He has been a celebrated spiritual teacher and leading practitioner of the marital arts for nearly thirty years. Now award-winning author and fifth-degree black belt George Leonard, the man Newsweek hails as 'the granddaddy of the consciousness movement,' brings together his extraordinary knowledge and experience in a book that translates the principles of aikido directly into our everyday lives.

In The Way of Aikido: Life Lessons from an American Sensei, we enter George Leonard's dojo, a place of limitless possibilities. Here, Leonard shares the secrets of this eastern philosophy that is the most radical and demanding of all martial arts. He shows us how aikido can be applied to our daily existence to help set us on the path to composure, harmony, self-sufficiency, and spiritual centeredness.

In its essence, aikido is more philosophy and meditation than technique or a series of purely physical maneuvers. When confronted with a crisis situation-whether it is an imminent physical attack or a verbal confrontation-the student of aikido does not give in to the pressure. Rather, he enters or blends with the incoming energy in order to restore balance and harmony to the situation. Through mind-body exercises inspired by aikido yet designed for non-aikidoists, Leonard demonstrates the fundamental philosophy behind aikido. Combining illuminating personal anecdotes with practical advice, he describes the ways in which it both protects and energizes, and provides the power to transform our lives while connecting us to the essential unity and harmony of the universe.

Exhilarating, enlightnening, and filled with a unique wisdom, The Way of Aikido: Life Lessons from an American Sensei is an inspiring lesson in balance, confidence, and power.

George Leonard is the author of Education and Ecstasy, The Transformation, The Ultimate Athlete, and Mastery, among other books on human possibility and social change. He is the president of Esalen Institute and co-owner of the Aikido of Tamalpais dojo in Mill Valley, California.

Contents

Introduction: A Revolutionary Martial art
1. Welcome to Our Dojo
2. Stepping on the Path
3. The First Life Lesson
4. 'I Am the Universe'
5. The Centered Life
6. A Transformative Ordeal
7. Owning Your World
8. Adventure, discovery, and a Dojo of Our Own
9. Context and Transformation
10. The Mysterious Power of Ki
11. Taking the Hit as a Gift
12. Blending with Ki
13. Meditation in action
14. Zanshin: Continuing Awareness
15. Aikido Walking
16. Protecting the Attacker
17. The Waages of Optimism
18. The Primacy of Play
19. The Magical Marriage of Practice and Play
20. Under the Sword
21. The Beginner
Appendix: An Experiment in Human Transformation
Selected Readings
Acknowledgments
About the Author

from dust jacket

When two individual muscle cells from the heart are observed under a microscope, each pulses with its own separate rhythm. Yet when they are moved closer together, they begin to pulse together, perfectly synchronized. And when two women live in close proximity for a time, their menstural cycles move into harmony with each other. Scientists call this phenomenon 'entrainment.'

The fascinating thesis of this book is that each of us has, at the heart of our existence, a silent pulse that can literally beat in synchronization with the universe around us, just as the two muscle cells can pulse together. That, says the author, is what occur at those wonderful moments in peoples's lives (sometimes extending into hours or even days or weeks) when everything seems to go exactly right, when just what we intend seems to happen without effort.

The Silent Pulse explains how and why these moments need not be accidental. The pulse is always there, although we are not usually conscious of it. In fact, that pulse is the basis of our unique personal identity, setting us off from, and at the same time conneacting us with, everything else in the universe. The act of getting in touch with the silent pulse can transform our personal experience and in some way alter the world around us.

George Leonard draws upon physical theory and recent research findings to take you on a journey of discovery-toward some remarkable truths about human nature and capabilities. He also tells moving stories about a variety of people who have experienced the sense of harmony that goes along with the silent pulse. At the end of the book, you will find an appendix describing a number of exercises designed to lead you toward the experience of perfect rhythm. Based on workshops the author has given more than 20,000 people over the past several years, these exercises provide a concrete path for those who want to take the information in this book and put it to use in their lives.

George Leonard was from 1953-1970 a senior editor of Look magazine, writing many articles and supervising issues on such subjects as education, civil rights, and lifestyles. The author of such esteemed books as Education and Ecstacy, The Transfromation, and The Ultimate Athlete, he now writes from his home Marin County, California.

'Book by book, George Leonard's vision grows clearer and richer. Important as his other books are, The Silent Pulse is in many ways his most original and comprehensive. It contains a compelling synthesis of theoretical physics, brain research, evolutionary theory, social psychology, and studies in consciousness. Its illumination of holonomy and identity is a major contribution to our understanding of the most fundamental human paradoxes and possibilities. And -it reads like a marvelous adventure story.'-Michael Murphy

'The Silent Pulse is the best book thus far by a supurb writer. George Leonard's synthesis of leading-edge research about consciousness, rhythms, light, perception, and alternative realities has the accuracy you'd expect from a long-time magazine editor and journalist. But Leonard transcends all categories in this book: It is poetry, science writing, adventure. It is hard to imagine that anyone could read it without being changed by it.'-Marilyn Ferguson

Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface: The Way of Rhythm and Harmony
1. Vibrato
2. The Rhythms of Relationship
3. Flesh, Spirit, and Emptiness
4. What the Senses Say
5. Personal Identity and the Inner Pulse
6. 'Holonomy': The Web of Existence
7. The Playground of Reality
8. Perfect Rhythm
9. Intentionality and Power
10. The Intention of the Universe
11. 'Life Cannot Be Fooled'
Appendix: Toward the Experience of Perfect Rhythm
Index

A Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam Book

from cover

The Life We Are Given describes Integral Transformative Practice (ITP)-a pioneering program for transforming body, mind, heart, and spirit through balanced and comprehjensive long-term practice. Developed by George Leonard and Michael Murphy, two of the founding figures in the human potential movement, ITP is designed to be integrated into busy lives already committed to family, work, recreation, and community.

Inspiring true stories of the struggles and triumphs of ITP workshop students emphasize the great capacity for growth that all houmans beings possess. The Life We Are Given celebrates the day-by-day joys of this enlightening change process, and opens now vistas to higher-level functioning in all areas of activity and relationships.

'In the nineties, those involved in the Human Potential Movement seem to be bringing theory down to earth, learning to live the higher states we've talked about and intuited. As usual, George Leonard and Michael Murphy are at the cutting edge, investigating the experiences of committed practice.'-James Redfield, author of the Celestine Prophecy

'The Life We Are Given is a synthesis an culmination of seventy years' combined experience by two of the wisest and most pioneering explorers and teachers of the possibilities of human transformation. I recommend it highly.'-Dean Ornish, M.D., President and Director; Preventive Medicine Research INsititute

'This marvelous account of a bold experiment by a group of psychonauts bent on transforming mind, body, and spirit may well be the best outline we have of the course leading to the Master of Transformative Practice.'-Sam Keen, author of Hymns to an Unknown God and Fire in the Belly

'The Life We Are Given is a remarkable integration of spiritual, psychological, social, nutritional, and body techniques to create a lifelong program of self-transformation. There is nothing like it!'-Willis W. Harman, President, Institute of Noetic Scineces

'By combining philosophy and theory with specific instruction, Leonard and Murphy are once again pioneering at the edge between the known and the unknown in human potential.'-Phillip Moffitt, author of The Power to Heal

Contents

Preface: Joining the Evolutionary Adventure
Part I: Vision and Practice
1 A LIfetime's Quest
2 A Householder's Path
Part II: A Transformative Pracitce for Our Time
3 Stepping on the Path
4 The Powers of Affirmation
5 Catching the Winds of Grace: More on Affirmations
6 The ITP Kata: The Tao of Practice
7 The ITP Kata: Transformational Imaging
8 The ITP Kata: Meditation
9 The Exercise Factor
10 Food for Transformation
11 The Body as Teacher
12 The Marriage of Theory and Practice
13 The Magic of Community
14 The Ultimate Adventure
Appendix A Further Resources for Practice
Appendix B Statistical Summary: Cycle 93
Appendix C Selected Readings

Read this in parallel with "Art of Learning" by Joshua Waitzkin. All the lessons taught in Leonard's book are a subset of those in Waitzkin's.

The Way of Aikido is a study of philosophy combined with a memoir. The author, George Leonard, discusses how he has utilized the tenets of aikido in his everyday life. These methods have done a great deal to make him more understanding and a better human being in general.

The book is relatively short. The idea of aikido is to go with the flow, so to speak. Rather than countering an attempted strike or blocking a hit, the idea of aikido is to absorb the hit or use its own energy against it. It discusses the ideas of Ki energy and other stuff, which does make it somewhat interesting. It is more about balance and finding your center than anything else.

I am not a martial artist, I will say that directly. The closest I came to it is taking a Taekwondo class when I was eight. I could not afford any more lessons and I did not have a good mindset for martial arts. I will also be honest with another aspect of the book, Ki energy sounds hokey to me. Whenever the author mentioned it, my eyes glazed over a bit. That does not mean that this book is bad by any means, it just means that I need to be more open-minded I suppose.

All in all, the book was entertaining and informative. Once again, Morihei Ueshiba sounds like a man I would have liked to meet. Unfortunately, barring time travel that is not possible.

Read this on a whim based on a Metafilter comment. It's basically a book about how to learn stuff good. Pretty interesting - to me, the two biggest points are that plateaus in learning are fine and that preconceptions can be very harmful. I think much of this book is common sense but it is nice to see it all in one place. It also kind of makes me want to learn Aikido. It was a quick read, and enjoyable enough. Overall I'm glad I read it, and the concepts he has distilled will probably stick with me into the future.

This book is one that needs to be read by educators everywhere, and anyone else interested in improving our wretchedly lacking educational system. The world needs to have more people around like Leonard who have creative ideas that could transform not only our educational system but our lives.

נביא לשעבר של המהפיכה המינית מגלה לעת זקנתו, ועם השתנות האופנות, כי יש יותר באהבה מאשר במין. מעין אנטי פליבוי פילוסופי ברמה ובחן שדומה למקור. שמונים עמוד הספיקו לי.

Now a classic in the self help category; this little book asks us to resist the temptation to become a "dabbler," and instead stick with something until we excel at it. Motivational and to-the-point. And who doesn't want long-term fulfillment?

A book everyone should read, smacks the modern give-it-me-now viewpoint in the face with a dose of stuff-takes-time-so-suck-it-up reality.

This is a concise and interesting overview. Leonard provides a perfect blend of history, concept, example, and application. Often my comments point out where particular political perspectives differ from mine, but Leonard positions his in the spirit of the art and so I understand.

A book to read for the athletes looking to communicate with a proper body. What is a modern sport activity, what you can discover through it, how to cross imaginary and real boundaries of our organism, to overcome limitations. To have fun in sport and to play happily the Game of Games.