Buddha Breaking Up

Book excerpt: The world needs another self-help book like it needs another Reality TV show. At least, that's what I would have said right up until I found myself in need of something-anything -to pull me through the worst breakup of my life. What do you do when you want to be gracious, pragmatic, and filled with equanimity, but you're so hurt and angry you feel as if you could go around town ramming your car into stationary objects without batting an eyelash? What do you do when your friends and family run out of platitudes and old, tired slogans like, "Time heals all wounds" and "Better to have loved and lost..."? (Slogans which, incidentally, make you want to scoop out your frontal lobe with a melon baller.) This is the stuff that drives us to the very edge of annihilation. At least, it feels that way. It feels like a very real obliteration of the self. But this breakdown can be the worst thing that's ever happened to you, or it can be the best thing for precisely this moment in your life. Buddha Breaking Up is a modern-day spiritual guide for how to embrace dramatic, life-altering change and use it as a means of rediscovering the Self. Combining humor, pop culture, and Zen principles, Part I of Buddha Breaking Up explores the science of falling in love, provides useful tools for riding out the heartbreak-including how to handle social networking and other technology designed for liberal applications of self-torment-and offers unique and practical techniques for moving through the lowest depths of the shattering. Part II, "The Bodhicitta of Breaking Up," illuminates methods for battling the wounded ego, dealing with anger, creating better relationships, and finally, loving and valuing yourself so you can reach a place of acceptance and grace in your new life.