This is a guest post from my friend Lodro Rinzler.
Lodro and I will be teaching together at the Shambhala Center of NYC a 4-week course starting March 15th, 2012 called The Buddha Walks Into A Bar: A Radical Roadmap to Life with the iPhone in Hand.
Please email me if you are interested (even if you aren’t in NYC!) binduwiles@gmail.com
His book is being released today and is especially geared toward non-Buddhists.
Earlier today Bindu asked me to write a bit about my experience launching my first book, The Buddha Walks into a Bar: A Guide to Life for a New Generation. *
Within this book I explore how we can take the basic principles of mindfulness and compassion and apply them directly to everything we engage in our life, including going out on a Saturday night with friends, feeling frustrated at work, and of course dating and relationships.
It’s an interesting thing releasing a book.
You slave over your keyboard, churning out chapters, at times doubting if what you’re writing is relevant to anyone but you, wanting to offer early drafts to people, feeling worried as to whether they’ll like it, and in general going along a tremendously personal rollercoaster within which you see every neurotic tendency you have come to the forefront of your mind and, eventually, wash over you and fade away. At least that is my experience.
Then you send in your pages, and there are edits, and you then your manuscript is accepted. It disappears from your mind because as the author, you did your piece.
The publisher might consult you on the cover, who to ask for blurbs, etc but at this point you breathe deep and relax. I loved that part of the process. Don’t get me wrong, I loved writing every word of my book but that day when I was told we were done was fantastic.
Only here’s the thing: I wasn’t done. I remember getting an advance copy of my book a few weeks back. It was real.
And I freaked out.
Not in a major way. I doubt anyone noticed something different about me. But all of a sudden I saw myself wrapped up in what is traditionally referred to in Buddhism as the Eight Worldly Concerns.
They are:
- The hope for praise and the fear of blame
- The hope for gain and the fear of loss
- The hope for fame and fear of insignificance
- The hope for happiness and the fear of suffering
In some sense, these are all-encompassing enough that the vast majority of us could say, “Oh yeah, what I usually think about falls into one of those.” Yet for me, I had gotten on a new rollercoaster, that of the ride of hope and fear, and I had fastened myself in tight.
For example, I would sit there hoping that the book would reach people, and help them, but was afraid of some of the negative things people would say. I would fantasize about being a guest on Jon Stewart then worry no one would show up for the book launch party.
Over the years I have been meditating, I have been training in noticing when my mind drifts into thoughts and fantasies and coming back to the physical sensation of my breath.
In other words, I have been training in being present with what is going on right now.
So thankfully this rollercoaster was pretty easy to recognize.
At a certain point just the simple act of noticing how I kept falling into this pattern cut the hold the pattern had on me.
I started to see how silly the whole thing is.
My book will do what it will do.
I can help promote it, I can aspire that it helps people, but to continuously ride the rollercoaster of hope and fear served no one, myself especially.
At some point you have to hop off the ride and allow yourself the experience of equanimity.
As soon as I jumped off this ride, I found that I could relax again.
In the last few weeks I’ve started volunteering more at the Reciprocity Foundation, a wonderful homeless aide organization based in New York City; I’ve reconnected with old friends, and have generally enjoyed my life a lot more.
Meanwhile, everything I hoped and feared has come to pass in one way or another.
I’ve been overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers who have read advance copies and said it touched them deeply.
The other day someone posted a review on Amazon and wrote that the book, “…essentially broke down all the efforts I make to being a good person to the core, but has at the same time challenged me to a be a better person, to be more reflective, more compassionate, and overall more thoughtful about myself and the world around me.”
Mission accomplished!
At the same time, other people have said that they find it horrifying that I would write about drinking and sex in a Buddhist book. I understand their point of view, and respect it, but it doesn’t mean the sting of their words hurts any less.
The day this piece goes live the book will just have hit bookstores. It’s the official launch date.
I can spend the entire day lost in scenarios of hope and fear. I could wallow in the Eight Worldly Concerns. However, I’m going to choose to meditate a great deal and hopefully spend the day giving myself the gift of equanimity.
Lodro Rinzler is the author of The Buddha Walks into a Bar: A Guide to Life for a New Generation (available now on Amazon). Over the last decade he has taught numerous workshops at meditation centers and college campuses throughout the United States. Lodro’s column, What Would Sid Do, appears regularly on the Huffington Post. Lodro writes from his apartment in the East Village of New York City.
* I am not an affiliate for this book.
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