Is meditation an escape from--or a solution to--our psychological problems? Is the use of antidepressants counter to spiritual practice? Does a psychological approach to meditation reduce spirituality to self-help? What can Zen and psychoanalysis teach us about the problems of the mind and suffering? Psychiatrist and Zen teacher Barry Magid is uniquely qualified to answer questions like these. Written in an engaging and witty style, Ordinary Mind helps us understand challenging ideas--like Zen Buddhism's concepts of oneness, emptiness, and enlightenment--and how they make sense, not only within psychoanalytic conceptions of mind, but in the realities of our lives and relationships. This new paper edition of Magid's much-praised book contains additional case study vignettes.

Author Biography

Barry Magid is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City, and the founding teacher of the Ordinary Mind Zendo, also in New York. He is the author of the Wisdom titles Ordinary Mind and Ending the Pursuit of Happiness. Charlotte Joko Beck was an American Zen teacher, founder of the Ordinary Mind Zen School, and author of Everyday Zen: Love and Work and Nothing Special: Living Zen. She is remembered for teaching her students to work with the emotions of everyday life, rather than attempting to escape them, and produced many Dharma heirs who are practicing psychologists and psychiatrists. She passed away in 2011, at the age of 94.