Becoming Your Own Therapist

Becoming Your Own Therapist – Lama Yeshe

This expanded edition contains both of the very popular Lama Yeshe booklets, Becoming Your Own Therapist and Make Your Mind an Ocean. Becoming Your Own Therapist was first published in 1998 and contains three public talks by Lama Yeshe on the general topic of Buddhism. Each lecture is followed by a question and answer session. Lama and his audiences always enjoyed the give and take of these lively exchanges, and pretty much anything went.

Although these talks were called lectures, Lama would have each of us use them as a mirror for our minds and look beyond the words, find ourselves, and become our own psychologist. The talks in Make Your Mind an Ocean are on the general topic of the mind. Two were lunchtime lectures at Melbourne and Latrobe Universities. One was an evening lecture given to the general public. Perhaps of greatest interest is the lecture entitled “A Buddhist Approach to Mental Illness.” Lama presented this talk to a group of psychiatrists at Prince Henry’s Hospital who were delighted to meet and question Lama, and this historic exchange underscores the difference between Western and Buddhist concepts of mental health.

Dharma books plant the seed of the path to enlightenment in the mind of the reader. That imprint ripens, realizations come, and liberation is attained. Books open the wisdom eye; you can understand death and the nature of mind; they teach you how to develop compassion; they bring world peace.