Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and the Art of Living

As the host of the On Being podcast, Krista Tippett gets to have conversations with some of the most inspiring artists and spiritual teachers in the world – from the Dalai Lama to Anne Lamott, Mary Oliver to Eckhart Tolle, and most people in between. Thankfully, Tippett's chosen to present a gift to the world in the form of 'Becoming Wise'. It's a distillation of some of her most memorable conversations, and acts as a kind of guide to living – how to be. The richness of the book is almost overwhelming – it's sumptuously written, full of wisdom from some of the greatest thinkers of our time, ambitious in its scope – and I wanted to underline almost every word. It's one of the best books I've read all year. "And so in choosing how we are in the world, we shape our experience of that world, our contribution to it. We shape our world, our inner world, our outer world, which is really the only one we'll ever know. And to me, that's the substance of the spiritual journey. It's not an exasperating idea but an infinitely emboldening one, and it's taken me many years to come to that without resistance."

On Being is a great podcast but I hesitated buying this thinking it might be a just a transcript of the conversations, brilliant as they usually are. The insightful conversations however are interwoven with Krista Tippets profound and searching autobiographical reflections. There is a superb and exciting feel to her writing which repeatedly and delightfully harked me back to my first reading of On The Road (Jack Keroac); an inspiring and effervescent experience of literature and life. It is one of the most engaging books I've read in years.

I am reading this slowly, making notes as I go along. Each page brings thoughts/ideas that I want to consider, or introduces me to a thinker/scientist/teacher whose work I want to explore further. Sometimes, I just want to read a passage again and let the message sink in. I think I will want to revisit it in future as well. Thanks to Krista and her team, and all those who gave so generously of themselves in the interviews.

A new one added to the pass it forward list; a book you just have to share

I LOVE IT

Broadly speaking the book provides some interesting discussion of interesting questions of our times - ranging from love to faith to the internet. However, all of this is presented through an incredibly USA- and religious-centric worldview. The author also does the common, tacky thing of evoking theories and ideas from quantum physics (and so on) to support the now beaten-to-death notions of "mystery" and "uncertainty" in science. The books strengths are its interviews with various religious leaders and wo(men) of religion in other fields. In some sense it seems to be a book about "modern" religion masquerading as one about wisdom - attempting to convince the reader that these two notions directly parallel one another. In some places this is OK, but in others it is rather on the nose. In conclusion, if you are religious, or harken for discussion of the good ole USA (and long to avoid any critical thought about what is happening beyond its borders) you might like this book. If, like me (and I believe most of those on the UK Amazon site where I am writing this review) you don't care for such a restrictive and dull view of "wisdom", give the book a miss!

Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and the Art of Living is the title of Krista Tippett's new book. It's partly a collection of her thoughts and experiences on five of what she calls the "raw materials" of the human life. The contents of the book are not composed of her insights alone, but also the perspectives of people who had made an impression her over the years. One of the concepts she writes about is that of listening. As a master listener herself, she defines listening as an art. She writes: Listening is an everyday social art, but it’s an art we have neglected and must learn anew. Listening is more than being quiet while the other person speaks until you can say what you have to say. I like the language Rachel Naomi Remen uses with young doctors to describe what they should practice: “generous listening.” Generous listening is powered by curiosity, a virtue we can invite and nurture in ourselves to render it instinctive. It involves a kind of vulnerability—a willingness to be surprised, to let go of assumptions and take in ambiguity. The listener wants to understand the humanity behind the words of the other, and patiently summons one’s own best self and one’s own best words and questions. Generous listening in fact yields better questions. It’s not true what they taught us in school; there is such a thing as a bad question. In American life, we trade mostly in answers—competing answers—and in questions that corner, incite, or entertain. In journalism we have a love affair with the “tough” question, which is often an assumption masked as an inquiry and looking for a fight. For me listening without assumption is key. There is a tendency for us to tune out when hearing other people talk, especially if we think we know what they are going to say. This leads to a situation Krista describes where we wait with answers instead of actually listening to the person talking to us. Becoming Wise is full of insights such as above. Almost every sentence and paragraph are crafted to help, to admonish, to and enlighten. Becoming Wise isn't a book to rush through. It is not a light read by any stretch of imagination. It is deep and possesses tangled paths that can lead the reader to delightful places of the mind and spirit. There are ideas in within that I do not agree with, but the spirit in which they are written made me read them (even though I still disagree). This in itself is an achievement for the author and shows the power of her narration. Becoming Wise is for anyone serious about living meaningfully and on their own terms. I believe Becoming Wise it is a treasure that would endure for a long time. Many thanks to Penguin Press for review copy.

This book was full of wisdom, or at least a vision of it. I wish I could just read this book and become wise, but unfortunately it just paints a picture of what obtaining wisdom should look like. I am not saying the content is not good, because it is fantastic, but don't expect to be wise after reading it. I took my time with this book and the book itself sort of asks that of the reader. It is not something you just slog through, but is a distillation of what Krista Tippett has found to be most crucial in the "art of living." Don't expect roadmaps, but expect questions and soft direction. Tippett is a seeker. You can tell she loves and lives with question. I find myself of a similar persuasion, so I deeply enjoyed this book. I look forward to revisiting this book and seeking more wisdom in the future. So many excellent and eloquent quotes. This may be my most highlighted Kindle book so far. Some of the following is not from Tippett, but from those she has interviewed over the years. Here is a just a snapshot of the content. On tolerance: "We chose too small a word in the decade of my birth—tolerance—to make the world we want to live in now. We opened to the racial difference that had been there all along, separate but equal, and to a new infusion of religions, ethnicities, and values. But tolerance doesn’t welcome. It allows, endures, indulges. In the medical lexicon, it is about the limits of thriving in an unfavorable environment. Tolerance was a baby step to make pluralism possible, and pluralism, like every ism, holds an illusion of control. It doesn’t ask us to care for the stranger. It doesn’t even invite us to know each other, to be curious, to be open to be moved or surprised by each other." On American Public Life: "In America, many features of national public life are also better suited to adolescence than to adulthood. We don’t do things adults learn to do, like calm ourselves, and become less narcissistic. Much of politics and media sends us in the opposite, infantilizing direction. We reduce great questions of meaning and morality to “issues” and simplify them to two sides, allowing pundits and partisans to frame them in irreconcilable extremes. But most of us don’t see the world this way, and it’s not the way the world actually works." On civil debate: "the hallmark of a civil debate is when you can acknowledge that which is good in the position of the person you disagree with." On admiration and love: "When you admire people, you put them on pedestals. When you love people, you want to be together." On the Miraculous and Love: "What do you do about evil that swoops down completely at random? I suppose that’s where the issue of miracles comes in, that so many things had to happen in the right way, or the wrong way, depending on how you put it, for this particular young woman to meet this particular guy in the parking lot at 7:00 in the morning. That is as improbable as any miracle. And because of that, a miracle to me can’t just be something that was providential, that everything had to line up just right in order for it to happen. Bad things happen that way too. Really bad things happen that way too. If I look at it from another perspective, and this is really the perspective I maintain, I don’t look for God or God’s work in magic or in tricks or in, you know, “this is what I want” and then I get it. I look for God’s work always in how people love each other, in just the acts of love that I see around me." God is bigger than Religion: "The Bible is saying to us the whole time: Don’t think that God is as simple as you are. He’s in places you would never expect him to be. And you know, we lose a bit of that in English translation. When Moses at the burning bush says to God, “Who are you?” God says to him three words: “Hayah asher hayah.” Those words are mistranslated in English as “I am that which I am.” But in Hebrew, it means “I will be who or how or where I will be,” meaning, Don’t think you can predict me. I am a God who is going to surprise you. One of the ways God surprises us is by letting a Jew or a Christian discover the trace of God’s presence in a Buddhist monk or a Sikh tradition of hospitality or the graciousness of Hindu life. Don’t think we can confine God into our categories. God is bigger than religion." On Resilience: "I’m glad for the language of resilience that has entered the twenty- first-century lexicon, from urban planning to mental health. Resilience is a successor to mere progress, a companion to sustainability. It acknowledges from the outset that things will go wrong. All of our solutions will eventually outlive their usefulness. We will make messes, and disruption we do not cause or predict will land on us. This is the drama of being alive. To nurture a resilient human being, or a resilient city, is to build in an expectation of adversity, a capacity for inevitable vulnerability. As a word and as a strategy, resilience honors the unromantic reality of who we are and how we are, and so becomes a refreshingly practical compass for the systems and societies we can craft. It’s a shift from wish-based optimism to reality-based hope. It is akin to meaningful, sustained happiness—not dependent on a state of perfection or permanent satisfaction, not an emotional response to circumstances of the moment, but a way of being that can meet the range of emotions and experiences, light and dark, that add up to a life. Resilience is at once proactive, pragmatic, and humble. It knows it needs others. It doesn’t overcome failure so much as transmute it, integrating it into the reality that evolves."

Brilliant...wise guide for our perplexed open-modern times..

Mind. Blown. The intensity and frequency of insights on every page are almost overwhelming. I'm a huge fan of On Being and this book did not disappoint. It demands attention. I think it's the sort of book you can return to many times and gain something new each time.

I've loved listening to "On Being" and at this stage in my life, I am making more space and time for reflection, gratitude, hope and love. Tippett's book evokes sunshine and dark matter contemplation- both can be observed, noticed, and questioned.

As others have already mentioned, this is very thoughtful and profound contribution. Tippett addresses how we interact with ourselves, each other, and the universe, if not more. The book is infused with nods to her personal journal, which makes the book so much more real and enjoyable. If there's any message, it's that we need to listen more: listen to ourselves, our hearts, and those with whom we strongly disagree. Ultimately, I think this book is about hope for us, as people and tribes, and societies. No surprise HOPE is her last chapter. Even though her radio program, On Being, is not this way, I worried that this book would be too much about God or an effort to proselytize in some way. It is not either of those things. It's a mature, honest, lived perspective on what wisdom is, where it comes from, and what it can mean for us. Scientists, skeptics, and nonbelievers will find a great deal to relate to in this book. If I have any critique, it's that Tippet bases her vision and effort on the great people of the world: the scientists, religious persons, and leaders of all sorts. It's no surprise that their work and words inspire. But Tippett pays little attention to the despots, the true criminals, and those who choose ignorance over thought (perhaps a large proportion?). She nods to her abusive parents, but seems to let them off the hook. I have to wonder what she'd write if she were down in the trenches facing the lesser of our collective angels. There is wisdom in such places and experiences, too. Wisdom of equal import, I think. That said, the book is super, a must read, a must gift…