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Caught in the Act
Reflections on Being, Knowing, and Doing
 A
literate meditation on how to recognize and invest oneself in the
truly essential aspects of living.
We
each hold deep-seated beliefs about three facets of our lives: what
we do (and are not willing to do); what we know (and are certain
that we don’t know); and what we are (and are not). These are basic
activities and we invest each of them with our life force. Yet they
always slip through our fingers: Being, doing, and knowing come and
go.
In
Caught in the Act, Toinette Lippe—with wit, a laser-sharp eye
for detail, and a sense of the contemplative—brings us on a journey
of daily awareness so that we can truly see the makeup and direction
of these forces and how they shape our existence. With this book, we
learn to give up the illusion of identifying with the thoughts,
things, and activities that we call “I”—a vital step on the
spiritual path and in the search for an authentic life.
See also the book's
Reading
Group Guide.
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Special price
when you order direct:
Paperback: Tarcher/Penguin, 2004, 175 pages
$12.95
Order direct from Toinette
Lippe for $11. |
In
this elegantly written paperback, Toinette Lippe keeps her focus on
the intimate details of her life. Lippe is an editor and a writer
but she bristles at the notion of being confined to these
categories. As she demonstrates on these pages, she is also an
Englishwoman; a mother; a daughter; a traveler to Japan, South
America and Turkey; a beginning gardener; a painter of flowers; a
lover of trees; a tai chi practitioner, and much more. Being a hard
worker all her life, the author is cautious about letting go. It’s
easier said than done for an achiever. Lippe confesses that she is
always “leaning into the next moment.” Control is what so many of us
aim for and yet surrender to experience is what all the sages in
every mystical tradition tell us to do. Lippe counsels herself to be
welcoming to everything and to relinquish the attachments that stop
her from being present.
Frederic and Mary Ann
Brussat, Spirituality & Health
Toinette Lippe writes from a Buddhist perspective, refreshingly
unenlightened, confessing that she has meditated for 40 years
without ever really enjoying it. Such faithfulness and disarming
honesty characterize the book, which mingles glimpses from the life
of a perfection-driven, always-on-time individual with ruminations
on her process of thinking and making meaning.
Publishers Weekly
Toinette Lippe’s first book, Nothing Left Over, was an
elegant memoir of a life stripped to its essence. But where that
work focused on paring down, this new volume is an invitation to
open up and explore. Noting how often what we do overshadows what we
are—how easily we get “caught in the act”—Lippe offers her own life
as a lucid lesson in surrender and simple presence.
One Spirit Book Club
Caught in the Act witnesses a mature woman, mostly quit now of
career and child-rearing, contemplating how what you do becomes what
you are. She has a curious mind, an indefatigable eye for detail,
and a serious intellect. To see what a mind like that does with
semi-retirement, read Caught in the Act.
Shambhala Sun
This account of beginning her semi-retirement, told with candor and
vulnerability, wonderfully illustrates how the personal becomes
universal. Who doesn't have an identity centered around what they
do, think, and know? More than a flash of recognition in the mirror,
Caught in the Act is an invitation to explore your own
boundaries and to step out beyond them. Best of all, the challenge
is to step out playfully, to keep a sense of humor about how our
conditioning limits us. How to enjoy life just as it is now, while
being open to seeing more than we think we already understand. This
is no instructional manual of advice, thankfully, instead it is a
book about learning to surrender. An informed and well-grounded
wisdom shines forth on every page.
While the stories from her life give the reader a
sense of connection to her, somehow the book magically becomes about
you. Her questions become your questions, too. She writes
unpretentiously, as one who finds it unnecessary to state the
obvious. It is tempting to credit her decades as a book editor for
the clarity of her writing, but the ability to turn a rigorous,
analytical mind back on itself requires a degree of personal honesty
that only comes with years of spiritual practice and contemplation.
This is what makes her insight so recognizably human and relevant.
It takes both humility and courage to first see, and then reveal
oneself so forthrightly.
It is easy for anyone to relate to the
challenges of losing your identity with one's work and filling free
time creatively; you needn't wait for retirement to explore the
territory of "doing non-doing" or to face the inner critic that
turns play into more work. Learning to live at ease in the "don't
know" zone sounds like the advice of many a Zen master. To watch how
someone really applies these teachings to their own life is a
wonderful opportunity. Trips to Japanese Zen monasteries, classes in
Chinese brush painting, and retreats with Dzogchen masters are
fascinating enough just as stories, the inner life evoked by them
contains observations you may find useful in any circumstances. I
found myself saying "Oh, I do that, too" a hundred times over, as
would anyone paying attention to the mind's usual antics. Her focus
on the many ways we avoid being present shows (with the usual irony)
how awareness of doing that immediately puts us in touch and makes
us present in a deeper way. Sometimes just seeing how plain silly we
can be might jolt us into whatever is real for us now.
Never mind that she calls herself an
"almost-Buddhist", her grasp of the issues centered around "aimless
aim" is right up there with Zen and the Art of Archery. If we
don't have any goals or intentions with whatever activity we are
doing, we may go nowhere. Yet if we are too focused on results, we
burden our actions with heavy expectations. This book is about
finding that balance in your daily life.
Gloria Lee,
Nondual Highlights |
