A Lamp unto Yourself

A Beginner's Guide to Asian Spiritual Practices, from Advaita and Buddhism to Yoga and Zen

By: C. Pierce Salguero

Narrated by: Luke Anthony-Rey Oller

For “spiritual explorers” ready to travel beyond Western bounds, a beginner’s guide to Asian spiritual traditions spanning regions, cultures, and history

Asian spiritual practices, from yoga and tai chi to qigong and mindfulness meditations, permeate our culture. But these practices are often casually used in the West, and sometimes little understood. As informative as it is inviting, A Lamp unto Yourself introduces “spiritual explorers” of all experience levels to embodied Eastern spiritual practices.

Employing decades of personal and professional experience with Asian spiritualities, C. Pierce Salguero explains the origins of key Asian spiritual practices. He grounds them in their historical and philosophical contexts and provides information on how the reader can begin and deepen their personal practices. Salguero also discusses the focus of the path (heart, body, or perception) and describes what one might experience as they develop their practice. In A Lamp unto Yourself, readers will learn more about such traditions as

• mindfulness meditation, insight meditation, and loving-kindness meditation
• yogas, tai chi, and qigong
• Taoism and Advaita
• mantras, chakras, and tantra

Those looking to begin practicing for the first time or to simply expand their ever-growing spiritual tool kits will feel empowered to explore Eastern spirituality with knowledge and autonomy. With Salguero as their guide, readers can confidently embark on their journeys to becoming, as Buddha would encourage, a lamp unto themselves.

Critic reviews

“This the perfect introduction for understanding what Asian-inspired spiritual practices might offer you and what their philosophical underpinnings are, and for helping you get started. And Salguero is just the right guide: knowledgeable, companionable, and aware that, like just about everything in life, one size does not fit all.”
—Dr. Zubin Damania, creator of The ZDoggMD Show and founder of Turntable Health

A Great Overview of Eastern Spiritual Traditions

I've been meditating for about 10 years, and have come accross a lot of material, most of it Buddhist in nature, but a few from Hindu (Advaita Vidanta), an even a bit of Taoism (via lectures from Alan Watts). I thought this book was an excellent primer to the variety of traditions available in the East, not just in terms of theory or meditation, but movement practices as well, like Yoga, Tai Chi, and Qi Gong. As and overview of course, it doesn't go into a great amount of details withing each of these, it's more of a "sampler platter." I really appreciated the author's academic approach, and despite is own deep level of practice, he is very cognizant of trying to convince anyone to practice a via a specific tradition, or really at all, as he goes through potential pitfalls like unethical gurus, the psychological instability that some practitioners can experience, etc. I love that he emphasizes holding onto critical thinking even when approaching spirituality.

I thought the narrator was quite good as well, but there seemed to be something slightly off about the audio quality. I could listen and understand, but it seemed to be have quality to it that made it sound not as good as other audible titles. But this is a fairly minor nitpick, other than this I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it.