Reviews, Comments & Articles

“It’s a wonderful book. I’ve read it and reread it. It’s going to be a companion for quite some time. So very accessible; so laid out step-by-step. I’m very appreciative. I am making a list of people to give it to.” -- Patricia R.

In his introduction, psychologist Mark C. Brown says of this book, ‘It is the promise of this writing that no one in any previous era would have been better served by what was available to guide them than you will be by what you have in your hands right now.’ To which I instantly and smugly thought, ‘Well it’s nice to aim big.’ Really now, one book having the ability to release the mind from the slings and arrows, depression and arguments, addictions and conceits of daily life? - Impossible!

I was wrong. Drawing largely on the tenets of Buddhism mixed with some fascinating insights into modern understandings of physics and human psychology, Live Like a Window, Work Like a Mirror is truly a life-changing text. While looking forward to a full interview with Brown, let me quickly summarize a few of his basic tenets that I hope will spur the reader’s own interest.

Consciousness pre-existed everything and suffuses everything. Consciousness is the eternal whereas everything we pretend to know of the physical world is temporary and ever-changing. We innately know this and find it rather disturbing. Everything I know (including me) will end? Oh poop! Give me some religion, some politics and a bottle of Liquid Fist and I mean now!

Except of course nothing truly ever ends. Everything there ever was at the Big Bang is still there now and will ever be there. As soon as we come to terms with the cyclical nature of the universe, cycles both great and small, the sooner we will relax and come to terms with the concept of no-thing. This book came along at a perfect time in my life. in other words, it came along.

So, why did I delve into Live Like a Window, Work Like a Mirror by Mark C. Brown, Ph.D.? The endlessly curious, less rational part, of course. But even the rational bits are glad that I did. And even if you are not actively seeking your personal nirvana, I’ll bet this book would be helpful to you as well.

Not to ruin the surprise or anything but Brown sets out his understanding of Consciousness as Creator. He views everything material to be Consciousness manifesting itself, and each developmental step, physical as well as mental, being the push toward enlightenment. Once humans and the human brain developed, Consciousness let go of now needless physical transformations to focus all that power on mental, thought-based development.

Brown describes the process of learning self-observation, the ability to step outside your self, with all its messy emotionalism and bias, and to see yourself and others engaged from an observer’s stance. As a writer, this ability is invaluable, and I am grateful to Brown here. I’ve never been able to wrap my head around detachment before, and he showed me that I already do this.

Living like a window, then, is the practice of detachment, letting the occurances of life and thought and feeling flow through you like a breeze through an open window, here and gone, here and gone. Working like a mirror is how we deal with others, remembering to take ourselves and our tumult out of the equation, so our friends, co-workers and loved ones can more clearly see their own tumult and know what they need to open themselves to.

So take the plunge and give swimming toward nirvana a try. If Mr. Brown is indeed correct, you already are! Pick up Live Like a Window, Work Like a Mirror. Lets see if we can’t help Consciousness along just a little bit.

HEATHER SEGGEL
Foreword Magazine Reviewer
January 2012

Don’t say you weren’t warned: Doctor Mark C. Brown makes clear as early as page two that his book is not easy reading, especially at the outset. He’s right. There’s no fast track to enlightenment, but readers of Live Like a Window, Work Like a Mirror may want to flip ahead to page 101 for Brown’s definition of the term, then determine whether it’s worth their effort. Or lack of effort, since much of the “work” required to walk the talk here involves slowing down and doing less.

Those who choose to continue will be treated to a text that is dense but rewarding. While the techniques espoused here as useful to the pursuit of eternity consciousness (among them meditation and belly breathing) are nothing new, Brown’s mentions of them are notably free of the step-by-step instructions that many books incorporate, giving the reader the bare minimum needed to begin, and some freedom to experiment and adapt. There are also suggestions apart from a formal meditation practice that can be incorporated while reading the book, like simple awareness of the breath and the suggestion not to “try” to be tranquil, but simply focus on the breathing and let relaxation happen.

While the discussion of eternity consciousness is complex, Brown does offer some very accessible examples of what it might look like in practice. One scenario puts the reader in between an aggressive dog and undefended kitten and shows how it’s possible to intervene constructively without being swept up in the drama of the momentary crisis. Vignettes like these help the reader take heady material in on a bodily level. Some of the methods involved in living like a window amount to being told, “Don’t just do something, sit there,” like Buddhist author Sylvia Boorstein’s book of the same name. Remaining open and allowing experience to pass and ego to disengage are
challenging precisely because they demand doing less instead of more. Readers frustrated with the overall simplification of spiritual literature to the “dummies” level will be delighted by this more challenging work; the rest of us will get there eventually.