Martine Batchelor & Stephen Batchelor 
What is this? [EPUB ebook] 
Ancient questions for modern minds

Preface     xi
Entering the retreat     1
The basis of meditation     7
Questioning and responding     17
What is this?     33
The three symbols of awakening     41
Effortless effort     53
Good snowflakes: they don’t fall anywhere else     63
I don’t know     77 
Emptiness     87 
Courage and questioning     101 
The four great vows     109 
Waiting and listening     125
The path of compassion     135 
Practice in daily life     151
Notes     156
References     158
About Gaia House     161
About Tuwhiri     162

Stephen Batchelor is a writer and teacher known for his secular approach to Buddhism. Born in 1953, he was ordained as a Buddhist monk at the age of twenty and spent ten years training in the Tibetan Geluk and Korean Son orders.
Since disrobing he has been engaged in a critical exploration of Buddhism’s role in the modern world, which has earned him both condemnation as a heretic and praise as a reformer.
In particular, he regards Buddhism as an evolving culture of awakening, not a system of unchanging doctrines, and considers some traditional Buddhist concepts such as rebirth and karma to be relics of ancient Indian civilisation rather than essential teachings.
Since 1986, he has taught at Gaia House meditation centre in Devon, England. In 2015 he co-founded Bodhi College, a European educational project dedicated to the understanding and application of early Buddhism.