The Tao of Bowie: 10 Lessons from David Bowie's Life to Help You Live Yours

by Mark Edwards

Overview

A unique take on mindfulness meditation and meaning filtered through the life and work of David Bowie.

What would David Bowie do? When life gets tough, who can we turn to for help? Who will help us find happiness, meaning and purpose? The Tao of Bowie suggests that we turn to David Bowie for guidance - and use his amazing journey through life as a map to help us navigate our own.

Buddhism was central to David Bowie's life, but he was a wide-ranging thinker who also drew meaning from other sources including Jungian psychology, Nietzschean philosophy and Gnosticism. The Tao of Bowie condenses these concepts - the ideas that inspired and supported Bowie throughout his life and career - into ten powerful lessons, each with a series of exercises, meditations and techniques to encourage readers to apply these learnings to their own lives.

The Tao of Bowie will help readers understand who they really are, clarify their purpose in life, manage their emotions and cope with setbacks and change. This fresh approach to the search for spirituality and happiness unites the perennial human quest for answers with the extraordinary mind and unique career of one of the most important cultural figures of the past half-century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781911630876
Publisher:	Atlantic Books
Publication date:	05/01/2022
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.75(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Mark Edwards has two parallel careers - as a journalist and as a trainer/ life coach. As a journalist he began his career writing on magazines, including The Face, Arena, GQ, Esquire and Blitz. For the past 25 years his work has appeared virtually every week in the Sunday Times, and for twelve of those years he was the paper's chief pop music critic. As a coach and trainer, he works with individuals to help them live with more purpose and meaning, and with some of the country's most successful companies, helping them to support and develop future leaders.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1: Beginnings
Chapter 2: Needs
Chapter 3: Masks
Chapter 4: Addictions
Chapter 5: Thoughts
Chapter 6: Hell
Chapter 7: Shadow
Chapter 8: Heroes
Chapter 9: Love
Chapter 10: Where Are We Now?
Acknowledgments
Further Reading

Editorial Reviews

06/21/2021

Music critic Edwards (Belonging) invites readers onto a swirling, entertaining path of self-discovery by following advice gleaned from the life and work of the late rock star David Bowie. Mining Bowie’s lyrics, public interviews, and written reflections, Edwards argues the musician’s life provides a template for going from feeling “lonely, adrift, and desperate for help” to finding happiness, love, and even “equanimity and bravery” in the face of death. He explores and interprets lessons—such as confronting one’s “shadow side” and opening oneself to love—gleaned from Bowie’s lifelong personal pilgrimage toward greater happiness and purpose. Each chapter features contemplations on Bowie’s personal evolution, providing a melange of meditation practices meant to help readers identify unmet needs, focus more on others, or label and name distracting thoughts and feelings: “You cannot discover your true self unless you are prepared to spend some time sitting quietly alone, but many of us would rather do anything else.” This cheery guide, filled with insightful facets from Bowie’s “magpie” approach to enlightenment, will appeal to fans of the music legend and spiritualists alike. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Music critic Edwards (Belonging) invites readers onto a swirling, entertaining path of self-discovery. . . . This cheery guide, filled with insightful facets from Bowie’s “magpie” approach to enlightenment, will appeal to fans of the music legend and spiritualists alike." —Publishers Weekly

“A swirling, entertaining path of self-discovery." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

09/01/2021

British life coach and Sunday Times pop music critic Edwards (Belonging: The Key to Transforming and Maintaining Diversity, Inclusion and Equality at Work) makes complex Buddhist concepts accessible by framing them within the shapeshifting, occasionally turbulent life of enigmatic British rock star David Bowie. Bowie was born into a blended family with a generational history of mental illness; his older half brother Terry introduced him to Buddhism at an early age. Edwards argues that for Bowie, who experienced mental illness and drug addiction as an adult, it was Buddhist practice (combined with Jungian, Nietzschean, and gnostic theory) that ultimately helped him find peace and love before his untimely death. The book is structured around 10 such lessons, illustrated by events from Bowie's life; each is followed by a section of meditation and reflection exercises for finding purpose and meaning. VERDICT This "what would David Bowie do" treatise could be an entry point into Buddhism for novices, but it might be too basic for readers already familiar with Buddhism's tenets.—Gail Eubanks, Univ. of Missouri, Springfield

Library Journal