In Person: Author Talk with Dean Sluyter, "The Dharma Bum's Guide to Western Literature"

Suppose we could read Hemingway as haiku.... learn mindfulness from Virginia Woolf and liberation from Frederick Douglass . . . see Dickinson and Whitman as buddhas of poetry, and Huck Finn and Gatsby as seekers of the infinite . . . discover enlightenment teachings in Macbeth, The Catcher in the Rye, Moby-Dick, and The Bluest Eye.

Some of us were lucky enough to have one passionate, funny, inspiring English teacher who helped us fall in love with books. Add a lifetime of teaching Dharma -- authentic, traditional approaches to meditation and awakening -- and you get award-winning author Dean Sluyter. With droll humor and irreverent wisdom, he unpacks the Dharma of more than twenty major writers, from William Blake to Dr. Seuss, inspiring readers to deepen their own spiritual life and see literature in a fresh, new way: as a path of awakening. (New World Library)

Dean Sluyter (pronounced “slighter”) has taught natural methods of meditation and awakening since 1970. Dean gives talks, workshops, and retreats throughout the United States and beyond, from Ivy League colleges to maximum-security prisons. His media appearances have included National Public Radio, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Coast to Coast AM, The Dr. Oz Show, and O, The Oprah Magazine.

“What a wise and wonderful book, an exploration of some of our greatest writers through the seemingly simplest and most noble questions: Who am I? What am I doing here? What is the nature of consciousness? What energies and forces supersede my transient ones? Bravo!” — Ken Burns, filmmaker

“The Dharma Bum’s Guide to Western Literature beautifully demonstrates how inspiration and spiritual insight can be found anywhere, at any time, in any situation. Dean Sluyter’s unveiling of the sacred within the secular is wonderful to experience, a satisfying feast for the mind and soul. Savor it.” — Michael Bernard Beckwith, founder and spiritual director, Agape International Spiritual Center

“This book is both wise and funny, inspired and inspiring, delightful and light filled. It opens up whole new ways of seeing.” — Connie Zweig, PhD, author of The Inner Work of Age

Our co-sponsor, Books on the Common will have books for purchase and signing.

Please register below.