Blinding Pain, Simple Truth

Changing Your Life Through Buddhist Meditation

Transform Suffering into Healing

A self-help book for those who want to heal themselves from pain and suffering using Buddhist meditation. Winner of the Silver Medal in both the Meditation/Relaxation category of the 2012 Living Now Book Awards and in the Self-Help category of the FPA President’s Book Awards.

In 2000, incapacitating headaches nearly destroyed Richard Ellis’s career. He suffered from the pain and, even more, from his outrage over the pain. His experiences with all but one of the doctors he consulted were disastrous. Their only response to the pain was to prescribe pills, which changed his personality and drained all his intellectual and emotional energy. One wise doctor recommended meditation. 

Buddhist teachings and daily meditation empowered Richard to heal the suffering caused by both his physical and emotional pain. The pain, once his brutal enemy, became his best teacher, inviting him to let go of the suffering and the image of himself as a victim. “As I have learned,” explains Richard, “so can you also learn to reexamine your experiences with suffering and pain and eventually to embrace your life with equanimity, gratitude and joy.”

As Richard discovered, Buddhist teachings also provide a new lens for reading the Hebrew Bible, which yields fresh insights into fundamental questions of birth and death, ego and enlightenment, sickness and health — insights that speak in surprisingly relevant ways to spiritual seekers and to those who want to heal themselves.

Included in Blinding Pain, Simple Truth: 

• The compelling story of how Richard Ellis transformed his chronic pain and suffering into healing and peace
• How Buddhist meditation can help relieve suffering by allowing the body’s natural healing powers to flourish
• New insights into the Bible that complement meditation and assist in healing

Praise for Blinding Pain, Simple Truth--

“Not just another book about alternative healing, this is also a very well-written textbook about how and why the alternative process Ellis chose actually worked. A professor of mathematics and Judaic studies, he does talk about things like conceptual lenses being a tenet of cognitive science, but always in understandable terms, with examples. He also makes it clear that the path to overcoming suffering lies in the right brain, not the left brain. The power of the book is Ellis’ honesty about his struggle with the concept of turning enemies into teachers. An additional selling point is Ellis’ use of Buddhist teachings to search for new insight into the Hebrew Bible. Consider displaying it with books by Thich Nhat Hanh, Jack Kornfeld, Rabbi David A. Cooper, and Pema Chödrön.” --Anna Jedrziewski, New Age Retailer

“Blinding Pain, Simple Truth is an intriguing blend of Buddhist insight meditation and a fascinating interpretation of key Hebrew Bible passages. In this engaging work, Dr. Richard Ellis shares his own journey of life-changing transformation through these liberating practices and studies. The pairing of these two ancient traditions helps to illuminate our own explorations of healing and awakening.” —Joseph Goldstein, author of A Heart Full of Peace and One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism

“Physical pain is sometimes unavoidable, but suffering is a choice. Sounds nice, but is it true? And if it is true, what choices does a person have to make to find freedom and perhaps even fulfillment in the midst of severe and persistent pain? The book you have in your hand is a rich, informative, and empowering narrative of one person’s quest for happiness, independent of conditions. It is informative and empowering because it details step-by-step the sequence of challenges and breakthroughs that the author went through over a period of many years. It is rich because it brings together three deep human endeavors: Buddhist mindfulness practice, higher mathematics, and traditional Jewish text study.

“Delicious for the intellect, nourishing for the soul.” —Shinzen Young, author of The Science of Enlightenment and Break Through Pain 

“Professor Richard Ellis invites us, as fellow human beings, to join him on his intimate personal journey to discover the heart of reality: when we experience pain and our lives are afflicted by suffering, we can experience healing and transformation. Personal pain, which can challenge our notions of self and our conventional view of the world, can also become our teacher. . . .

“Richard enriches his journey of self-discovery and transformation by celebrating Hebrew Scripture and ancient Buddhist wisdom. Archetypal Biblical ancestors come alive as Richard explores their struggles, which are our own. . . . Buddhist wisdom complements the wisdom of Hebrew Scripture by offering us the gift of meditation, which allows us to experience the fullness of reality itself.

“I am profoundly grateful to Richard for sharing his book with me at a time of personal transition. As a former hospital chaplain, I engaged human suffering on many levels. I humbly bow to Richard’s embrace of pain, reality, and God’s mystery. All who read this book will be enriched by Richard’s witness.” —Father Bruce Teague, Our Lady of the Valley Church, Sheffield, MA

“Richard Ellis’s close account of his struggle with physical pain opens up very useful insights into the nature of suffering and the role of the ego in prolonging it. For him, pain has become a kind of teacher, and the story of his journey to understand the teaching of his pain brings into one book his knowledge as a mathematician, as a close reader of the Hebrew Bible, and as a practitioner of Buddhist meditation.” —Rodger Kamenetz, author of The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet’s Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India

“I encourage both laypersons and professionals to read this unique integration of Buddhism, the Bible, and behavioral science. The author uses Buddhist teachings, meditation, the wisdom of the Bible, and his own experiences to explore issues of pain and suffering, healing and happiness, ego and enlightenment. The book describes a path of transformation: how people focused on achievement and control can discover a new way of being, based on insight and love. Such a transformation is exactly what we are striving for in biofeedback, cognitive behavior therapy, and modern psychoanalysis.” —Dr. Arnon Rolnick, Clinical Psychologist and Senior Research Fellow, Unit for Applied Neuroscience, Interdisciplinary Center, and Psychotherapy School, Ben Gurion University, Israel

“This is a rich and rewarding book that shares deep insights about life, human suffering and ways to cope with it, meditation, and texts from the Jewish Bible. They are delivered compellingly, poetically, and often with an element of humor. The author’s wisdom and clarity of thought comes shining through, whether his mode is story-telling memoirist, scholarly analyst, spiritual guide, or self-help coach. I recommend this book highly to anyone seeking help with intractable physical, emotional, or spiritual pain.” —Kenneth Talan, M.D., author of the award-winning book, Help Your Child or Teen Get Back on Track: What Parents and Professionals Can Do for Childhood Emotional and Behavioral Problems

“This book is a mindful and wholehearted exploration of the nature of pain, suffering, and healing that reveals surprising discoveries of simple, yet challenging pathways to equanimity. It also presents imaginative and evocative interpretations of Biblical narratives and their relationship to Buddha Dharma, meditative practice, and wisdom.” —Ted Slovin, Ph.D., former member of the board of directors of the Insight Meditation Society, Barre, MA; Psychologist

About the Author:  Richard S. Ellis

Richard S. Ellis is a professor of mathematics and an adjunct professor of Judaic studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has published and taught courses in mathematics, literature, and Bible studies, and has extensive experience with Buddhist meditation.