Description

‘The Web of Meaning is both a profound personal meditation on human existence and a tour-de-force weaving together of historic and contemporary world-wide secular and spiritual thought on the deepest question of all: why are we here?’
Gabor Mate M.D., author, In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction

‘We need, now more than ever, to figure out how to make all kinds of connections. This book can help–and therefore it can help with a lot of the urgent tasks we face.’
Bill McKibben, author, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

As our civilization careens towards a precipice of climate breakdown, ecological destruction and gaping inequality, people are losing their existential moorings. Our dominant worldview of disconnection, which tells us we are split between mind and body, separate from each other, and at odds with the natural world, has passed its expiration date.

Yet another world is possible.

Award-winning author, Jeremy Lent, investigates humanity’s age-old questions – who am I? why am I? how should I live? – from a fresh perspective, weaving together findings from modern systems thinking, evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience with insights from Buddhism, Taoism and indigenous wisdom.

The result is a breathtaking accomplishment: a rich, coherent worldview based on a deep recognition of connectedness within ourselves, between each other, and with the entire natural world.

Publisher Review

The Web of Meaning is both a profound personal meditation on human existence and, as its title implies, a tour-de-force weaving together of historic and contemporary world-wide secular and spiritual thought on the deepest question of all: why are we here? -- Gabor Mate M.D., author of * In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction * We need, now more than ever, to figure out how to make all kinds of connections. This book can help--and therefore it can help with a lot of the urgent tasks we face. -- Bill McKibben, author of * Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? * There are so many ways to understand the world, and so many levels to be integrated, that everyone can use the guidance of Jeremy Lent. Moving from the ancient Tao to modern neuroscience and everything in between, he boldly weaves deep insights together to envision a better world. -- Frans de Waal, author of * Mama's Last Hug - Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves * A book of radial and profound wisdom ... a magnificent manifesto for a regenerative culture and for an ecological civilisation ... the book beautifully address some of the most complex questions of life -- Satish Kumar,Editor Emeritus, Resurgence & Ecologist and Founder of Schumacher College. Praise for The Patterning Instinct: 'The most profound and far-reaching book I have ever read -- George Monbiot Such an important, necessary, and wise book -- John Higgs Cultures shape values, and those values shape history. By the same token, our values will shape our future. One way to equip yourself for this heroic task will be to read this enormous, learned, yet garrulous and helpful book. * New Scientist * One of the most brilliant and insightful minds of our age, Jeremy Lent has written one of the most essential and compelling books of our time. The Web of Meaning invites us to rethink at the deepest level who we are as a species and what we might become. -- David Korten author of * When Corporations Rule the World, The Great Turning * A widely ranging, deeply penetrating, and healingly prescriptive consideration of how to reposition humanity within the world. Lent's ideas, drawn from all around the globe from antiquity to the present, provide a vision for a better shot at survival and a life that is worthwhile for our time-and for the rest of time -- Carl Safina author of * Beyond Words and Becoming Wild * It is hard to build new regenerative narratives that honor the old without being in extractive relation to non-western lands and peoples, but this book is a damn good start. This book is a good place to sit for anybody interested in binding the wounds of thoughtless progress and allowing the emergence of new patterns of being. -- Tyson Yunkaporta, author of * Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World *