Stepping Out of Self-Deception

[camerata]

Has anyone read Stepping Out of Self-Deception: The Buddha's Liberating Teaching of No-Self by Rodney Smith? In it, the author looks at anicca every which way.

I thought the first half of the book was brilliant. The author - a former monk and student of both Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ven Buddhadasa - avoids Pali terms as well as the language of modern psychology - which is no mean feat.

He seems to lean towards the Mahayana idea of realizing "Buddha nature" and away from the idea of setting goals and step-by-step practice. To start with, he identifies the (thinking) mind as the problem and awareness as what we should cultivate. He uses the term "heart" and equates it to abiding awareness. One of the models he uses is of a vertical dimension (the here and now, infinity, spiritual) and a horizontal dimension (past-present-future, worldly), which intersect at the present moment. According to him, awareness encompasses everything, and the spiritual path moves us from mental certainty to amazement and wonder.

His explanations all work very well until half way through the book when he starts saying things like:

"When we act in a new way, the body cells begin a reorganization process that no longer supports the old beliefs."

and

"The body does it all; it does not require mental interference or a new belief system."

With ideas like this and talk of "the emotional body," it seems to me he's gone too far with his own model of how things work. When our body reacts automatically it's really a function of the unconscious mind, not the body per se. He also talks about the heart doing this or that, when he's already equated "the heart" with awareness, which really doesn't do anything except be aware.

So, anyone else read the book and had the same concerns as me?