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The Cow in the Parking Lot

A Zen Approach to Overcoming Anger

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The Cow in the Parking Lot

By: Leonard Scheff, Susan Edmiston
Narrated by: Bill Mendieta
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About this listen

Imagine you're circling a crowded parking lot. Just as you spot a space, another driver races ahead and takes it. In a world of road rage, domestic violence, and professionally angry TV and radio commentators, your likely response is anger, even fury. Now imagine that instead of another driver, a cow has lumbered into that parking space and settled down. Your anger dissolves into bemusement. What has changed? Not just the occupant of the space but your perspective on the situation.

We're a society swimming in anger, always about to snap. Using simple, understandable Buddhist principles, Scheff and Edmiston explain how to replace anger with happiness. They introduce the four most common types of anger (Important and Reasonable, Reasonable but Unimportant, Irrational, and Impossible), then show how to identify our real unmet demands, dissolve our anger, and change what happens when our buttons are pushed. We learn to laugh at ourselves, a powerful early step, and realize that others don't make us angry. Only we can make ourselves angry.

©2010 Leonard Scheff and Susan Edmiston (P)2010 HighBridge Company Anger Management Personal Development Personal Success Rage Zen Anger

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All stars
Most relevant  
Such a good book, practical. It made me smile and filled me with optimism that I can change. Such a good starting point if you really want anger to stop being a negative force in your life.

Very helpful ...best anger book!!

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I have yet to try put the theory and practice to the test but the insight is eye opening. Some of the narrators accents pressed a button in me but I couldn't do a better job.

Counterintuitive Perfect Sense

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I’m sure it wasn’t the intention of the narrator to make me laugh. But the various silly voices they adopt in this recording had me laughing out loud. A useful book, with the added benefit of making me laugh (unintentionally).

The narrator is hysterical!

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I enjoyed the book and found it very useful. The narrator did a good job of it when speaking normally. However, after a while his impressions of people when quoting them get a bit distracting and jarring.

Good book - However, narrator occasionally jarring

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The book seems good, and has valid points that resonate, especially for people new to anger management books.

The content is for helping people have tools and techniques to manage and process anger. It does not aim to help you understand where your anger originates from, and it explicitly states this at various points.

The narration is generally good... He's clear, speaks with good range of emotion and emphasis. The only drawback though, is significant and very distracting; for some unfathomable reason, he does terrible accents for every single person that is quoted in the audio book and there are lots of quotes, particularly from the Dalai Lama. His accent for him is particularly jarring (they all are though) as it sounds like a parody.

It's somewhat comically ironic to include something so unnecessarily distracting and poor in an audiobook where the content is for people who feel they struggle with annoyances and anger!

Some useful content but ludicrous accents narrator uses are unhelpful, dreadful and increasingly distract from the content

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What made the experience of listening to The Cow in the Parking Lot the most enjoyable?

Although I have practiced Buddhist meditation for many years I found some sections of the book very useful - if not particularly original.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Cow in the Parking Lot?

Nothing particular comes to mind - I'm not sure that this kind of book is meant to have "memorable moments!" as such.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Again this question is not really relevant.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me reflect and, unintentionally, provided frequent irritations - or opportunities to observe my own reactions to the authors rather comical, fake Asian accents.

Useful book - shame about the accent!

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My issue here is the narrator’s use of voices for the characters. I could cope with the ‘angry Americans’ he parodies, as he is an American himself. But putting on slight Japanese, Indian, Vietnamese, Tibetan or Chinese accents was a step too far and I had to stop listening as it was too uncomfortable. I do hope it is re-narrated as this narration certainly speaks of the time it was produced. This kind of accent parodying would not pass the mark these days.

Although from a zen perspective it is very light and doesn’t go deeply into our way, it does have some very valid points which are obscured by the offensive racial parodies.

Voices

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I really disliked the narrator doing terrible impressions and bizarre accents for any quotes from the Buddha, Dogen, Susuki, Thich Nhat Hanh, Trungpa and any other non American teachers. It seemed unnecessary and I couldn't help but find it annoying. But maybe it's my fault for being angry..?

Simplified Buddhist theory, NOT Zen specific.

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