Books in Brief: September 2024

Jessica Little reviews “Confidence” by Ethan Nichtern, “Real-World Enlightenment” by Susan Kaiser-Greenland, “Original Love” by Henry Shukman, and more.

Jessica Little
1 September 2024

Most of us struggle with confidence. As meditation teacher Ethan Nichtern puts it, we’re like the inflatable people found in used car lots. The wind causes balloon men to rise and sway proudly, but if the wind dies, they collapse completely. Praise makes us float high, but criticism brings us to our knees. Nichtern’s new book, Confidence: Holding Your Seat through Life’s Eight Worldly Winds (New World Library), is grounded in the Tantric Buddhist tradition. In this guide to cultivating confidence, we learn how the eight worldly winds—pleasure and pain, success and failure, fame and insignificance, praise and criticism—can lure us off course and make it difficult to find peace. Nichtern provides powerful tools to corral these dichotomies, and rather than hide from them or fight them, use them instead to remind ourselves that we are alive. 

For all the busy, stressed-out people out there, Susan Kaiser Greenland’s new book, Real-World Enlightenment: Discovering Ordinary Magic in Everyday Life (Shambhala Publications) is a balm. With straightforward language, Greenland shows us how to find small moments of illumination and wisdom. By encouraging playfulness, balance, attention, and compassion, she says we can get outside ourselves, break away from our ego-driven agendas, and connect with something vaster. Greenland provides reams of tips and tricks, drawn from a plethora of traditions, to help us re-center and feel better. Some of the many ideas discussed include using a meditation anchor, renouncing the “hedonic treadmill,” and fostering intellectual humility. These and other simple practices can have a ripple effect, expanding outward to affect the lives of those around us. In addition to pithy “food for thought” messages at the end of each section, the book also features exercises and guided meditations.

In It’s Okay Not to Look for the Meaning of Life: A Zen Monk’s Guide to Living Stress-Free One Day at a Time (Tuttle Publishing), Jikisai Minami grapples with provocative ideas: Life is meaningless, and it’s okay to waste it. Besides living and dying, nothing else is a big deal. Our relationships tend to cause more suffering than pleasure. Page by page, Jikisai Minami overturns preconceived notions of what we need to be happy, and he provides the tools to understand and manage suffering. The book is divided into four chapters addressing respectively our sense of self, hopes and dreams, emotions, and death and dying. We learn to look deeper than our constant striving and to be brutally honest about the pain and struggle inherent to life. In this way, we reduce our anxiety, improve our relationships, and ultimately can die peacefully.

The law of dependent origination was one of the insights of the Buddha as he sat beneath the bodhi tree. We tend to believe that suffering happens by chance or because of others’ actions. But the Buddhist principle of dependent origination holds that nothing happens by accident, and that everything is due to causes and conditions. A deep understanding of dependent origination can help liberate us from suffering, as the pattern of arising and vanquishing that dependent origination describes helps us understand the reality of impermanence. Dependent Origination in Plain English (Wisdom Publications) is a collection of talks given by Bhante Gunaratana over a period of several years, transcribed and edited by Veronique Ziegler. Bhante Gunaratana, a monk from Sri Lanka who moved to the U.S. when he was forty and who completed his PhD in Buddhist Studies at Harvard, has written several books explaining important Buddhist concepts “in plain English.” 

The title of Richard Brady’s Short Journey Home: Awakening to Freedom with Thich Nhat Hanh (Parallax Press) recalls Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching “I have arrived. I am home. My destination is in each step.” Brady’s book is part memoir and part meditation manual, woven together with poetry. It delves into his roots in Judaism and the Quaker tradition, as well as his extensive experience as a layperson who studied Zen under Thich Nhat Hanh. Brady’s relatable personal stories deal with cultivating self-awareness, healing intergenerational trauma, nurturing authentic relationships, navigating depression, and more. When he was ordained into the Order of Interbeing by Thich Nhat Hanh, he was given the spiritual name True Dharma Bridge, which expresses his aspiration to teach and guide others along the spiritual path. Brady taught math and mindfulness at the Sidwell Friends School for thirty-four years, as well as holding workshops for teachers, laypeople, and fellow Zen practitioners. 

In his book Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening (HarperOne), Henry Shukman poetically describes the spiritual journey: “As the path snakes up the gorges and river valleys, farther into the highlands, it passes by four inns—four refuges at which the pilgrim in search of peace and well-being, and perhaps the deeper truths of life, can stay for a while, and learn what each inn has to offer.” The first inn is mindfulness—the process of observing, naming, and learning to love the hindrances of life, such as worry and anger. The second inn is support, the multiple ways in which our lives are interconnected. The third inn is absorption, or samadhi, and the fourth is awakening. Shukman, a poet, meditation teacher, and spiritual director emeritus of the Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, has written a warm, comforting book reminding us that our true nature is love.

Manifestation—defining an intention such that it gets embedded in our subconscious, thus allowing it to guide our life—is a powerful tool. In recent years, many books have been written about the practice, including The Secret, which maintains that we can get what we want by defining it and visualizing it. But Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything (Avery) is a bit different. It’s written by James R. Doty, a neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, Buddhist practitioner, and collaborator with the Dalai Lama, and rather than seeking personal gain through manifestation, he suggests concentrating on long-term goals that are compassion-based and contribute to society. Doty explores the power of focused attention, throwing off narrow mental habits, and ridding your mind of negativity bias. The book includes an appendix, a six-week intensive program for those who wish to make a more formal commitment to the practice of manifestation.

When Susan Gillis Chapman received a cancer diagnosis during the pandemic, she drew on her Buddhist training to help her cope. Which Way Is Up?: Finding Heart in the Hardest of Times (Shambhala Publications) is about that experience. In Buddhism, a transitional period of radical change is often called a bardo. It’s easy to lose our footing in these destabilizing moments of crisis, says Chapman, but they’re our greatest opportunity for growth. The book is divided into three sections, which coincide with the beginning, middle, and end of the bardo. In each section, Chapman guides readers to face fears: awake fear, which is provoked by sudden and unexpected loss; frozen fear, which occurs when we cannot face said loss; and finally core fear, which stems from doubt in our fundamental goodness. Chapman draws on various traditional Buddhist teachings and practices, including tonglen, which involves dissolving the barriers between ourselves and others.

Jessica Little

Jessica Little is an English teacher and freelance writer who lives in Nova Scotia.