“This is something that needs explaining, how light emerges from darkness, how comfort wells up from sorrow. The Earth holds every possibility inside it, and the mystery of transformation, one thing into another. This is the wildest comfort. That's what this book is about.” (xi) In an effort to make sense of the deaths in

Single White Monk by Shozan Jack Haubner is a prescient book—not only for its teachings, which are deeply rooted in real-life stories and the humble wisdom that comes from making mistakes and learning to face them, but for its lack of pretension around issues involving sexual abuse and all the opinions, hurt, and life-changing consequences that

Brad Andrews describes his travels to the Kiso Road in Japan inspired by William Scott Wilson's Walking the Kiso Road. In early April of this year I made a solo trip from Brooklyn, NY, where I live, to Japan. It was my first trip to the East, and one I had contemplated for years before

On 14 April 2010, my aunt was wrapping up her prayers and enjoying her morning tea when she felt the windows in her room rattle and the bed beneath her shift. She ran out of her room to join the rest of the family in the yard. “Tsering Wangmo, Kyegu is gone. Everything is gone

A Jewish Mother in Shangri-la by Rosie Rosenzweig An old joke tells of a Jewish woman who treks to the Himalayas to seek an audience with a guru sitting in seclusion on a mountaintop. When at last she comes before him, she implores: "Sheldon, come home!" Rosie Rosenzweig was that Jewish mother-but in real life,

In Buddha's Kitchen: Cooking, Being Cooked, and Other Adventures in a Meditation Center by Kimberley Snow Anyone who's ever sat a meditation retreat knows how that much time on the cushion can cause one's inner absurdities to spew like Mount Vesuvius. It can be agony when it's happening, but hilarious to recall later. Kimberley Snow's

What the Stones Remember: A Life Rediscovered by Patrick Lane At age 62, after forty years spent in a haze of heavy drinking, the poet Patrick Lane got sober--and the beauty of the world knocked him off his feet. He spent a good deal of his time working in the garden and recording what arose

Mango Elephants in the Sun: How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin by Susana Herrera It's a funky title, but don't let that hold you back. Susana's account of her two years in the Peace Corps in Cameroon is a rollicking good read. As much for the wisdom it contains

City of Lingering Splendor: A Frank Account of Old Peking's Exotic Pleasures by John Blofeld On a stroll through the streets of Peking in 1934 you might meet beautiful courtesans, Confucian scholars, Tsarist refugees, aging palace eunuchs, teenage opium addicts, Taoist adepts or Buddhist monks. You might even run into Shura, the White-Russian hermaphrodite. The

As I approached the Golden Gate Bridge on my way out of town, I cranked up Willie Nelson singing "On the Road Again." A song of freedom, here we go! By the time I was midway across the span, I was waltzing in the driver's seat to the dreamy sounds of "Georgia," symbolically telling the