Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh

Buddhists talk about the various branches of their religion as vessels. These are the means by which you are transported from Samsara (on this shore) to Nirvana (on the far shore). Hinayana is the vessel for monks. Zen is the vessel for the warrior. Mahayana is the vessel for the rest of us.

In the Mahayana tradition, we do not need to practice arcane rites or meditate for hours a day in a monastery to get to Nirvana. No, in the Mahayana tradition, everything we do (including washing the dishes and mowing the lawn), if it is done with the right attitude, gets us to Nirvana.

This attitude is called "mindfulness", and it consists of being here in the present moment in everything we do - what Aldous Huxley called "The Yoga of Everything". If our minds had their way, and for many people they do, we would spend most of our time regretting the past and worrying about the future. Mindfulness is about living life in the only place it really can be lived: the present moment.

Peace in Every Step is a book about mindfulness. It is divided into three parts. In the first part the author tells us how we can go about being present in many of the work-a-day situation of our lives, from eating to driving a car. In the second part, we are shown how we can use mindfulness to work with our negative emotions. According to the author: "Mindfulness is the foundation of a happy life." After reading this book I am many steps closer to agreeing with him. The third sections deals with seeing the inter-connectedness of all things - "inter-being" is the term the author uses.

Peace in Every Step is a highly accessible and sane guide to living a better life. The examples given are plausible, charming and workable, and especially thought-provoking and lively in the section on inter-being. The prose is straightforward, as is the wisdom:

In us, there is a river of feelings, in which every drop of water is a different feeling, and each feeling relies on all the others for its existence. To observe it, we just sit on the bank of the river and identify each feeling as it surfaces, flows by, and disappears.

I will be buying a copy of this book, I like it so much.

Publishing details: Peace in Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hahn (Rider, London, 1991. pp 134)

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

This may be Oprah's favorite book, but to me it is a well-presented mixture of Hindu cosmology, fatalist philosophy, some psycho-babble and pragmatic psychology.  Having said that, I enjoyed this book. 

You are the universe experiencing itself.  You are not the content of your mind.  You are not anything you can describe.  You are that indescribable something that allows thought to exist and occur but is not thought itself.  The thing that you may think is you is actually your ego and your fear.  When you learn to "let go" of these two powerful delusions, you find your true self.  You find peace.  The tool for achieving this is mindfulness. Be here now.  In the present. In this moment.  It is the only time you really have.  The past and the future exist only in the mind, which is delusory. Be here, now.

I liked the book.  The prose is nice.  The explanatory stories drawn from Buddhist tradition are charming.  I'm prepared to overlook the chaff because the grain is so helpful.  I may even read it a second time.

Publishing details: A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle (Michael Joseph Ltd, London, 2005. 313pp.)

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton

In his latest outing, de Botton proves that style and eloquence are not enough.  We also like clarity, conciseness, insight and affability.  All four of the latter are rather lacking in this book.

I really don't need someone to tell me that the world is a complex place, or that having a job is a good way to avoid starvation.  I don't like it when an advantaged person talks disdainfully about someone who does not show outwards signs of pleasure as they mop a floor.

I got to chapter seven, where de Botton took me on a charmless stroll through the countryside of Kent, and there I abandoned him.  Although I enjoyed The Consolations of Philosophy and The Art of Travel, my appreciation of de Botton's efforts have decreased with each subsequent book.  To paraphrase Anthony Burgess: "This is the end of the road for me, Alain, the end of the road!"