Rating:
4 Stars
In a nutshell:
Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh shares insights from his spiritual practice that can help readers.
Best for:
Anyone interested in Buddhism but still sort of just dipping their toe in. Anyone open to some positive life advice.
Quote that made me think:
I underlined like 20% of this book but here are a couple:
“Time is more precious than money. Time is life.”
“My actions are my only true belongings.”
Why I chose it:
I’ve read a few of his books and I always enjoy them and find things that ring true.
Review:
In my free time I am a football (soccer) referee. For us lower-level refs, they offer termly training days, where they show us clips of incidents and talk through positioning, calls, etc. They always cover a lot of topics but always end by reminding us to not try to implement everything we learned at our next match – pick something to focus on, and when I feel comfortable with that, pick the next thing.
This book feels like that. There’s a ton of good information in here, but if I tried to just start implementing it all tomorrow, I’d fail and likely give up. So instead, my plan is to go back through it and note down all the life advice that resonated with me, and then pick one thing to focus on for the rest of the year, and then ideally something additional each month.
The overall focus of the book is on how to be happy. Some suggestions seem challenging to me as I am now, but others are very much in the ‘ugh, duh, yes, that makes sense and I should be doing that.’ And in every chapter I am reminded to pick up my meditation and mindfulness practices, because they are so helpful. And there are some recommended meditations in here that could be useful for new practitioners.
Would I recommend it to its target audience:
Yes
