I cannot help thinking that one of the most important books of recent years is one so modest in size and quiet in tone that many of you may have missed it. It’s from Parallax Books and is called The World We Have by Thich Nhat Hanh, with a stunning introduction by my dear friend and mentor Alan Weisman.
The greatest Buddhist teacher of our era has this to say: “…we recognize exactly what to consume and what not to consume in order to keep our bodies, our minds, and the Earth healthy and not cause suffering for ourselves and for others. Mindful consumption is the way to heal ourselves and to heal the world. As a spiritual family and as the human family, we can all help avert global warming….”
In an era when three of the proposed U.S. Cabinet members think that consuming more big oil is what the world really needs, Nhat Hanh’s elegant but doable solutions to our ecological & spiritual crises are not well worth reading but worth practicing on a daily basis. No wonder that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (shortly before he was assassinated) nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. What a lovely pairing…
Brother Coyote, OEF
