This review was written as my final paper for my certification in Brenda Feuerstein’s 52-week Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training. We were to pick one book from the course’s extensive reading lists write a review. Thich Nhat Hanh is one of my favorite teachers, and many of his books line my shelves. I post this paper as a review on my website so others may learn about this wonderful book – one that I had never heard of before…
It was an interesting experience in selecting a book for this review. Every book I read left me wanting something more. But if you asked me what it was, I would not have been able to verbalize it. They just left me wanting. I was so excited about the Buddha’s Brain until I read it.
There was nothing wrong with it – it was me. Every book on the list was excellent, and I learned from each of them. They just didn’t fill me up. I guess I was looking for an answer and didn’t find it…
Until I read the last 2 books. Only then did I feel I had something to say for this final paper.
Whether this is true or not, I felt most of the books steered away from the topic of spirit. We seem to be afraid to talk about spirituality. But we are not just physical beings but “souls within a physical presence”. Like medicine, I feel we can’t talk about mindfulness and meditation without discussing Spirit. Without that discussion, we are not looking at the person and their issues (anxiety depression, etc.) holistically.
I felt Thich Nhat Hahn and Tara Brach gracefully handle this awkward conversation without alienating people. Which is one of the reasons these two books spoke to me, and so I picked The Miracle of Mindfulness.
Reading Between the Lines
I view books as an experience. I read them to learn, but it’s between the lines that my true experience in reading lies. When I read a book, it’s for the connections and insights that pop into my mind not just the words on the page.
This is one book where those thoughts and learnings can be found between the lines as well as on them. It reminds me of another favorite book Letters to a Poet. Like this other book, the writer does not tell us facts or opinions but instead shows us what we need to know.
The Letter that Became so much More
“slowly and steadily to maintain mindfulness”
While this book enticed me about ways to incorporate mindfulness into every day, what intrigued me more was how the writing and translation occurred.
It started its life as a letter from Thich Nhat Han to one of his senior students. Written at the end of the Vietnamese war, Thich wanted to remind his students to follow one’s breath to nurture their work, even amid the most challenging circumstances.
Because this book was written as a letter, I find it more personal and direct. Its examples refer to particular events that were happening at that time, yet its messages are timeless and still relevant. It was all about engaged Buddhism and acting in the spirit of awareness and reconciliation to help avert the armed conflict.
Thich chooses to translate the letter when a young Buddhist monk in Thailand requested more information about Engaged Buddhism. Thich felt the original message could benefit others, so an American volunteer, Moby, takes on the job. Thich specifically asked that the translation be done slowly and steadily to maintain mindfulness. In that vein, Moby only translated two pages per day, and then in the evenings, Thich and the translator read those pages: changing and correcting words and sentences as needed.
The process was not about a deadline – it was about mindfulness and quality. Moby notes in the book that as he worked through the translation with his breath, he began to see that the words held the same personal and lovely directness for any time because they had been written initially mindfully and lovingly.
The True Enemy
“true enemies were not people, but ideology, hatred, and ignorance”
Thich founded the School of Youth for Social Service in South Vietnam in 1974. as an outgrowth of “engaged Buddhism.”
The students used their training from this school to assist peasants caught in the turmoil of the war: rebuilding villages, teaching children, assisting with medical care.
As discussed in the book, their methods were often misunderstood, even by the people who they wished to help. Refusing to support either armed party, they believed that both sides were a reflection of the same. This stance threatened those engaged in the conflict, a series of attacks were carried out against the students and the school.
Washing the Dishes to Wash the Dishes
“If we’re washing the dishes and we only think about the cup of tea that we get at the end of the chore, then we’re just hurrying to get the task done as if it were a nuisance.”
This mindset of “nuisance” is an excellent component that helped me understand mindfulness in everyday situations.
The story revolves around the novices washing dishes during a large meeting at the monastery. Thich explains this story to his good friend, explaining how he was taught to wash the dishes. It was a real chore to clean high stacks of bowls as there was no soap, only ashes, rice husks, and coconut husks. and that was all.
How many times do we think about the nuisance jobs we need to do: taking out the garbage, sweeping the floor? The tasks that need our attention, but may not fill us with joy. Yet it’s our view of that task that determines the “joy level,” not that actual task.
I do not like washing the dishes, which may be why I related to this section of the book. I dream about a home with a mini-dishwasher. Yet, my circumstances are so much easier and simplifier than the Novices’ task discussed in this book.
Rather than lamenting about the lack of a dishwasher, I set myself a goal: to change my view of this task and increase the “joy level.” So I pondered how I can bring my love of the water into my dreary dishwashing task. Since I love warm baths, with the subtle scent of lavender bath salts, I decided to bring this experience into the kitchen. I purchased Mrs. Meyers Clean Day Lavender Dish Soap: a beautiful scent and fun, cleansing bubbles, and turned it into a fun experience.
Now I find that I really wash the dishes, focusing on each cup, bowl, and pot. Given all that we have in our lives today, it seems silly to whine about easy tasks. But to indeed wash the dishes, I needed to bring a level of comfort – or joy to the experience.
It makes me wonder if perhaps sometimes we need to move around our physical situation to kick start that mindful experience. To change the habit, habits that have been with us for many moons may require more than the mind.
This “nuisance” mindset affects the results, both in the quality of the work and our lives. As Thich mentions, “We are not alive during that time” It seems like a simple concept, but in reality, very few of us can do this well. I could think of numerous other situations where I do the task while not doing the job. In my case, as with most nuisance tasks, the final result lacks quality: greasy dishes.
In the Real World
Shortly after reading the dishes story, I found myself in the stylist’s chair. It was my first meeting with this stylist. She, of course, asked what I did, and I said I teach meditation. Her initial reaction was, “I would love to learn how to meditate I just don’t have time to fit it in.” I didn’t say anything to her, but I thought of how her work is a fantastic example of graceful meditation. As she coloured my hair, she took each small portion of hair through her hands, confirming that it was coloured appropriately. After colouring my hair, she took on the task of mastering my crazy curls with a comb and sharp scissors. She swept the hair through her fingers, so approximately an inch was left and then carefully cut, creating layers within the curls.
I wondered was she not engaged in mindfulness. Was she “washing the hair to wash the hair,” or was her mind wandering to other tasks in the studio? I like to think she was meditating. How else could she gracefully cut and colour my hair?
It is our mindfulness within our daily life that creates meaning in our lives. I see so many people in the corporate world who just walk through their day. Not really caring, thinking that they have no choice. If we just added grace to only a few of our tasks, I believe we would quickly see a change.
For the Sake of a Deadline
In our daily lives, we put our meditation practice to the side for the sake of speed – of a deadline. How does this affect the quality not only of our lives but of our work – of that final product?
My gut instinct believes we can improve the quality of our work by 50% by putting mindfulness ahead of a deadline, as Moby and Thich did with the translation of this book.
Instead, we use willpower and force to concentrate on getting the work done. Quality takes a backseat to time.
Perhaps a better way is to use the breath. This gentle force gives us the power to focus and concentrate in a way that doesn’t deplete our energy resources. It builds us up rather than taking energy away.
Have you ever noticed in the corporate world how we’re just exhausted at the end of the day? This exhaustion relates to using willpower to focus our minds – a much less efficient way. Using the breath as a source of our energy, our focus, and concentration change, making tasks easier. Our breath leaves us more energized after completing our tasks and workday.
Eating a Tangerine
It was as if he hadn’t been eating the tangerine at all. If he had been eating anything, he was “eating” his future plans.
I love the simplicity within the stories. Thich has an amazing ability to instill a deep lesson within a simple story. Using such common, everyday tasks make his stories relatable and so easy to understand. Moreover, the tangerine example shows us a compelling example of how mindlessness affects our lives. He uses everyday items and practical sense to illuminate life patterns that many of us have – yet rarely think about.
This story relates to a friend during a road-trip in the US. His friend talked about what they would be doing in the future. Dreaming about inspiring projects, and future opportunities. His friend Jim became so immersed in the discussion and dreaming that he literally forgot about what he was doing in the present moment. He would pop a section of tangerine in his mouth before he had begun chewing the last section.
We all like to dream, to plan. Yet through this story, I learn there is a time and place for that. How easily it can occur that we wander away from the task at hand, oblivious to what is happening.
Walk on the Earth
“The real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on the earth”
His stories are full of depth. When I initially read this passage, I read it as techniques for walking meditation. And while it is about that, it is also about walking on the Earth – the glorious miracle of life. We get so involved in the day-to-day, that we forget to see the world and the fact that we are in this world. We forget that we were born in a wonderful country, we forget all our extraordinary good fortunes – and each of us has many. We just look at being stuck in traffic, and we make that our focus. We let the little things get to us, and forget about the amazing big things that have enveloped us.
When we think about miracles, we focus on the big things, but it’s the small joys that make our lives so rich.
“If you practice mindfulness you will experience that path, the path leading into the village. You practice by keeping this one thought alive: “I’m walking along the path leading into the village.” Whether it’s sunny or rainy, whether the path is dry or wet, you keep that one thought, but not just repeating it like a machine, over and over again. Machine thinking is the opposite of mindfulness. If we’re really engaged in mindfulness while walking along the path to the village, then we will consider the act of each step we take as an infinite wonder, and joy will open our hearts”
Final Thoughts
The book is full of relevant actions. While it showed me how to live a more fulfilled life, it almost taught me how to be a better teacher. To show rather than tell is one of the gifts of this book. For example, rather than telling my clients to count their breath, ask them to focus attention on the exhalation and notice its length. Measure it slowly by counting in your mind one to three. After several times you will know what the duration of your breath is. I think this is an excellent technique to teach beginners how first to follow their breath when doing meditation. It shows them how to listen to their bodies, rather than me trying to explain the notion to them. One of the many lessons this great teacher taught this beginner.
