The Best Buddhist Writing 2005

My introduction to Buddhist thought was quick and decisive, like plunging into water you know will be shocking at first but oh so refreshing. Sometime during the early 90’s, I came across a radio station broadcasting Alan Watts’ recorded lectures on Buddhism. Somehow this long dead Anglican priest made accessible and attractive ideas that I had previously not given much thought to. I began devouring Watts’ writings - The Way of Zen, Become What You Are, This is It and I soon learned that I needed to read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, another teacher who had endeavored to make Buddhism accessible to the Western mind who said "the secret is just to say 'Yes!' and jump off from here. Then there is no problem. It means to be yourself, always yourself, without sticking to an old self." And so it went.

In his preface to The Best Buddhist Writing 2005, Melvin McLeod calls our time "pioneering days" for Buddhism in America, though Buddhism was introduced to this country over a century ago. Since the mid-twentieth century, the transmission of Buddhist thought from East to West has progressed at an exponential rate because of Westerners like Watts and Eastern transplants like Suzuki, and today there is no shortage of practitioners in this country able to speak to the nature of Buddhist practice. Furthermore, as McLeod notes, "Less and less are they relying on what they’ve been told by others. More and more, they are speaking from a real understanding of their own."

The Best Buddhist Writing 2005 is a Shambhala Publications title, and many of the pieces herein first appeared The Shambhala Sun magazine. Others were culled from magazines such as Tricycle, Turning Wheel, and Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly. Still others were excerpted from books. The collection is eclectic, sampling as it does authors ranging from the Dalai Lama to Scott Darnell, an inmate at Illinois’ Menard Correctional Center.

As you might expect, more traditional pieces on Buddhist teachings come from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, and Thich Nhat Hanh, who delivers an interesting and practical piece on "Touching the Earth." The pieces I am most drawn to, however, are more personal.

In "The Anthropology of Myself," Faith Adeiele humorously recounts having backed into the rigorously ascetic practice of a Thai Buddhist Nun. An unlikely candidate for this tradition, she quips, "Friends, too, are surprised to learn the details. It’s no secret Faith lacks discipline. She can’t even make it to the gym – forget about enlightenment!"

Conversely, Michael Carroll willingly parted from his worldly possessions to attend a Buddhist seminary led by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. At the end of this experience, he sought an audience with the master, wishing to disclose his intentions to devote his life to spiritual practice and ask guidance in doing so. He was alarmed at Rinpoche’s reply: "Go home and get a job." This proved sage advice, leading as it did to Carroll’s ultimate career in mindfulness consulting for the workplace, the basis of "Waking up at Work," excerpted here from Carroll’s 2004 book, Awake at Work.

Natalie Goldberg’s stirring lament on her departed spiritual teacher, Rick Bass’s meditation on mindful parenting, and Scott Darnell’s moving memoir of how Buddhism gave him a second chance at life while serving a life sentence exemplify the subject matter variety of this the annual anthology's second volume. Focused though it is on the key Buddhist tenets of compassion and wisdom, The Best Buddhist Writing 2005 has something to offer most of us with any sort of spiritual proclivity.