I really love Charlotte Joko Beck’s writing. What attracted me to Buddhism in the first place was the pragmatic philosophy and positive psychology that under pin it – and this is very much what Everyday Zen focuses on.
Too often this very applicable knowledge gets buried under metaphysical speculation, or religious dogma. Even though Buddhism isn’t theistic it has been turned into religion over the centuries by various groups with very different perspectives.
Seeing past this to the underlying principles, and the truths that they help reveal, is far from straightforward. When you add in the cultural conditioning that we overlay on top of these universal truths then the scale of the challenge emerges.
But this is what this book is so good at explaining and describing. It’s one of my favourites and highly recommended.
The Obvious? 