What We’re Reading

On Breathing: Care in a Time of Catastrophe
by Jamieson Webster
Catapult, 2025, 272 pp., $27.00, hardcover

In this captivating new book, psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster says the Western world has forgotten how to breathe. Webster outlines the intellectual history of breathing through psychoanalysts and spiritual teachers such as Freud, Lacan, the Buddha, and Gurdjieff, and through works ranging from Goodnight Moon to Waiting for Godot. She also recounts the poignancy of her infant daughter’s first breaths during the Covid pandemic, when “our breath became harmful to the other.” Breathing, Webster writes, “always intertwines self, body, and world.”

Beyond Desire & Passion: The Buddha’s Training for Freedom
by Thānissaro Bhikkhu
Metta Forest Monastery, 2025, 399 pp., free download

With his characteristic precision and wit, Thānissaro Bhikkhu challenges popular notions that Buddhist practice means accepting the way things are or returning to an imagined original nature. “There’s no good reason to want to go back there,” he writes, “and we won’t be able to go back there anyhow.” Thānissaro argues that liberation lies not in recovery or reversion but in abandoning desire and passion—a sharp and comprehensive corrective for those seeking clarity on what Buddhism teaches about desire.

In This Body, In This Lifetime: Awakening Stories of Japanese Soto Zen Women
by Sozen Nagasawa Ni-Roshi
Shambhala Publications, 2025, 232 pp., $24.95, paper

The only independently teaching female Zen teacher of her time, Sozen Nagasawa Ni-Roshi (1888–1971) was a formidable figure in shaping Japanese Buddhism and advocating for equal rights for nuns and laywomen. She trained generations of students with fierce compassion and relentless intensity. Whenever students had a kensho experience, she encouraged them to write down their story to empower others and to demonstrate women’s capacity for awakening. This collection gathers thirty of these stories, presented in English for the first time.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

Scholar’s Corner

Minding the Buddha’s Business: Essays in Honor of Gregory Schopen
edited by Daniel Boucher and Shayne Clarke
Wisdom Publications, 2025, 536 pp., $69.95, paper

This Festschrift honors Gregory Schopen, a towering figure in Buddhist studies whose work continues to reshape the field. Known for warning his students to “be very careful what you read, because you never know where it’s going to lead you,” Schopen consistently challenges assumptions about monastic life, Buddhist practice, and textual authority with a provocative style and rigorous use of epigraphic and material evidence. His insistence on reading Buddhist texts in historical and institutional context helped reorient the field toward lived religion and away from idealized representations. Minding the Buddha’s Business gathers contributions from leading scholars to celebrate Schopen’s lasting influence.

What We’re ReReading 

Thoughts on the Dhamma
By Mahasi Sayadaw

Mahasi Sayadaw (1904–1982), one of the most influential Theravada meditation teachers of the 20th century, helped shape the global vipassana movement through his practical approach to mindfulness. Thoughts on the Dhamma, first published in 1983, gathers discourses on ethics, concentration, and insight, offering precise and sensible guidance. Mahasi repeatedly emphasizes firsthand experience over speculation, urging readers to see the dhamma unfolding in their everyday lives: “Try to know things for yourself by actual observation of things as they happen.” Grounded in the four noble truths and the eightfold path, this collection remains a lucid guide for meditators. Numerous free versions of this timeless classic are available online.