Lifting As They Climb: Black Women Buddhists & Collective Liberation
by Toni Pressley-Sanon
Shambhala Publications, 2024, 328 pp., $24.95, paper
Weaving together the timelines and testimonials of six Black Buddhist women, this collection, edited by Toni Pressley-Sanon, pays tribute to an essential history relevant to contemporary American Buddhism. This poignant autobiographical text interrogates the isolation shared by Black women Buddhists in predominantly white, affluent Buddhist spaces. Beyond this, Pressley-Sanon spotlights the contributions of Black Buddhists who also embrace African wisdom traditions and ancestry in their work toward collective liberation.
Real-World Enlightenment: Discovering Ordinary Magic in Everyday Life
by Susan Kaiser Greenland
Shambhala Publications, 2024, 240 pp., $18.95, paper
In this book, built on the lofty premise that real-world enlightenment is accessible in the here and now, Susan Kaiser Greenland offers practical advice for dealing with the stresses of work and home. Real-world enlightenment is described as an “experience of love and well-being that reaches far beyond us,” and is also known as awe or wonder. Each chapter is divided into bite-size pieces full of easily digestible nuggets of practices and takeaways to sustain readers throughout their busy day.
Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening
by Henry Shukman
HarperOne, 2024, 352oo., $27.99, hardcover
Poet and Zen teacher Henry Shukman’s new book is “a work of unabashed advocacy” with the immodest goal of teaching readers to love meditation. Based on a 6th-century Chinese document describing the path of meditation as a cart track, the book is presented as a journey punctuated by four inns: mindfulness, support, absorption, and awakening. Ostensibly secular, the book is deeply grounded in dharma and loaded with guided meditations that grow more advanced as the journey progresses.
Scholar’s Corner
Candrakīrti’s Introduction to the Middle Way: A Guide
by Jan Westerhoff
Oxford University Press, 2024, 296 pp., $29.95, paper
Called many names over the centuries, Sri Pada, or the mountain of the Buddha’s footprint, has long been a popular pilgrimage destination for a host of faiths. Stitching together a complex history of beliefs and cultures, McKinley reveals a ritual space with overlapping social, economic, political, and religious interests that must negotiate paths through an ever-changing sacred landscape. By way of stories, poetry, songs, myths, and archival research, we learn about a global history of the human search for meaning and belonging and about a planetary history, where humans are secondary to the mountain’s existence and, inevitably, transitory.
WHAT WE’RE REREADING
An Unentangled Knowing: The Teachings of a Thai Buddhist Lay Woman
by Upasika Kee Nanayon, translated by Thānissaro Bhikkhu
Considered one of the foremost Thai Buddhist teachers of her time, Upasika (Laywoman) Kee (1901–1978), with her aunt and uncle, started a women’s practice center in 1945 with no formal organizational support. Kee displays amastery of the practice that shines through in this collection of dharma talks recorded during her long teaching career. Upasika Kee made the teachings her own and taught the dharma in a grounded and relatable way. With an introduction that explores the social challenges faced by female lay monastics, this short book (available for free download) offers a brief biography of Upasika Kee and will interest those seeking practical advice on Buddhist practice.
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