What We’re Reading

Zen Mind Jewish Mind: Koan, Midrash, & the Living Word
by Rabbi Rami Shapiro
Monkfish Book Publishing, 2025, 160 pp., $18.99, paper

This small book packs a big epistemic punch. Rabbi Rami Shapiro connects Zen Buddhism and Jewish mysticism with wit, depth, and an eye toward the esoteric. Using koans, midrash, and personal reflections, he explores universal questions about life, impermanence, and the divine. Weaving Dogen’s teachings with Kabbalistic insights, Shapiro reveals how Zen’s beginner’s mind and Judaism’s questioning mind mirror each other. A refreshing take on spiritual practice, this book is perfect for seekers eager to embrace the paradoxes of faith and self-discovery.

Clearing the Way to Awakening: A Nine-Step Practice from Tibetan Buddhism
by Yudron Wangmo
Arrow of Love, 2024, 322 pp., $14.95, paper

In this practical book, an insightful American Buddhist shares advice on approaching the ngondro, Tibetan Buddhist preliminary practices that include physical prostrations, mantra recitation, mandala offerings, and guru yoga. Drawing from traditional commentaries and her personal experience, Wangmo brings clarity and humor to modern-day practitioners who may be balancing their interest in Tibetan Buddhism with jobs and family life. Clearing the Way to Awakening provides inspiration and valuable step-by-step guidance on seriously engaging ngondro practices.

Breathing Mindfulness: Discovering the Riches at the Heart of the Buddhist Path
by Sarah Shaw
Shambhala Publications, 2025, 360 pp., $24.95, paper

Written by a scholar of early Buddhism, this history of breath meditation has much to offer practitioners. The narrative opens with a walk through the forest, “our planet’s lungs,” and a reminder that breath meditation began in the forest millennia ago. Shaw first takes readers through the Anapanasati Sutta, the “locus classicus” of breath meditation, and then details the later texts, practices, and teachers up through the present day. The focus throughout is on Pali texts and the Theravada tradition.

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Scholar’s Corner

Making a Canon: Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Sri Lanka, and the Place of Buddhist Art
by Janice Leoshko
The University of Chicago Press, 2024, 304 pp., $45.00, hardcover

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877–1947) was more than a scholar—he was a cosmopolitan cultural bridge, a provocateur, and part of Boston and New York’s avant-garde intellectual scene. A mineralogist turned art historian, he promoted South Asian and Buddhist art when the West was just starting to take notice. Janice Leoshko, an associate professor emerita of South Asian art from the University of Texas at Austin, masterfully unveils his complex legacy, from uncovering ruins in Sri Lanka to curating at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Promoting traditional aesthetics with an eclectic intensity, Coomaraswamy was part mystic, part modernist, and always ahead of his time.

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What We’re ReReading

Buddhist Dream Yoga: Dzogchen and the Practice of Natural Light by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu

Originally published in 1992, Buddhist Dream Yoga, by Dzogchen master Chogyal Namkhai Norbu (1938–2018), explores how dreams can become a practical method for cultivating awareness, insight, and lucidity. The current reissue of the 2002 revised edition includes instructions on developing the illusory body, clear light meditation, lucid dreaming, and the transference of consciousness at death, emphasizing how dream practices can deepen our understanding of the mind and the unreality of existence. Norbu offers guidance on integrating these techniques into daily practice through exercises and advice. Buddhist Dream Yoga has established itself as a foundational resource for those interested in dream yoga and its role in the broader Dzogchen tradition.