As you may have guessed from this week’s newsletter, our book club pick for September is Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet. This book is as much a call to action as it is a practical manual for self-care, with anecdotes of peace activism peppered throughout.
If you’re familiar with Thich Nhat Hanh’s work, you’ll know that he has a gift for distilling infinite wisdom and transforming abstract concepts into deceptively simple teachings, and this book is a prime example of that.
“True happiness is grounded in freedom — not the freedom to destroy our own body and mind, nor the freedom to dominate and destroy nature, but the freedom to have time to enjoy life: freedom to have time to love; freedom from hatred, despair, jealousy, and infatuation; freedom from getting so carried away by our work and busy-ness that we no longer have time to enjoy life or take care of each other. Our quality of being depends on this kind of freedom.” — Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet