Book Review
No Mud No Lotus (by Thich Nhat Hanh)
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- Hanh’s ideas are generally on the mark, and I don’t have too much to say about them. Meditation is a powerful tool and ever since I began employing it in my daily lifestyle several years ago, I’ve noticed a significant improvement in my mental health. The value of the practice is immediately obvious to me when I stop meditating or skip even a daily session: I am left addle-brained and unfocused, and my heart begins racing.
- Some kinds of suffering should be avoided at all costs though. For instance, Hanh’s ideas don’t apply to victims of the Holocaust, or those in a house in flames, or those suffering from cancer. One cannot meditate one’s way out of these tragedies. But Hanh’s ideas do apply to a more qualified kind of “first-world” suffering — a discontentment, really, that has gripped the masses. Meditation appears to be a way of finding solace for these victims.