A Deeper Beauty

Buddhist Reflections on Everyday Life

Paramananda

Windhorse Publications 2002; £8.99/ $16.95p/b

Following his popular meditation guide Change Your Mind , Paramananda here offers further imaginative and anecdotal reflections for Buddhist practice in the sphere of daily life. He combines soulful sincerity with practical exercises. I enjoyed the emphasis on the suggestive rather than prescriptive mode of teaching, which is backed up with poetry from sources as diverse as Elizabeth Bishop, Miroslav Holub, Ryokan, E.E.Cummings and Rumi.

Each chapter has a rich balance of poetry, traditional and personal anecdote, practical clarification and suggested reflections. I particularly appreciated Paramananda's drawing out of Bishop's poem The Fish, his chapter on 'Romancing Death', and a challenging section on the pervasive delusion of 'the notion of an economically productive life as the rationale for life itself'.

Padmakara