LONGING FOR CERTAINTY: Reflections on the Buddhist Life

In this deep, shining pool of essays American Buddhist monk Nyanasobhano reflects on familiar Buddhist topics: mindfulness, impermanence, causation and other similar themes. This volume, however, sets itself apart as an unusually practical, philosophical and graceful book, brimming with the stuff of everyday life, and elegantly laced with poetry. Many of its fairly short chapters find their touchstone in nature. "Ice and Hope" is a walking lesson in transitions where "Even the magnificent sky is defaced by faint shreds of cloud. We find, more and more, not perfection but slow upheaval, an ever-aging panorama of transient, crumbling, recombining things." A long, maybe-lost adventure in the woods, "A Pilgrimage in Autumn," teaches the need to keep on walking and working, for wishing will not get us home literally or spiritually. In these penetrating reveries, Nyanasobhano displays an astonishing ability to track and record the nature of his mind, inspiring a standard of mental awareness as well as a renewed perception of the writer's craft. If the book has a flaw, it is the consistent first person plural application that can seem awkward: "Early on a spring morning after a night of thunderstorms we stand in the front hallway of our house and reach for the doorknob." However, in the main, this is a slender volume to be treasured and re-read by Buddhists of all types and stages, as well as non-Buddhists who love nature and are curious about a path that winds toward home. (Feb.)