cover image Not Quite Nirvana: A Skeptic’s Journey to Mindfulness

Not Quite Nirvana: A Skeptic’s Journey to Mindfulness

Rachel Neumann. Parallax, $14.95 trade paper (182p) ISBN 978-1-937006-35-8

Neumann, longtime editor of Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, comes out from behind the editing curtain to show how mindfulness can be caught perhaps more effectively than it can be taught. Her presentation of her reluctant journey is both convincing and charming. A New York editor and writer who likes to walk fast gets a job as editor to the Zen master, giving her a chance to return to the California of her youth. Slowing down in the world of Buddhist meditation practice is not optional. It happens, Neumann discovers, with habit, intention, and age, factors the Buddha himself reckoned with. Thematically grouped essays gather steam and coherence as the reader comes to know more about the author and her family. Neumann writes about her two children with a loving eye for detail. Many Buddhist books about seeking enlightenment are theoretical despite their best intentions. Neumann has written the real deal, in which the enlightenment seeker’s life involves hollering at rude drivers and agonizing over what to do when you forget your plastic bags at the grocery store. (Oct.)