Allan Lokos is the founder and guiding teacher of the Community Meditation Center in New York City and a Living Spiritual Teacher on this website. His teachers have included Thich Nhat Hanh, Sharon Salzberg, and Stephen Batchelor.

Lokos identifies the two great wings of Buddhist teaching as wisdom and compassion. To practice the latter, we must begin with ourselves. "Compassion," he writes, "is a state of mind that is open and inclusive. It allows us to meet our suffering more directly. We see that we are not alone; everyone goes through difficult, unbearable times. That oneness is the ground of compassion. It is our common humanity."

The author was forced to practice self-compassion by circumstances beyond his control when he and his wife Susanna Weiss were on their way to visit a small village in Myanmar and their plane crashed. After pushing her through the emergency exit, which was engulfed in flames, he discovered his foot was caught. By the time he had freed it and jumped off the plane, he had severe burns over 33% of his body. Although she suffered from broken ribs and a back injury, Susanna was able to get the help they needed to move him to a hospital in Bangkok, then a burn unit in Singapore, and finally to New York City.

Lokos has divided this memoir into three parts: a horrific account of the crash; an account of his long and daunting rehabilitation with many skin grafts and excruciating pain; and an examination of the practices that can "move us from disaster, physical pain, and emotional turmoil, to a life of love, joy, and fulfillment."

Some of the practices which served him well during his recuperation process are meditation, mindfulness, generosity, lovingkindness, gratitude, humor, equanimity, courage, and wisdom. In describing how he applied them, Lokos delves deeply into the value of spiritual practice in times of pain and suffering.

This is an inspiring book that is also filled with practical advice regarding both self-care and caregiving. After his ordeal, Lokos admits to agreeing with the mystery writer Agatha Christie who once confessed, "I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable … but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."