Melvin McLeod and the editors of the Shambhala Sun have assembled this gladsome anthology of 31 essays by a variety of spiritual authors and teachers. Some are well-known such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Jack Kornfield, Matthieu Ricard, Joanna Macy, and Pico Iyer.
As McLeod points out in the introduction, many of the pieces here are are personal — memoirs of marriage, family, work, activism. The storytelling approach has been given a boost in our times by the popularity of social media. We were taken with Karen Miller's emphasis on everyday spirituality, Rick Bass's thoughts on the Gulf Oil Spill, Brian Haycock's taxi adventures, Susan Moon on aging, and Rodney Smith on the challenges Buddhism faces in recovering the sacred.
