Ji Hyang Padma has trained in and taught Zen Buddhism in Asia and North America for 20 years. Director of Spirituality and Education Programs and Buddhist chaplain at Wellesley College, she also teaches at the Omega and Esalen Institutes. Her writings appear in various spiritual publications.
Padma has structured this paperback around the four seasons and practices for each that bring out the best in us. In "Winter: Finding Light in Darkness," there are exercises on centering, sitting Zen, and feeding your spirit.
In "Spring: New Life Beginning," she shares an exercise on mindfulness of the body and then presents a meditation on empathy, a metta practice, a spring cleaning ritual, and an acknowledgement of the importance of the senses. All of these, according to Padma, are part of "the Lion's Roar" which is "the charge we are given as a way to meet the energies within and the energies of this time."
Summer is a time for "The Blossoming of True Nature." For this season she offers a treasure trove of exercises: walking meditation, play, listening, sky gazing, applied Zen, and seeing ecosystems.
The final section is on Autumn; its theme is "Everything Changes." Padma writes that this season is "the best Zen teacher — its beauty is refined to bare essentials, and its message is to the point: everything changes. We gather the fruits of the harvest with joy and gratitude, and return home with bliss-bestowing hands." The author shares exercises on working with a great question, cleansing the heart-mind, reciprocity and gratitude, presence and attunement.
Padma closes with this celebration of interdependence and togetherness:
"My wish for you is that you live each moment fully, discovering within it the seeds of awakened heart. Then the joy of creation holds us in its embrace. We meet the moment as a friend. Every person we meet is our sister, our brother — the moment itself is our teacher. We rediscover that from the beginning we and the universe are never separate. This practice is simply a way of rediscovering that luminous awareness that we are — a welcoming home. Namaste."
