This is not your usual plant trees-don’t-eat-meat-manual to stopping the ravages of climate change. While many environmental activists and leaders—including the U.N.’s Christiana Figueres, a major architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement—have made Buddhist practices instrumental to their work, the book’s eponymous link is drawn mainly indirectly. But it is everywhere in this eloquent, reassuring meditation on awakening and compassion, and it is crucial. Crucial not just to “saving the planet” from fires and floods, but to lifting humankind from the divisiveness and exploitation that have mired us in the dire conditions we face. Everywhere demonstrating the peace, calm, and joy promised to us on (and as creatures of ) the path of mindfulness, this esteemed master shows us how concentrating on the breath and putting aside the self fosters awareness, keeps us open, and lets us realize the connections between ourselves, others, and nature. With the communities built on this insight, we can see that we are all parts of one whole, and that only together do we have the necessary strength and energy to create lasting, meaningful change.
