This beautiful glimpse into the mind of a modern Zen priest shows us how we can cultivate and experience peace through silence, stillness, and practice.
“A balm for our troubled hearts and minds . . . soulful, warm, and welcoming, and—at times—heartbreaking.” —Lion's Roar
While there is suffering in the world and in each of us, there is also the possibility and the experience of peace. As Zenju Earthlyn Manuel—a Zen priest and disciple of Thich Nhat Hanh who has written at length on race, gender, sexual orientation, and homelessness—writes in the introduction: “I have testified many times of my suffering. Before I die, I must speak of peace.”
The Deepest Peace is a poetic, lyrical ode to the ways contemplative practice illuminates daily life. It is at once a window into Zenju’s personal practice and an invitation to begin our own.
"A balm for our troubled hearts and minds... Manuel's voice is soulful, warm, and welcoming, and—at times—heartbreaking; it's a music we can hear in our bones."
—Lion's Roar
"Reading this book is a profound meditation in itself. Exquisitely crafted and perfectly paced—you will feel your whole being calming down, responding with layered grace to the rich gifts offered here."
—Naomi Shihab Nye, Young People's Poet Laureate
"Solitude, silence, the warmth and chill of the earth, the ancientness of time held in the arms of the ancestors ... such is the atmosphere of Zenju Earthlyn Manuel’s new book. Neither memoir, nor dharma teachings, nor poetry, but a lyric mixture of all of these and more, Zenju’s soothing words will bring you to tears. How much have we suffered together. How perfect it all is when we are willing to hold it in the deepest parts of our heart."
—Norman Fischer, author of The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path
"Zenju Earthlyn Manuel’s words are both an offering and a meditation—we breathe them in, we breathe them out; our hearts break open, we are at peace.”
—Tracy Franz, author of My Year of Dirt and Water: Journal of a Zen Monk’s Wife in Japan
"A most beautiful book, a profound and loving contemplation of what may be found at the source of all things, if only we will allow the world to speak as it truly is."
—Peter Levitt, author of Fingerpainting on the Moon
"Every sentence is a gem."
—Kazuaki Tanahashi, author of The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan
"Soulful, precious, and timeless."
—Ruth King, Mindful of Race
