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Beach Reading
I love summer, I really do. With its bright, long days and welcoming
weather, my world opens up to endless possibilities. The extended
daylight hours allow more time for activities and get-togethers.
Weekends become packed with barbecues, road trips, and outdoor
adventures. However, around the middle of the season, my tank becomes
empty, and I find myself losing steam trying to pack it all in.
To prioritize rest in these wonderfully busy months, I always set a
lofty reading goal. When the nice weather hits, I tend to shy away from
more dense, academic material and gravitate towards the light,
inspiring, and heartfelt. I want to read short, devourable stories — as
many as possible. “Beach reads,” if you will.
Reading fiction, no matter the genre, can be a lesson in deep
compassion. While these stories may be products of imagination, their
characters and the narratives they live out can hold invaluable
teachings that exemplify the principles we aspire to nurture in Buddhist
practice. The three pieces below highlight the value in fiction and the
impact it can have on our spiritual journey.
May they inspire you to embrace the joy of reading this summer, and do some beachside contemplation of your own.
—Martine Panzica, Assistant Digital Editor, Lion’s Roar
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Novels,
fables, and plays — they’re stories that are made up, yet they often
express deep truths. Five writers and thinkers explore the spiritual
teachings they’ve found in fiction.
“Our existence, we learn, is suffused with dukkha; every second
is touched by its turmoil. It can be subtle, or it can be extreme. But
being aware of this is a momentous beginning. A flower finally noticed. I
find the dharma most present in the last line of the novel. Mrs.
Dalloway steps into the middle of her party, her thoughts silenced for
just a moment: ‘There she was.’ I see a woman at peace. Awakened to her
life.”
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Pico Iyer loves reading spiritual books, but he’s found just as much good dharma in the books of three favorite novelists.
Why, my friends sometimes ask me, do I say that the Buddhist texts I
turn to, repeatedly, are Peter Matthiessen’s Snow Leopard, the pages of
Proust and, more and more, George Saunders’ novel Lincoln in the Bardo?
It’s not just because literature is my drug of choice, and I don’t know
my way round any other discipline. It’s not just because all of them are
written in a language I understand and with a frame of reference that I
know. In Proust’s case, they’re clearly not. And it’s not because they
offer resolutions, consolations, or explanations, because all of them
are saying at heart that all’s not right with the world, and we can’t
expect it to be.
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When bestselling author Ruth Ozeki becomes a Zen priest, she finds out Zen and novel writing do not easily go hand in hand.
“I was a writer because I wrote. Some people have fond childhood
memories of birthday parties and ski trips. My fondest memory is of
choosing my first fountain pen. I was the only child of elderly
scholar-parents, so writing was my refuge. The pleasures I took in words
and stories—sensual and solitary, contemplative and creative—were
urgent and undeniable.
In elementary school, I wrote short stories and dreamed of the novels I
would write one day. They would be long, muscular books about life—my
life, real life, filled with passion, grit, and incident—writing that
would make me me. I still have a battered canvas three-ring binder
filled with pages of practice autographs, a testament to my belief that
by signing my name, I could somehow inscribe myself into being.”
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