Preface

My first Buddhist teacher was an old woman in a small Himalayan village. She was hunched before her loom, sitting on the ground in front of her mud-brick house. As I walked through the village, I greeted her, then lingered to watch her work.

I had become interested in Buddhism in my teens, decades earlier, but everything I read ever since had only been lodged between my ears in a great intellectual conceit. As I looked at the quiet purposefulness of this woman, I realized that she was fully present in the moment, and that she had something I wanted: peace. With that realization, the teachings of Buddhism made the epic eighteen-inch descent from my head to my heart.

I have had many teachers since then, from all traditions in Buddhism and from none: The earth is my teacher. Music is my teacher. My dog is my teacher. And most recently, illness has been my teacher. It is said that our own suffering in life can lead us to a deep spiritual path and that a near encounter with death can be a powerful turning point. It has been for me.

The world’s major spiritual traditions acknowledge that everyone wants to be happy, yet we seem to be imprisoned by a kind of dis-ease we share as part of the human condition. But we can break those bonds. The Buddha’s Eightfold Path can lead us to freedom and happiness. May we walk it together.

JEAN SMITH
September 2001 Keene, New York