Pavement

In the fall of 2004, Chico writer and Zen teacher Lin Jensen, burdened by the deaths in Iraq, began sitting daily peace vigils on downtown street corners. He plopped his cushion and pad on the pavement and just sat there, his legs crossed, in meditation for an hour. In this insightful little book, he calls it “doing ‘nothing’ for peace” and “giving bodily witness to the practice of nonviolence.” It was more than that, though. Street corners are busy places, and just sitting for peace turned out to elicit a wide range of responses from passersby. It also forced Jensen into an ongoing process of reckoning about the effectiveness of his vigils. The best parts of the book are the encounters with what Jensen calls his “sidewalk Dharma teachers,” like the homeless man who, saying, “If you’re hungry you can have this,” offered him a piece of stale bread. Or the career Army sergeant who insisted vehemently, “You don’t know me! … Friends of mine have died for your rights!” Jensen lets them all in, his compassion leading him to listen and try to understand. Bookstore shelves are full of books on Buddhism, many of them almost indistinguishable from one another. This one is utterly unique—and beautifully written, to boot.