I do not recommend books — at least not often. That might mostly be because there is too much time spent working to manage a little Zen community in the digital age, and saving energy and clarity for daily meditation. Perhaps I don’t read books for the same reason I don’t listen to music or spend time watching movies or TV shows: too much remains that is just “dusty”.

But in the days since founding this Zen Center, these two books have have indescribable impact. It might be for the reasons that Ralph Waldo Emerson described in “Self-Reliance”: “In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts. They come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.” Everything read in these two books seemed to summon forth from deepest shadows things already sensed, barely grasped already, or just on the fingertips of intuition.

For what it’s worth.

David Benatar (born 1966) is a South African philosopher, academic and author. He is best known for his advocacy of antinatalism in his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, in which he argues that coming into existence is a serious harm, regardless of the feelings of the existing being once brought into existence, and that, as a consequence, it is always morally wrong to create more sentient beings. (Wikipedia)

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