The author of The Jew in the Lotus seeks to answer the Dalai Lama’s question.

During the historic dialogue between rabbis and the Dalai Lama, as told in his international bestseller The Jew in the Lotus, Rodger Kamenetz heard a penetrating question from His Holiness to the rabbis, “How does your spiritual practice purify afflictive emotions?”

To Kamenetz this seemed the most fundamental question to ask of any religion or philosophy of life. How do your practices help you with negative emotions like anxiety, envy, resentment and shame?

Taking the reader with him on an exhilarating intellectual and emotional journey, he finds a natural spiritual path in the imagination.

Kamenetz connects daily life to spiritual longing, from the musical rhythms of his beloved New Orleans to his tender bond with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, visionary founder of Jewish Renewal and a central figure in the Dharamsala dialogue.

Embedded in a rich poetic narrative. Seeing into the Life of Things offers down to earth practices from “count your blessings,” to savoring perception, from dwelling on powerful memories, to the sacred encounters in dreams. Kamenetz shows how giving birth to our images restores us to an imagination of the sacred.

Rodger Kamenetz is an award-winning poet, author and teacher. His best known book is The Jew in the Lotus. His account of historic dialogue became an international bestseller, prompting a reevaluation of Judaism in the light of Buddhist thought. The New York Timescalled it a “revered text.” A PBS documentary followed, and a sequel, Stalking Elijah, was awarded the National Jewish Book Award. Kamenetz has also authored many books of poetry and has been called “the most formidable of the Jewish-American poets.” And when his book, The History of Last Night’s Dreamappeared in 2007, Oprah Winfrey interviewed him on her “Soul Series” program, saying, “What’s so exciting about this book is that it talks about how there’s a whole other life that we are living when we sleep and that our dreams are there as offerings and gifts to us if we only recognize what the dreams are there to teach us.” He lives in New Orleans, LA.

Merrill Leffler is the author most recently of Mark the Music, a “musicircus” of poetry. He is the publisher and editor of Dryad Press, a literary press . (www.dryadpress.com) With his wife Ann Slayton, he initiated the Spring for Poetry in Takoma Park posters, in which he worked with students at Montgomery College — the posters have been blossoming along Carroll Avenue since 2013. Merrill served as Takoma Park Poet Laureate from 2011to 2018.

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