Final comment

I've been reading Living As A River for a while, and I finish it on New Year's Day. I started it on a camping trip, I've read it on retreat, and through various times in my life. It's a deep and relentless book that pounds away at important Buddha-Dharma points.

I find it refreshing that elements of parenting were seen as a spiritual opportunity and not just a hindrance to the spiritual life. Perhaps we are truly building a "neither monastic nor lay" movement.

As he writes about developing a vision as one of the ways we develop spiritually, I suddenly had the feeling that I needed to do a puja. For me the TBC Sevenfold Puja is my mission statement (Which can be found on this page). It's derived from Santideva's Bodhicaryavatāra, a great Mahayana text.

So I vote for this book as the best book of 2010, as 2011 starts and I have a renewed sense of purpose, as I reflect on my life on New Year's Day. May you all be happy, may you all be well.