Books

Review: Fear: Essential Wisdom

7 September 2015

By Lauren E. White

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh provides just what it says on the tin: essential wisdom in Fear.

As a Buddhist monk, Hanh shares meditation techniques that are simple to both understand and to practice yourself. Many of them are step-by-step meditations that include mantras – words and phrases to be repeated over and over again to yourself.

Despite mantras and meditation, there is one main message of Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm. It is a message of ‘letting go’. Hanh teaches us to let go of our past and our pain today in order to create a better tomorrow for ourselves and those around us. We must learn to accept our pain and suffering, but let it go soon after so we can continue to grow and evolve as individuals.

Whether you’re Buddhist, Christian, Muslim or an atheist, Hanh’s book caters for your beliefs. It is not all based on what the Buddha teaches. It discusses God and what religions like Christianity can learn from that figure. However, if you are of no religion, that’s fine too. Hanh’s meditation techniques can still be used, as well as his prose on forgiveness.

Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm is a universal tool for understanding others, yourself and the world around you. It is also an extremely handy go-to guide of meditation and mantra meditiation. Hanh has the ability to write such a book with warmth, tolerance and an understanding ability we can all learn from.

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