Beyond Tranquility : Buddhist Meditations in Essay and Verse

One of Buddhism’s most respected authors inspires readers with a creative and intriguing journey into the heart of Buddhist meditation practice.

“Dharma can be lightened and sweetened till it goes down like elevator music. It can thrash and wail like punk. Here, it’s like Bach — not whispering, not shouting, but unfolding from within itself, with the steady, implacable rhythms of elemental truth in the act of discovering itself. Genoud drills deep. This is not a solemn book but it’s a serious one. You can’t whip through it like a spiritual beach novel. Read each paragraph or stanza slowly and contemplatively (and, when necessary, repeatedly). Most of all, bring its insights into your practice and your life.” — Dean Sluyter, author of Fear Less and Natural Meditation

In Beyond Tranquility, one of Buddhism’s most respected scholar-sages distills decades of practice, reflection, and teaching into essential truths. Touching on the full scope of core Buddhist philosophical and meditation traditions, Genoud draws on ancient Buddhist sutras, masters like Nagarjuna and Dogen, seers like Eckhart and Buber, philosophers like Nietzsche and Sartre, and even the great innovators of the modern novel and modern dance. Weaving together the wisdom of these great minds, and in a poetic style uniquely his own, Genoud invites the reader into the heart of Buddhist meditation and practice. Here, with the immediacy and wry humor of haiku, he proves an astute and subtle guide to the pitfalls and paradoxes that eventually confront every meditator, and to the most skillful ways through them.

Genoud’s powerful, experiential language transmits the meditative experience rather than merely describing it—and his style will resonate with the teachings of Zen and Dzogchen, the writings of contemplative philosophers, and with dancers and other artists whose work is built upon a “body of presence.”