You may be familiar with his first book "Be Here Now" considered a seminal work of the hippie/eastern spiritualism movement in the US. Personally, that book doesn't do much for me. This follow up however, is sublime. Ram Dass made a career out of communicating and teaching and this book depicts his life post-stroke which left him unable to speak. As this was quite a stark transition from his previous path and abilities the book is a great insight into the way aging/illness changes us. It's about life and change and death and I can't recommend it enough.
Thich Nhat Hanh is one of my favorite teachers and this is the book that introduced me to his teachings. Thay teaches that freedom comes from living your life in this moment, right now, with awareness. Not multi-tasking. Not thinking about what might have been different, or what you plan to do in the future. Just being here, right now, in your body. “Maybe we too are living like dead people. We move about life in our own corpse because we are not touching life in depth. We live a kind of artificial life, with lots of plans, lots of worries and anger. Never are we able to establish ourselves in the here and now and live our lives deeply. We have to wake up! We have to make it possible for the moment of awareness to manifest. This is the practice that will save us—this is the revolution.“
