BOOK EXTRACT: Peace In Every Step

Published: 15 March 2023

Our team select various books that feature in our libraries at Sharpham House, The Barn and The Coach House.

Lots of the books are for sale in our real bookshops in each library and via our online Bookshop too. Your purchases go towards supporting The Sharpham Trust charity.

Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Thich Nhat Hanh

Hope is important, because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. But that is the most that hope can do for us - to make some hardship lighter.

When I think deeply about the nature of hope, I see something tragic. Since we cling to our h

ope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment. We use hope to believe something better will happen in the future, that we will arrive at peace, or the Kingdom of God. Hope becomes a kind of obstacle.

If you can refrain from hoping, you can bring yourself entirely into the present moment and discover the joy that is already there.