Spiritual roundup

Of all the spiritual practices, the one that might prove hardest — to figure out how and where to start — is the simple act of putting words to prayerful petition. Julia Cameron — artist, director, poet, playwright and author of some 40 books — pens here 125 short prayers, all places to begin, and begin richly. In her introduction, Cameron writes: “I have called this little book Life Lessons because each entry is a corrective to our commonly held ideas about the divine. Like the postures assumed in hatha yoga, they stretch us gently. As we assume the positions indicated, each entry becomes a lesson. We learn more of God — and of ourselves.”

These prayers, she says, “are not a one-way street”; they work both ways — words for us to reach toward God, and at the same time words from God toward us. Each one can be read as God speaking, or as any one of us speaking to the divine. Here’s one: “Whisper my name and I will respond. Listen for me and you will hear the still, small voice. Let us start.”

Cameron’s words will burrow deep inside. In time, you might find a daily practice launched. Certainly, these “little prayers” will guide you toward scripting your own homespun prayerfulness. And that’s a mighty big mission for a little book of soulfulness.

Thich Nhat Hanh, one of the great living spiritual masters, the Zen Buddhist monk once called “an apostle of peace and nonviolence” by Martin Luther King Jr., has been teaching the ways of mindfulness for decades.

But since suffering a massive stroke in 2014, he’s been unable to speak. “The Art of Living” is all the more priceless as it binds his last dharma talks before the stroke.

Hanh, now 90 and living at Plum Village, the Buddhist community he founded near Bordeaux in France, writes: “To meditate is to look deeply and see the things that others cannot see, including the wrong views that lie at the base of our suffering.” His aim is to teach us to break free from those “wrong views” and illuminate the way to “touch heaven here on Earth.”

He begins by describing the Listening to the Rain Veranda at his meditation center in Plum Village. In language that almost allows the reader to hear the pit-a-pat of rain, we’re drawn into a quietude and stillness that sets the stage for all that follows.

Weaving in the basic teachings of Buddha, “The Art of Living” offers an exit ramp from the madness of the modern-day overdrive.