Thich Nhat Hanh's writing is deceptive in its subtlety. He'll go on and on with stories about tree-hugging or metaphors
involving raw potatoes; he'll tell you how to eat mindfully, even how to breathe and walk; he'll suggest looking closely
at a flower and to see the sun as your heart. As the Zen teacher Richard Baker commented, however, Nhat Hanh is "a
cross between a cloud, a snail, and piece of heavy machinery." Sooner or later, it begins to sink in that Nhat Hanh is
conveying a depth of psychology and a world outlook that require nothing less than a complete paradigm shift. Through
his cute stories and compassionate admonitions, he gradually builds up to his philosophy of interbeing, the notion that
none of us is separately, but rather that we inter-are. The ramifications are explosive. How can we mindlessly and
selfishly pursue our individual ends, when we are inextricably bound up with everyone and everything else? We see an
enemy not as focus of anger but as a human with a complex history, who could be us if we had the same history. Suffice
it to say, that after reading Peace Is Every Step, you'll never look at a plastic bag the same way again, and you may
even develop a penchant for hugging trees. --Brian Bruya