What a breath of fresh air. This book cuts right through our tendencies towards "spiritual materialism" and simply acting the part, and shows - through tales of the Buddha's lifetimes - that doing the actual work of the path towards enlightenment is messy and hard, but also beautiful and freeing and the only real way to get there. It's not about "pretending to <i>be</i> the Buddha," as Martin says, by walking around looking serene, smiling beatifically, spouting platitudes and always being calm. It's about showing up in every. single. moment. - here, NOW.

"It's not enough to sit and meditate and experience calm, silence, and peace - as good as those things are...But we must stand up, walk out of the zendo, and <i>actualize</i> the Way in our life, not just talk about it, not just make the meditation hall into a place to hide out from a crazed and crazy world. We <i>are</i> the way."

And the jataka tales of the thousands of lives of "the Buddha-before-he-was-the-Buddha," a few of which are given in this book and accompanied by insightful, straightforward commentary from Martin, are the map. The Buddha wasn't always perfect, wasn't always enlightened, was once (or a lot of times) just like us. But he seized opportunity after opportunity to learn, try, fail, try again, fail again, on and on until one day he sat under that bodhi tree and all that work paid off. And then he got up again, and got back to work.

"For one on the bodhisattva path, daily life is the context...Daily life and its responsibilities make the Way possible. Its challenges <i>are</i> the Way. They're not obstacles to the Way, nor are they in the way...It's about actualizing practice in the midst of the 'ten thousand things.'"