"David Rynick writes with an intimacy that never fails to nourish. The many gems in this collection will bring you back again and again to the truth and wonder and mystery of being alive. Wandering Close to Home is a book to be savored and to be shared with the people you love."

-Robert Waldinger, MD, author of The Good Life and Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

"This is a healing book for the heart [that] gave me a chance to hang out with [David] in his garden. A wonderful read, like scooping cool water from a clear pool, so many lines caused me to pause, breathe, and read even more slowly."

-Dosho Port, author of Going Through the Mystery's One Hundred Questions

"David Rynick is a wise and gentle guide on the mysteries of birth and death and our ordinary magical lives in between. [His] deep understanding of Zen permeates this wonderful collection of brief meditations. What a treasure!"

-James Ishmael Ford, author of The Intimate Way of Zen

"[David's] childlike wonder for the sacredness of life is wonderfully infectious and nourishes the soul even in the midst of the tragedies of life. Read, pause, read, listen, pause again, look up-and hear his loving invitation to open your heart and mind to the grace of the present moment."

-Mark Williams, PhD, Professor Emeritus in Clinical Psychology, Oxfordco-author of Deeper Mindfulness

"I love David's wise and heart-filled book. For each of us there is a birthdate and a death date and in between, the dash. This book is about the dash and discovering our humanity within the realness of life, the bitter and the sweet, the ordinary that sometimes becomes the extraordinary."

-Bob Stahl, PhD, co-author of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook

"David Rynick's clear-eyed observations offer gentle paths toward what is actually true beneath and behind the noise. These are beautiful meditations for all of us learning to be in recovery from the trauma of the world."

-Rt. Rev. A. Robert Hirschfeld, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshireand author of With Sighs Too Deep for Words

"David shows us that by living deeply within the ordinariness of everyday life, we can recognize for ourselves that the 'treasure we are looking for is already here, hiding in plain sight.' This book gently and joyfully points us to how awakening happens in the context of our messy, beautiful, incomplete daily experience."

-Rebecca Crane, PhD, Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice, Bangor University, UK

"In Wandering Close to Home, David pays attention-to his internal critics, his creativity, his