Forgiving your sister’s murderer, living on death row, meditating at Auschwitz, coming to terms with your parent’s dementia: These strong stories and many others reveal how adversity in life can act as a spiritual teacher. With profiles of promi-nent American Buddhist teachers and activists such as Bernie Glassman and Joan Halifax, as well as painful experiences of other Americans, Europeans, and New Zealanders, Challenging Times looks at dramatic but not uncommon aspects of life and how Buddhism can offer tools for growth and change. The first in the new series What Buddhism can offer.

I was expecting to meet a charismatic teacher, a dynamic whirlwind of energy—Bernie from Brooklyn, Jewish fixer turned Zen entrepreneur. But I found myself facing a short, unassuming man in late middle age, with a bulbous nose and quiet eyes. I liked the way he paused to think before answering. He listened. Listening seems to lie at the heart of Glassman’s philosophy. . . . Through creating projects that meet immediate materials needs, a community is perhaps being born in which people care for one another, and where the social structures are themselves a teaching of interconnectedness.