The Secret to Superhuman Strength, Alison Bechdel

The memoir of a cartoonist and writer that has many layers to it. The more she tries to improve herself, the more her self appears to what’s in the way. The break into the Zen’s mind, beginners mind, which is more real to you: your problem, or your yourself? She took swacks at Buddhism and was struck with the parallels to therapy. Buddhism is an attempt to see things as they are too. Let go of the illusory version of my family, and to see things as they really are. Everyday life, or samsara, is an endless cycle of birth and death and suffering because we think the self is separate. But if you can see through that illusion and grasp that nothing is separate, you’re freed from samsara, you attain Nirvana. She realized that what hope do we have of changing the world if we can’t change ourselves. As wisdom tends to do, some things very simple that’s been here all along – we are not the center of everything. But we are a part of everything. Nirvana is samsara.