Creating Waldens
An East-West Conversation on the American Renaissance

By Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson, and Daisaku Ikeda

Dialogue Path Press, 2009

Praise for Creating Waldens

Creating Waldens is a great, fortifying gift. If we are to turn our beautiful but beleaguered planet toward life, we need quickly to learn to think—and even to feel—like an ecosystem ourselves. Following the provocative dialogue in Creating Waldens is a powerful way to help us inhabit nature from the inside; a way to help us live within the core wisdom of connectedness and co-creation at the heart of Buddhism and Transcendentalism. From this deep view, we see our own power with new eyes. We can trust nature with new fervor. We become stronger for the challenges of this magnificent time.

- Frances Moore Lappé, author of Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad and Diet for a Small Planet

In this inspiring dialogue, Bosco, Myerson, and Ikeda reveal the radiance of Emerson and Thoreau’s enduring wisdom. Emerson and Thoreau were leading lights of New England Transcendentalism, a profound engagement with nature and humanism that influenced Gandhi and King, and that resonates deeply with Nichiren Buddhism. Creating Waldens brilliantly celebrates the continued relevance of Emerson and Thoreau to our lives and times.

- Lou Marinoff, author of The Middle Way: Finding Happiness in a World of Extremes

Emerson and Thoreau speak powerfully for the necessity of the deeply principled life, and Ikeda, Bosco and Myerson focus on the relentless self-examination both writers encouraged of all people, not simply in one part of their lives, but thoroughly and essentially. For all who seek to integrate theory and practice—knowing that individual action matters tremendously to social justice—this book will offer that much neglected yet essential ingredient to action: thought-provoking inspiration.

- Sarah Wider, Professor of English and Women's Studies, Colgate University

In a series of lively and provocative conversations, Bosco, Myerson, and Ikeda share ideas about Emerson, Thoreau, and other great writers of the American Renaissance whose wisdom has been passed on through the lives and works of Gandhi, King, Makiguchi, and Toda. A clarion call against authoritarianism, Creating Waldens inspires us to challenge social evil through courageous acts of nonviolent protest and find joy in harmony with nature and our fellow citizens around the globe.

- Anita Patterson, Associate Professor of English and Director, American and New England Studies Program, Boston University

Emerson and Thoreau independently examined the same themes of nature and the human pilgrimage as the great Eastern scholars, painters, and poets, and then added an element of their own, the uniquely American celebration of the self. Here, boiled down to a series of enlightened conversations between three scholars, is the essence of the thoughts of these two American writers and the uniquely cross-cultural and curiously contemporary blend of thought and philosophy that they embodied.

- John Hanson Mitchell, author of Walking Towards Walden: A Pilgrimage in Search of Place

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