Spiritual Media Blog (SMB): Michael, thank you for taking the time today to share about your new book Anatt?: Heart of Wisdom. What was your inspiration for writing this book?
Michael Schauch (MS): Anatt? is a collection of six contemplative stories, all from deep personal experiences in the mountains. I started writing the book shortly after Brent, my best friend and little brother in the mountains, died near the summit of Mt. Manaslu in the Himalaya. Writing about it was therapeutic. As I wrote, other ideas for stories emerged. And although each story stands on its own as a unique reading experience, they’re all connected by the same underlying thread – a thread that runs through us all: our true nature is interdependent with all else.
SMB: what do you think readers will connect with most?
MS: In these fast-changing times, the book has been called a “retreat for the mind” and “shelter in challenging times.” Readers are connecting with the contemplative nature of the book combined with the Buddhist wisdom woven throughout the pages (though you don’t have to be Buddhist to understand the concepts). I’ve been told the book is like a talisman, helping readers soften back to that place deep inside we all call home.
SMB: In one of your passages you say: “When we allow ourselves to truly rest in the hearth of Earth—the unabated stillness of the peaks and valleys, the ever-flowing rivers and far-reaching forests—only then will we come face to face with ourselves once again.” Can you share more about this passage, and the meaning behind it?
MS: I wrote this following our ascent of the Moose’s Tooth in Alaska. I remember staring into the horizon as the sun rose the following day. My fear and hope from the previous days had dissolved, and all that remained was a deep feeling of reality beyond the conceptual mind. When we look deep into nature, that is, to allow ourselves to be deeply present with it, it can act like a mirror, reflecting back to us our true nature, which is beyond story and concept.
The passage is also a metaphor for our mind: no matter the ups and downs of life, and the ever-flowing thought streams and future-oriented nature of our conceptual mind, the more we can practice being in calm equanimity, ungrasping and unattached to past and future, the more we can begin to recognize our true self.
SMB: What is your wish for readers?
MS: I hope the book will help readers awaken our innate wisdom of interdependence (or “interbeing” as Thich Nhat Hahn called it), which is perhaps more important than ever given the global scale of our collective impact on Earth. If we think about where our dissatisfaction in life comes from (ie that life is not “going” our way, or that we’re not good enough, etc.), it arises because of the belief that we exist as an independent, separate self. However, the more we inquire into finding this separate self, the more we realize we are a complex makeup of ever-changing parts – our physical nature changes, our thoughts and emotions change, our stories change (even though we tend to try to hang on to them). The more we look for the existence of a separate ‘self’, the more we realize it cannot be found. What we do find, however, is our innate and boundless capacity for loving kindness. This is the wisdom we can practice softening into. Doing so helps us recognize our true nature and dissolve our own dissatisfaction in the process.
SMB: Where can we learn more about you and buy a copy of Anatt?: Heart of Wisdom?
MS: You can visit www.michaelschauch.com for more info and links to over twenty recent podcasts I was invited to speak on. Anatt? is available wherever books are sold. I also just recorded the audiobook, which is now available on Audible.
Thank you, Michael, for taking the time today, SMB wishes you all the best for Anatt?: Heart of Wisdom. May it help readers near and far find more peace and clarity in their lives.
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Michael Schauch is an alpinist and award-winning author who lives to explore the depths of nature and the human spirit and share the beauty of connection he discovers along the way. For fifteen years Michael has been a mentor and supporter of Tibetan Buddhist youth in Kathmandu, Nepal, and many young members of his community in Canada. He holds an MBA from Queens University and is a member of the Explorers Club.He and his wife Chantal make their base camp in the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the S?wx?wú7mesh Nation (Squamish, BC), nestled in the rugged Coast Mountains and temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest.