How do we make and sustain meaning amidst the messy conditions of daily life? Personalized rituals can help us blossom like lotuses right in the mud of the present. On a pilgrimage she began after her mother's death, author Paula Arai encountered numerous Japanese Buddhists who taught her the remarkable power of ritual to heal--practices you can adapt to your own cultural and personal circumstances. Applying principles of Zen practice, she offers stories and insights that illuminate how to nourish and reap a healing bounty of connection, joy, and compassion. Examples include how to:

• Relate to a late loved one as a "personal Buddha" who supports you

• Create a home altar to serve as a safe space to be vulnerable, face intense emotions, and experience a depth of warm gratitude that melts fear and anger

• Engage in daily tasks with attentiveness, intention, and creativity such that they become opportunities for body-mind integration

• Develop family rituals to celebrate relationship and mark transition

• Approach illness and grief with a purposeful sense of connection to life-and-death in its wholeness