Bite-sized daily reflections bringing insights within minutes
Kindling Hope: Daily Passages from Darkness into Light is your daily companion for inner clarity. It is a collection of reflections designed for individuals in today’s fast-paced world to ease stress, cultivate resilience, and stay grounded from dawn to dusk through moments of inward look, with one book page at a time.
Each written piece distills centuries-old Buddhist wisdom into bite-sized insights that resonate with modern-day challenges. Passage by passage, Kindling Hope brings to heart a message shared and endured for millennia: despite all odds, hope is never lost. It is within us, just waiting to be found. As the author puts it,
“My dear, let us not despair.”
Kindling Hope is a go-to book when you need a moment to recenter, or simply to unplug and take a breather when things feel a little full.
Bite-sized daily reflections bringing insights within minutes
Rooted in lived experience, not just theory
Designed to fit into morning or evening routines
Help swap screen time for more “soul” time
Enriched by Spanish artist Clara Encinas's eye-soothing graphite illustrations
Each page offers a little support for the kinds of moments we journey through each day.
“Whether read daily or thematically, let these words wash over you and renew your spirit.”
CND, B.A., B.Ed, Masters of Divinity, UPEI Campus Minister & Chair of the Canadian Catholic Campus Minister’s Board of Governors
“Zhen-Ru’s translated poems are vital guides for our divided era, blending Buddhist-inspired imagery with urgent calls for solidarity. Her verses—carrying motifs of rivers reshaping landscapes and shared flames—map struggle into collective hope, and offer an antidote to polarization. This collection transcends cultural preservation, igniting dialogue on interdependence and inner resilience.
Amid escalating global tensions, her vision proves transformative. By framing personal cultivation as the root of societal healing, these works remind us that even fleeting kindness can bridge divides, merging lyrical wisdom with actionable truths for navigating crises.”
MD, MPH, Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, Medical Director for the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine & Associate Professor at Harvard School of Medicine
Selected lines from the daily passages — a glimpse of the book's tone and feel.
Effervescing with Joy
Searching for things
that inspire elation allows us
to effervesce with great joy
each day.Searching for things that inspire elation
allows us to effervesce with great joy each day.
Looking Within for a Way Out
When we look for the causes of suffering within
we give ourselves a way out.
Rewriting Memories
Can memories be rewritten?
Home to All
Our compassion can become
a source of refuge in others’ lives.
Cascade
In darkness
a tiny flicker of light still burns—
no matter how small, a good deed is a light in our lives.
Rising Above
The bottom is our vantage point
—our new horizon—
from which
both darkness and light emerge.
The sun sets below the horizon,
the sun rises above the horizon.The bottom is our vantage point—our new horizon—
from which both darkness and light emerge. The sun
sets below the horizon, the sun rises above the horizon.