The Best Review Ever

Is this the best review ever? I think it might be! Huge gratitude to Better Reading for this glowing review of Buddhism for Meat Eaters. I love it so much, I had to repost the whole thing here! My heart is full 🙂

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This is not a book that preaches about animal rights, nor is it a weighty text on Buddhism. Instead, Moon chooses some of Buddhism’s core concepts and delivers them in such a way that provides a framework for how anyone can approach food, the environment and life. She covers non-violence, compassion, mindfulness and judgement. She asks big questions in a very Buddhist way – no definitive answers, just guidance and leaving the reader to truly work out what is right for them.

To help you come to your own conclusions are practical workbook-style activities and topics for consideration. These guide you in your own journey to making wiser decisions on how you consume, how you live, and how to change the world around you.

As a vegetarian of thirty years myself, who recently returned to eating fish, and someone who has studied Buddhism, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this book isn’t just for me, despite me appearing to be the very reader it’s written for.

While it appears to be a book pitched at animal lovers, the environmentally and ethically conscious, and generally thoughtful people who eat meat but perhaps aren’t entirely comfortable doing so, it is actually a wonderful book for anyone to read. It’s a wonderful book for anyone interested in making choices to tread more lightly on the planet. It’s a special gift for friends with children. It’s not just a guide to eating meat thoughtfully, but also a guide to a compassionate life.

One of the key chapters is The Gift of Impermanence. Nothing lasts. Everything passes. And in Buddhism, the idea is to understand that, because attachment to anything is a form of suffering. This chapter alone is worth the cover price – read it, learn this, teach it to your children.

Moon finishes with a chapter on ethical choices and resources, helpful for anyone who reads this book and thinks, ‘I now want to make a difference.” I guarantee that’s exactly what you will think after reading this book. Kindness to animals, the planet and ultimately yourself made simple – what a lovely world it would be

Buy a copy of Buddhism for Meat Eaters here.

Listen to Buddhism for Meat Eaters, right now.

June 20, 2019 By Josephine Moon in Uncategorized Tags: animals, audible, audio, book, buddhism, buddhism for meat eaters, compassion, consumerism, josephine moon, kindness, meat eating, new, vegan, vegetarian

If you can’t wait for the paperback edition of Buddhism for Meat Eaters, you can listen to it right now through Audible, read by Kate Blakk.

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Publisher’s Summary

For many years Josephine Moon struggled with the question of eating meat, fervently wishing to live as a vegetarian yet requiring meat in her diet. From Josephine’s philosophical, spiritual and physical battle with eating meat came, Buddhism for Meat Eaters – a book for animal lovers, the environmentally and ethically conscious, and generally thoughtful people who eat meat but perhaps aren’t entirely comfortable doing so.

Open, honest, and utterly without judgement, Buddhism for Meat Eaters encourages listeners to be more mindful about their choices, rather than berating themselves for them, and offers ways for people to live ethically, honestly and guilt-free, whether as a carnivore, vegetarian, or vegan. This highly practical guide also includes workbook-style activities and topics for consideration to guide you in your own journey to making wiser decisions on how you consume, how you live, and how to change the world around you.”

If you’re an Audile member, you can pick it up for just $14.95 or 1 credit. If you love audio books but you aren’t a member, I can highly recommend it. I am a huge fan of audio books and look forward to spending my credit each month.

Happy listening!

Buddhism for Meat Eaters… Why I Wrote It

May 31, 2019 By Josephine Moon in Uncategorized Tags: australia, australian, book, buddhism, buddhism for meat eaters, eating, josephine moon, meat, new release, non-fiction, peace, vegan, vegetarian

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In just over a month, my second non-fiction title will be on the shelf (2 July). The dilemmas, struggles and answers included in Buddhism for Meat Eaters were ones that had been brewing for around thirty years. I always wanted to be vegetarian (preferably vegan) but my physical body did not agree. I was left with a constant sense of guilt, shame and grief over this struggle–my spirit was willing but my body wasn’t.

For years I kept a journal, thinking I could wrestle out this conflict on the page, until years later I had to accept that I had no answers. I put the journal away, and carried on with my life, never have found the peace I craved.

Then one day, I was lying awake in the middle of the night. It was a full moon and I often struggle to sleep during that lunar phase. I can’t even remember what I was thinking about specifically, but somewhere between midnight and two am, it was like the decades of struggle finally made sense. All the threads came together, and I’d finally begun to find peace in the last place I expected to uncover it: Buddhism.

I jumped up and grabbed by laptop and wrote out a page, then sent it to my agent. This! I wrote. This is what I want to write about! For the record, I don’t actually recommend you send your agent/publisher wild ramblings at two o’clock in the morning as a way of pitching an idea, but in this case, it worked. Haylee said she loved it, asked me to write out some sample chapters, began pitching it before I’d finished writing it, and I was blown away to find that it sold so quickly. Clearly, my struggles with eating meat were not unique to me. There was a market for this book. Certainly, by the number of you who have left me comments saying things like This book was written for me or I need this so much or I can’t wait to read this, I am absolutely not alone in this quandary.

Ultimately, this book is one of hope, of healing and making peace with your body, mind, plate and world. If you are drawn to it, I hope it brings you as much encouragement as it did me.

Jo x

p.s. I love this cover so much. It was designed by Lisa White, who also designed the cover for my first novel, The Tea Chest. I think Lisa truly gets my vibe.

An author, 20 years in the making. Trust me, there’s still time for you.

February 22, 2019 By Josephine Moon in Uncategorized Tags: articles, books, buddhism for meat eaters, centre, competitions, josephine moon, magazine, market, newspaper, novels, published, publishing, queensland, short stories, story, the gift of life, the tea chest, write, writers

Dear (as yet) unpublished writers,

I realised recently that this year it is has been 20 years since I declared I wanted to be a full-time career author. Twenty years! That might have made me feel the teensiest bit old.

(Do you know what else made me feel old recently? My six-year-old came home from school and told me he’d joined the junior choir and they were learning John Mayer’s song, Waiting on the the World to Change. I was thrilled. When I was six years old, I also joined the junior choir and do you know what was the first song I was taught? God Save the Queen!!! I’m not even joking. The second song was Advance Australia Fair. Yep.)

Anyway, back to the writing thing…

I still remember that moment well. It was 1999 and I was in my first year teaching. I had gone to a weekend workshop with the Queensland Writers Centre. I was so inspired that I had a ‘full body moment’ where I decided this is it. This was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wish I could remember who the teacher was that day. Clearly, she was so inspirational that she changed my life.

I’ve been writing ever since, short stories, poetry, flash fiction, contemporary novels, kids books, non-fiction, newspaper and magazine articles, online articles. Not all of it has been published. Not all of it is good. Most of it didn’t make any money. Sometimes it was exhilarating and sometimes heartbreaking. I made friends, a community. I won some prizes, was shortlisted for some, and on one memorable occasion was ranked in the last (i.e. considered ‘worst’) twenty-five per cent of entries.

It all changed in 2012 when I was signed by an agent. My first book, The Tea Chest, was published in 2014, but it was actually the tenth full-length manuscript I had written.

Sometimes, you’ll hear about a writer who just decided to write a book and it got published. If you’ve been slogging away for years and years at your craft, this can be deflating. But everyone’s journey is so different. A writer might publish one book and never publish another ever again. Another writer might publish a book and it’s a runaway hit, only to never have another book live up to the first one’s sale ever again. Another writer might write twenty books and make the same amount of money as the one with the mega hit, just over a longer time period. Another writer will start with modest sales and then build, and build and build.

There’s still time and space for you too. Perhaps you just haven’t truly found ‘your voice’ yet–that important but difficult to describe quality to your work. Perhaps you’re just not writing in the genre that’s right for you yet. Perhaps the timing of the market just isn’t there to support your work yet. Yet. Most writers I know slogged it out for years before they were published. You’re definitely not alone.

This year, I am blessed to have two books hitting the shelves (fiction, with The Gift of Life in April, and non-fiction with Buddhism for Meat Eaters in July), bringing my list of published books to seven. Seven doesn’t sound like a lot, I know. But writing is a slow game, a long game, and you’re going to need stamina to turn it into a career. There’s no one path to publication and no guarantees of outcomes after publication. It’s a game of luck as much as skill. The thing that keeps you going, the thing that must be there to keep you going, is passion. You write because you have to. You write for love. You write for the bliss moment, the moment when the real world falls away and it’s just you racing to keep up with the story your characters are telling. There is no other way.

Write on!

p.s. the story of my little red typewriter is here