This "handbook to happiness," is a series of five brief essays on the theme of meditation, and its role in promoting human happiness. It seeks to show that, even though the practice of regular meditation is promoted by various religious bodies, it is not necessarily, or even primarily, a religious exercise. It is what the scientist-turned lama, Mathieu Ricard, terms "mind training." As religious institutions lose their credibility and influence over the general run of modern people, we are still left with the human hope and, and need for, transcendence. Meditation teaches that this transcendence is a point of view, which each human being can choose for themselves. It is a sense of detachment from, and yet involvement with, all that is. It depends on an act of will, and serious intention: mind training. It is not an indulgence in fantasy, but an engagement with one's own humanity in all its frailty yet glory.

Stories from East and West to Save the World is Leon Lessinger's tribute to his son Steve, who was an educator in Japan and died in that country at too early an age. It is the fruit of conversations Leon had with son, based on what Steve's wife, Naomi, had told Steve about Japan. Leon sees some parallels here with what he observed during his own career as an educator in the United States. He has been assisted in the formulation of his ideas by Brian Redmond, a retired teacher of English to Japanese people. Leon, Brian and Naomi are all convinced that education is not a matter if stuffing facts into a person as letters into a mail box, but is a precious chance to give guidance and courage to those seeking knowledge, and thus shape a better world for all.