I happened to know this book, Snow in the Summer, nearly 15 years ago, once I started my journey to learn and practise Buddhism. At that time, I read the Vietnamese version of it. Then, I got to know about Sayadaw U Jotika and his teachings. Till now, I always considered that I was so fortunate reading the book in time, during my Buddhism journey — the happiness journey. Books are many. Yet many times, you don’t need that many. You only need to read the right one. And for me, this is it.
Since I have started meditating, I re-read Snow in the Summer every year. Each time, it continues “exposing” the deeper layers of meaning that Sayadaw has “implanted” inside the book. How powerful and wonderful it is! For me, the book is like the bible for meditation. And much beyond that, it is like the code of living this life to the most of it, happier and more meaningful. I believe it is the same for whoever really pursue happiness, the ultimate goal of anyone of us.
I can’t express enough how thankful and how respectful I am for this ever great book from Sayadaw U Jotika. And that is my main driver to make it more accessible to people, whoever are suitable with its content and in need of it, which I believe many. While the content of the book is so available via the Internet in PDF format these days (you can Google it for “snow in the summer”), it’s almost not available in printing format on Amazon or other e-format like Kindle and audio book. What I’m trying to do here is to fill in those blanks. The other reason for me to promote e-format of the book is what I’d love to borrow from Sayadaw U Jotika: “Paper is made from trees. If you love trees don’t waste paper.” In addition, it is easier to highlight, and take notes in e-reader applications.
I understand that Sayadaw U Jotika wanted that this book is a gift of Dhamma and must not be sold, commercialized or the like. Therefore, what I’d try to do is to make the content completely free to readers in e-format and audio format. By doing that, I hope it is able to reach a bigger audience base.
You can listen to the audio version of the book below. Or you can get it free on Google Play Store from the link below.
Should there be any questions, issues, feedback, … regarding these e-format versions, or the audio book version, email me at: me@viethungnguyen.com.
May all the peace and mindfulness be with you.
P.S. The audio was generated by Natural Reader, a text-to-speech software.
