Susan Moon

SUSAN MOON is a writer, editor, and Buddhist teacher in the Soto Zen tradition. For many years she has taught and led Zen retreats nationally and internationally. Her books include This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity; the groundbreaking collection, The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women, with Florence Caplow; and What Is Zen? with Norman Fischer. Her most recent book, Alive Until You’re Dead: Notes on the Home Stretch, is a collection of essays about the surprising perks of mortality. Susan is a contributor to Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, and other publications. She lives in Berkeley, California, and practices at the Berkeley Zen Center and the Everyday Zen Sangha. She adores her grandchildren.

"Moon is like a Buddhist Anne Lamott—confronting her life bravely and unapologetically. Reading as a man in his mid-sixties, [I] welcomed her honest ambivalence about aging. Her style is conversational yet often beautifully vivid and clear." —New York Journal of Books

"A funny, honest, and deeply personal book. This collection of confessional essays makes for absorbing reading." —Mandala Magazine

"Refreshingly honest and enlightening. In this sterling collection of essays, Susan Moon looks at the rewards, blessings, drawbacks, and challenges of aging. We are so grateful that Moon has written this insightful book in which she passes on what all this has meant to her." —Spirituality & Practice

"Gentle essays . . . long on dignity. Moon uses detail vividly in her determination to make peace with the many failures of brain and body (from forgetting her Social Security number to wondering if she’ll ever have sex again). Her best writing occurs when memory, emotion, and spirit coalesce as she recovers parts of herself left behind in childhood or comes to terms with solitude." —Publishers Weekly

"Moon shares stories of her journey, providing on each page the deep intimacy experienced with an old friend over a cup of tea, the kind that satisfies and leaves you wanting more. She plunges below the surface to explore grief, depression, loneliness, and peace, without losing her characteristic wry humor and infectious delight. And in the process, her stories become our stories." —Turning Wheel (The Buddhist Peace Fellowship)

"[Moon] does not shy away from any aspect of aging, from sore knees to foggy memory, but also maintains a sassy sense of humor. Perhaps if more people were as open about aging as Moon is, we shouldn’t all be so uncomfortable with the idea. This is a great read for anyone pondering the future." —Sacramento Book Review

"This is a book about aging, but it’s not at all depressing. Susan Moon is a very funny lady. Moon shows us aging in a breathtakingly honest way. I found that I liked her more and more as the book unfolded. This Is Getting Old is beautiful, warm . . . existential." —Wildmind.org

"Moon’s stories are wonderful companions and guides as I go about my ordinary life." —Maxine Hong Kingston

"Aging is the biggest issue facing me and everyone I know. This book is poignant, funny, and spot-on, and I am tremendously grateful to Susan Moon for writing it. I love this book!" —Sylvia Boorstein, author of Happiness Is an Inside Job

"This Is Getting Old is a sweet, mellow, funny, wise, sad, and deeply affecting book. Susan Moon's essays are so disarmingly honest, so personal and plain, that they will make you forget what an astonishingly rare and profound achievement this is." —Norman Fischer, author of Sailing Home and Taking Our Places

"This is one of those rare books that had me in tears one moment and laughing out loud the next. Susan Moon is a marvelous writer with a great sense of humor and deep insight into life. Moon’s writing has an intimacy, an aliveness, that I very much love." —Inquiring Mind