About Mike Lisagor

Mike Lisagor (and his wife) has been practicing SGI Nichiren Buddhism for 56 years. Not as a scholar, not as a monk — but as a regular person who found in Buddhist practice a way to face everything life threw at him: illness, loss, career upheaval, aging, and the ordinary heartbreaks that come with being human.

Over those decades, as he was journeying from an engineer to business executive to executive coaching, Mike became a prolific newspaper and magazine columnist. Eventually, he wrote eight books including four that distill what he's learned into something practical and readable. His writing doesn't traffic in jargon or abstraction. It's grounded, often funny, and always honest about the gap between Buddhist ideals and the messy reality of trying to live them.

His flagship book, Romancing the Buddha, was originally published by Middleway Press and grew out of a simple question: what does a daily Buddhist practice actually look like from the inside? The answer turned out to be a book (and the sequel, My Fifty Years of Buddhist Practice) about resilience, therapy, humor, marriage, parenting, mentorship, creativity, and the slow, unglamorous work of becoming a better human being.

Mike and Trude live in the Pacific Northwest. He reads every message sent through this site and responds when he can. He believes that the right book, video, or article — found at the right moment — can change the direction of a life.