NIELS LYNGSØ IS not a monk in robes removed from modern life. He is an award-winning novelist and poet, a translator of writers such as Michel Houellebecq, and a razor-sharp intellectual who once lived the restless, overthinking Western life many readers will recognize. After moving from Copenhagen to a small island in the South Funen Archipelago, Lyngsø immersed himself in a rigorous, pragmatic Buddhist practice — and discovered not belief, but training.
HIS 2024 MEDITATION masterpiece A Path Through the Landscapes of Insight (2024) was hailed by Politiken as: “The ultimate treasure chest if you want to get started with meditation… a magnum opus.” And The First Hundred Days of Meditation (2025) became a loving, practical companion for building a daily practice — pitched as a guide from “one of the happiest countries in the world.”
WITH NORDIC ZEN. A Scandinavian Path to Buddhist Wisdom (2026), Lyngsø distills a decade of experience into his clearest and most universal offering yet. What happens when Buddhist wisdom meets the Scandinavian way of life? A meeting of two traditions shaped by simplicity, restraint and a deep appreciation of what is enough. NORDIC ZEN is a contemporary Scandinavian approach to 2,500 years of Buddhist insight, written in Lyngsø’s signature voice: deeply intelligent, humorous, compassionate, and disarmingly practical.
Books
Non-fiction
