About Peggy Bendler
I write essays that take their time.
I’m Peggy Bendler, an author and essayist in northern Germany. My work moves between English and German, between books and short forms, between Buddhist thought, everyday perception, and the strange pressure to become someone faster.
Most of my writing begins before things have settled into a name: the pause before a decision, the sentence you almost don’t say, the ordinary moment that turns out not to be ordinary at all.
Writing in two languages
In German, I write BuddhasPfad, a long-running blog about meditation, perception, and the places where practice meets ordinary life.
In English, I write here on peggybendler.com. Underway is the essay roof of this site: a place for people who are in motion without having arrived.
Both languages ask different things of me. German often brings me close to practice and precision. English gives the writing another kind of distance, a little more air around the sentence.
Spirituality without borrowed certainty
I write about spirituality and Buddhism without speaking for a school, lineage, or tradition.
That matters to me. I am interested in practice, perception, ethics, and clear seeing, but not in borrowing certainty from a system. Buddhism has shaped my attention for years. It has not made me interested in sounding like a spiritual authority.
I study Buddhist thought at the University of Hamburg, and I keep returning to the same question in different forms: what changes when we pay attention without turning attention into another performance?
I have a point of view, and I don’t soften it to be liked. The writing is warm, and it holds its edges. Spirituality, to me, doesn’t need incense; it needs a clear mind. I’m a feminist, I pay attention to politics, and I think clarity is a form of care.
Practice, study, and teaching
I also teach in peace education at the University of Hamburg. That work belongs to another room of my life, but it has its own quiet influence on the writing: conflict, attention, language, responsibility, and the difficult work of staying human with one another.
Still, this website is not a classroom. I write here as an author, not as a guide. I won’t fix you, instruct you, or sell you calm. I notice things out loud, and I leave room for what does not resolve neatly.
The book
My book Nicht jetzt! (currently available in German) collects short pieces on the not-yet moments of ordinary life — meditation as it happens between appointments, conversations, reactions, in the middle of things. The English edition is on its way.
Other writing
I also write fantasy under a pseudonym. That work is still unpublished, but it belongs to the same weather: other worlds, thresholds, old questions in different clothes.
There is also a podcast, currently paused. Some things need to be quiet for a while.
A few ordinary things
I live by the wide northern sky, keep a steady supply of green tea within reach, and have a quiet weakness for cornflowers.
I like writing that does not rush to explain itself. I like questions that stay open long enough to become honest.
Where to begin
You can read the English essays in Underway, follow the monthly field note Logbook, or find my German writing on BuddhasPfad.