Lovingkindness - by Sharon Salzberg (Paperback)

About the Book

Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and find a greater sense of connection with others. Our fear of intimacy--both with others and with ourselves--creates feelings of pain and longing. But these feelings can also awaken in us the desire for freedom and the willingness to take up the spiritual path. In this inspiring book, Sharon Salzberg, one of America's leading spiritual teachers, shows us how the Buddhist path of lovingkindness can help us discover the radiant, joyful heart within each of us. This practice of lovingkindness is revolutionary because it has the power to radically change our lives, helping us cultivate true happiness in ourselves and genuine compassion for others. The Buddha described the nature of such a spiritual path as "the liberation of the heart, which is love." The author draws on simple Buddhist teachings, wisdom stories from various traditions, guided meditation practices, and her own experience from twenty-five years of practice and teaching to illustrate how each one of us can cultivate love, compassion, joy, and equanimity--the four "heavenly abodes" of traditional Buddhism.

Book Synopsis

Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and find a greater sense of connection with others. Our fear of intimacy--both with others and with ourselves--creates feelings of pain and longing. But these feelings can also awaken in us the desire for freedom and the willingness to take up the spiritual path.

In this inspiring book, longtime meditation practitioner and teacher Sharon Salzberg shows how the Buddhist path can help us discover the radiant, joyful heart within each one of us, drawing on Buddhist teachings, wisdom from various traditions, her personal experiences, and guided meditation exercises. With these tools, she teaches how the practice of lovingkindness can illuminate a path to cultivating love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity--the four "heavenly abodes" of traditional Buddhism.

Review Quotes

"Sharon Salzberg's book illuminates the heart of lovingkindness like a lamp in the darkness, like the clearing of fog, like a sunrise on a beautiful morning--it brings light so that all those with eyes may see."
--Jack Kornfield, author of After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

"Reading Salzberg's book produces the sense of having been gifted abundantly."
--Sylvia Boorstein, author of Happiness Is an Inside Job

"While meditation and mindfulness no longer face the level of stigma and skepticism they once did, our general societal worldview remains one of entrenched individualism. In Lovingkindness, Salzberg offers another option: one where we find strength and happiness not in power over one another, nor in material possessions, but in the power of love to unite us and give us the wisdom to let go; to let what doesn't serve us become clear and fall away."
--Mindful

About the Author

Sharon Salzberg is one of America's leading spiritual teachers and authors and has been a practitioner of Buddhist meditation for over forty years. She is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and teaches meditation across the country, online, and abroad. To learn more, visit sharonsalzberg.com