Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life » (Bargain)

Sylvia Boorstein, Ph.D., is a co-founding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, and a senior teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. She writes a regular column for Shambhala Sun, lectures widely, and is the bestselling author of Pay Attention, for Goodness’ Sake; It’s Easier Than You Think; Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There; and That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Buddhist. A practicing psychotherapist, Boorstein is a frequent presenter at psychology conferences and training seminars. Sylvia and her husband, Seymour, divide their time between Sonoma County, California, and their home in France.

How can we stay engaged with life day after day? How can we continue to love–keep our minds in a happy mood–when life is complex and often challenging? These are questions that Sylvia Boorstein addresses in Happiness Is an Inside Job. In more than three decades of practice and teaching she has discovered that the secret to happiness lies in actively cultivating our connections with the world, with friends, family, colleagues–even those we may not know well. She shows us how mindfulness, concentration, and effort–three elements of the Buddhist path to wisdom–can lead us away from anger, anxiety, and confusion, and into calmness, clarity, and the joy of living in the present.

Publishers Weekly

From renowned Buddhist teacher Boorstein comes a small, polished gem of a book that seems somehow even more intimate and heartfelt than her previous books Pay Attention, for Goodness' Sakeand It's Easier Than You Think. Boorstein begins with an anecdote about a day when her writing was interrupted by a call from a friend with a very ill brother; the effort of consoling her made Boorstein forget what she had been about to write. Boorstein uses her moment of resentful impatience at the interruption to illustrate how easily the mind can fall out of caring connection. The whole idea of this book, she writes, is that "restoring caring connection... and maintaining it when it is present, is happiness." This insight is a jumping-off point for Boorstein to explore three planks of the Buddhist path: wise effort, wise mindfulness and wise concentration. Her quiet insistence that the Buddhist practices of mindfulness, meditation and metta(lovingkindness) can quiet the mind, deepen concentration and lower anxiety is both convincing and inspiring. (Dec. 26)

Introduction 3

The Best Way to Live 5

Restoring the Mind to Kindness 7

The Heart of Buddhist Teachings: Wise Effort, Wise Mindfulness, Wise Concentration 12

Equanimity, Wisdom, and Kindness 23

No One to Blame: How Equanimity Inspires Wisdom 25

We Understand and We Feel: Warm Wisdom 33

A Little Lower Than the Angels: How Equanimity Supports Kindness 40

We Are All Imperiled: How Kindness Restores Equanimity 54

Wise Effort 57

Just Do It: Wise Effort as Wisdom Practice 59

Omitting None: Metta Practice as Wise Effort 65

Keeping the Mind Hospitable: Wise Speech as Wise Effort 73

Familiar Strangers: Intentional Appreciation Practice 77

Sweetening the Mind: Wise Effort as Clear Discernment 81

A Break in the Clouds: Opportunities for Wise Effort 85

Wise Mindfulness 91

Tidying the Mind: How Mindfulness Cultivates Wisdom 93

Correcting the View: Wise Mindfulness as a Reality Check 101

It's Easy to Become Confused: How Mindfulness Creates Clarity 106

And It's Particularly Easy to Get Angry: How Mindfulness Dispels Aversion 110

Once More, with Feeling: Liberating the Mind from Secrets 116

Keeping the Mind Noncontentious: Metta Practice as Wise Mindfulness 123

The Truth about Preferences: The Metta Riddle 124

One Breath, One Name: Mindful Blessing 130

Wise Concentration 135

Keeping the Mind Steady: Wise Concentration as the Guardian of Wisdom 137

Composure as the Support for Sadness 148

Now Take a Breath: Wise Concentration as the Universal Antidote 150

Epilogue: Jeannette's Wisdom 157

Acknowledgments 163