Today’s Recommendation: Real Happiness by Sharon Salzberg

Real Happiness
10th Anniversary Edition:
A 28-Day Program to Realize the Power of Meditation
by Sharon Salzberg
★★★★ 1/2

“An inviting gateway to the interior territory of profound well-being and wisdom.”
—Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Wherever You Go, There You Are

From Sharon Salzberg, a pioneer in the field of meditation and world-renowned teacher acclaimed for her down-to-earth style, Real Happiness is a complete guide to starting and maintaining a meditation practice. Beginning with the simplest breathing and sitting techniques, and based on three key skills—concentration, mindfulness, and lovingkindness—it’s a practice anyone can do and that can transform our lives by bringing us greater resiliency, creativity, peace, clarity, and balance.

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Daily Insight: Sharon Salzberg on Finding Her Voice

“Then one day I realized that all our talks were basically about lovingkindness. The point wasn’t to give a perfect performance, it was to connect with the people gathered to listen and to extend a sense of inclusivity and care to them. My ability to share my insights with more freedom came about when I started to connect to myself and to that space of care from within. I shifted my attention away from self-protection and needing to be perfect and focused instead on giving what I had to offer. It was a big shift in intention, a move away from the lonely self to a space of connection. And when I came to this recognition, I found my voice.”

― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love:
The Art of Mindful Connection

book ad recommendation 200623z

Daily Insight: Sharon Salzberg on the Nature of Love

“When we have insight into our inner world and what brings us happiness, then wordlessly, intuitively, we understand others. As though there were no longer a barrier defining the boundaries of our caring, we can feel close to others’ experience of life. We see that when we are angry, there is an element of pain in the anger that is not different from the pain that others feel when they are angry. When we feel love, there is a distinct and special joy in that feeling. We come to know that this is the nature of love itself, and that other beings filled with love experience this same joy.”

― Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness:
The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

book ad recommendation 200609z

Daily Insight: You Yourself Deserve Love and Affection

“The foundation of metta practice is to know how to be our own friend. According to the Buddha, “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”

― Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness:
The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

book ad recommendation 200510z

Daily Insight: Sharon Salzberg: Compassion is Not Weak

“Sometimes we think that to develop an open heart, to be truly loving and compassionate, means that we need to be passive, to allow others to abuse us, to smile and let anyone do what they want with us. Yet this is not what is meant by compassion. Quite the contrary. Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion...is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception.”

― Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness:
The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

book ad recommendation 200411z

Daily Insight: Sharon Salberg: If You’re Reading This

“If you’re reading these words, perhaps it’s because something has kicked open the door for you, and you’re ready to embrace change. It isn’t enough to appreciate change from afar, or only in the abstract, or as something that can happen to other people but not to you. We need to create change for ourselves, in a workable way, as part of our everyday lives.”

― Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness

book ad recommendation 200322z

Daily Insight: Sharon Salzberg on Best Intentions

“One of my friends who leads meditation retreats honors the Asian habit, as I do, of bowing to the image of the Buddha when he enters the meditation hall at the beginning of sittings. After one sitting, he told me, he received two notes from students who had been in the hall with him. One note said, "I saw you bowing to the Buddha, and I was really offended. It is rank superstition, and it has no place here. You should stop doing it." The other note said, "I saw you bowing to the Buddha, and I want you to know that it was the most moving thing that has ever happened to me here. It made all the difference in my retreat. I am so grateful that you did it."

That is just how it is: we act, hopefully out of the best intentions we can find within us, and at times we receive praise, and at times we receive blame.”

― Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness:
The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

book ad recommendation 200317z

Daily Insight: Reteaching a Thing Its Loveliness

“Seeing the goodness in someone does not imply ignoring their difficult qualities or unskillful actions. Rather, we can fully acknowledge these difficulties, while at the same time we choose to focus on the positive. If we focus on the negative, we will naturally feel anger, resentment or disappointment. If we focus on the positive, we will forge a connection to the person. Then as we look at their negative traits or actions, we do it as their friend. If two friends are looking at such difficult things, they do so standing side by side.

This mirroring quality, whereby we 'reteach a thing it's loveliness', is one of the greatest attributes of metta. The power of metta enables us to look at people and affirm the rightness of their wish to be happy; it affirms our oneness with them. The power of love reflects both to ourselves and others the manifold possibilities available in each moment.”

― Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness:
The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

book ad recommendation 200314z

Daily Insight: Sharon Salzberg: It Is Never Too Late

“It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn't depend on how long it has been running; a shift in perspective doesn't depend on how long you've held on to the old view.

When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn't matter whether its been dark for ten minutes, ten years or ten decades.

The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before.

Its never too late to take a moment to look.”

― Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness:
The Power of Meditation

book ad recommendation 200303z

Daily Insight: Sharon Salzberg on Metta

“Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves. We can open to everything with the healing force of love. When we feel love, our mind is expansive and open enough to include the entirety of life in full awareness, both its pleasures and its pains, we feel neither betrayed by pain or overcome by it, and thus we can contact that which is undamaged within us regardless of the situation. Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be.”

― Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness:
The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

book ad recommendation 200218z

Daily Insight: The Strength of Compassion by Sharon Salzberg

“Sometimes we think that to develop an open heart, to be truly loving and compassionate, means that we need to be passive, to allow others to abuse us, to smile and let anyone do what they want with us. Yet this is not what is meant by compassion. Quite the contrary. Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion...is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception.”

― Sharon Salzberg,
Lovingkindness:
The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

book ad recommendation 200206z

Daily Insight: Loving-kindness by Sharon Salzberg

“Can you revise your perceptions to see the world in terms of suffering and the end of suffering, instead of good and bad? To see the world in terms of suffering and the end of suffering is Buddha-mind, and will lead us away from righteousness and anger. Get in touch with your own Buddha-mind, and you will uncover a healing force of compassion.”

― Sharon Salzberg, Loving-Kindness:
The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

book ad recommendation 200125t

Words of Wisdom for Sept. 30, 2019: Sharon Salzberg: Quest for Happiness

“By engaging in a delusive quest for happiness, we bring only suffering upon ourselves. In our frantic search for something to quench our thirst, we overlook the water all around us and drive ourselves into exile from our own lives.”

― Sharon Salzberg
Real Happiness:
The Power of Meditation:
A 28-Day Program

19079

Words of Wisdom for Sept. 22, 2019: Sharon Salzberg on Metta

“Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves. We can open to everything with the healing force of love. When we feel love, our mind is expansive and open enough to include the entirety of life in full awareness, both its pleasures and its pains, we feel neither betrayed by pain or overcome by it, and thus we can contact that which is undamaged within us regardless of the situation. Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be.”

― Sharon Salzberg,
Lovingkindness:
The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

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Daily Dharma July 25, 2019 Sharon Salzberg

“Loving kindness is a form of love that truly is an ability, and, as research scientists have show, it can be learned. It is the ability to take some risks with our awareness-to look at ourselves and others with kindness instead of reflexive criticism; to include in our concern those to whom we normally pay no attention; to care for ourselves unconditionally instead of thinking, "I will love myself as long as I never make a mistake." It is the ability to gather our attention and really listen to others, even those we've written off as not worth our time. It is the ability to see the humanity in people we don't know and the pain in people we find difficult.”

― Sharon Salzberg
Real Happiness:
The Power of Meditation

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