Product Description

How can we stay engaged with life day after day? How can we continue to love–to keep our minds in a happy mood–when life is complex, difficult, and, often, disappointing? Bestselling author and beloved teacher Sylvia Boorstein asked herself these questions when she started to write this inspiring new book. The result is her best work to date, offering warm, wise, and helpful ways we can experience happiness even when the odds are against us.

As Boorstein has discovered in more than three decades of practice as a professional psychotherapist, the secret to happiness lies in actively cultivating our capacity to connect with kindness: with ourselves; with friends, family, colleagues; with those we may not know well; and even with those we may not like. She draws from the heart of Buddhist teachings to show how Wise Effort, Wise Mindfulness, and Wise Concentration can lead us away from anger, anxiety, and confusion, and into calmness, clarity, and the joy of living in the present. These qualities strengthen our ability to meet encounters of every kind with balance and intelligence, providing us with a grounded sense of true contentment.

Happiness Is an Inside Job resonates with the knowledge of a psychotherapist, the compassion of a spiritual teacher, and the wisdom of a grandmother. Boorstein’s vivid stories capture our minds and our hearts, and the simple exercises she suggests can be done while you read.

This beautiful book is comforting and reminds us that life is a shared journey, that our hearts truly do want to console and love our fellow sojourners, and that living happily is indeed the best way to live.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #94068 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-04
• Released on: 2007-12-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 176 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. 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' Sake and 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)
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Review
"[A] small, polished gem of a book that seems somehow even more intimate and heartfelt than her previous books….both convincing and inspiring." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Review
Advance praise for Happiness Is an Inside Job

“This book will convince you that your own happiness really is much more available to you than you may have thought. Sylvia skillfully shares her inner life and her outer life and lovingly trains your mind and heart in the real practice of meditation, which is always about how you live your life right here and right now.”
–Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Coming to Our Senses

“Sylvia Boorstein’s lessons, gleaned from a life of internal reflection and mindful teaching, are delivered with such openness, love, and affection that it feels as if you are sitting with Sylvia in her living room soaking in the wisdom of an enlightened friend–wisdom that is also consistent with findings about how mindfulness changes the brain.”
–Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., author of The Mindful Brain

“A wonderful book, heartwarming and wise . . . It conveys the essence of what the Buddha taught–in the voice of a gifted storyteller, teacher, friend, and compassionate human being.”
–Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindess

“Reading this wonderful book is like having a heart-to-heart with Sylvia. It is wise, warm, and full of great stories that will make you smile. Best of all, it will cheer your spirit by showing you how to practice happiness.”
–Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart

“This is a truly delightful book, filled with simple wisdom for the journey.”
–Sarah Susanka, author of The Not So Big Life

“A generous gift for all of us to enjoy, to savor, and to learn from.”
–Judith S. Wallerstein, Ph.D., co-author of What About the Kids?

“Sylvia Boorstein has always been a world-class storyteller. But the stories in Happiness are altogether at a new level. I found myself talking back to this book repeatedly, saying, ‘Yes! That’s it! Exactly!’ It should be required reading for all human beings.”
–Stephen Cope, author of The Wisdom of Yoga

Customer Reviews

Training the Mind for Kindness
Choosing the three mind training steps of the Eightfold Path as the focus for her book, meditation teacher Sylvia Boorstein mixes The Buddha's advice with her personal experiences to explain how to restore the mind to balance after disruptive events start a story that spirals us into a state of dissatisfaction with life or others. Consistent with Boorstein's view that the responses of a balanced mind are friendliness, compassion, appreciation; she offers a simple test for this state of unbalance or confusion, "In this moment, am I able to care?" And, for her it is this ability to restore the mind to kindness that is happiness.

As do most meditative teachers, Boorstein advises that suffering results from struggling with what is beyond our control. What is past is past; let it go, "that's life." Relief comes when: The mind says, "I want something different, but this is what I have." And, when: We restore our ability to rejoice with other people. If I understand her, this is a form of wisdom that we all possess - the steps she offers are a path to finding it after the moment of unbalance.

The first of these mind training's three steps is Wise Effort, the moment-to-moment discrimination practice meant to direct the attention in its choice of focus - this is the awareness "wake-up call". Step two, Wise Mindfulness is described as then taking the "I" out of the situation, or it is that moment of seeing the situation within a larger context - rather than seeing it within our emotional frame. The last, step three, is Wise Concentration - it is composure as an antidote to the energies of; desire, anger, fatigue, worry, and doubt - the `how to' is a meditative act.

While I enjoyed reading the book, which gave me the feeling of having a wise master speak with me, I must confess it was a bit difficult to process the wisdom being given. While her stories helped me understand how the practice works, they did little to help me really distinguish the steps for daily applications. But, as I write this, I am still thinking about what she said, and maybe that is the point.

Dennis DeWilde, author of "The Performance Connection"

Striking the Right Balance
Dr. Boorstein books and essays are like a franchise. You know what to expect before you even open the cover. However, like individual franchise locations, some are better than others. Her current book should win the franchise of the month award.

Dr. Boornstein strikes just the right balance between conveying several fundamental Buddhist principles from original or near sources, then describes them very well in her own words. Finally she illustrates them with her trademark story telling drawn from her day to day experiences - which are really no different from our own.

She also reminds us, in what I feel is a culturally Jewish framework, that an awakened life includes profound sorry. Shut that off and you have become numb not happy.

I would recommend this book for those just wading into the water of Buddhist thought and practice, as well as for those who want to take a break from rigorous Buddhist study and concentrated meditation to immerse themselves in the cool spring water of everyday experience reflected on so gently by Dr. Boornstein.

Yin & Yang!
I actually already had this book and I've found it to be life-saving, enlightening and extremely helpful to me! I refer to it on a regular basis, when I'm feeling stuck and am in need of an encouraging and truthful perspective. I ordered the audio version, so that I would be able to listen to it when I'm driving. This is purely my personal perception, but I found myself annoyed with the narrator's reading style early on and have not listened to it since. :( HOWEVER, I HIGHLY recommend this book ... and not everyone will have the reaction that I had to this particular reader.