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Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness Paperback – September 3, 2002
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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.
- Print length208 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherShambhala
- Publication dateSeptember 3, 2002
- Dimensions5.92 x 0.54 x 8.99 inches
- ISBN-10157062903X
- ISBN-13978-1570629037
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Reading Salzberg's book produces the sense of having been gifted abundantly."—Sylvia Boorstein, Turning Wheel
"Sharon Salzberg's book illuminates the heart of lovingkindness like a lamp in the darkness, like the clearing of the 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
"Lovingkindness is a profound exploration of the deepest meanings of love, empathy, and caring. It offers psychological insights of real spiritual value and practical utility."—Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Shambhala
- Publication date : September 3, 2002
- Edition : Later Printing Used
- Language : English
- Print length : 208 pages
- ISBN-10 : 157062903X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1570629037
- Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.92 x 0.54 x 8.99 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #320,994 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4 in Theravada Buddhism (Books)
- #22 in Buddhist Rituals & Practice (Books)
- #86 in Meditation (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Sharon Salzberg is a meditation pioneer, world-renowned teacher, and New York Times bestselling author. She is one of the first to bring mindfulness and lovingkindness meditation to mainstream American culture over 45 years ago, inspiring generations of meditation teachers and wellness influencers. Sharon is co-founder of The Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, and the author of twelve books, including the New York Times bestseller, Real Happiness, now in its second edition, and her seminal work, Lovingkindness. Her forthcoming release, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom, is set for release in April of 2023 from Flatiron Books. Her podcast, The Metta Hour, has amassed six million downloads and features interviews with thought leaders from the mindfulness movement and beyond. Learn more at www.sharonsalzberg.com
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find this book to be an important guide to lovingkindness meditation, with astounding insight and wisdom. Moreover, the writing style is accessible and easy to follow, making it a good introduction to the practice. They appreciate the teachings on love, and one customer notes how it improved their mental wellness.
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Customers find this book inspiring, describing it as a life-changing guide to expanding thoughts and meditations, with astounding insight and wisdom.
"Such a deep thoughtful book. This book is timeless and has so many golden insights that it filled up my Kindle highlights...." Read more
"...Once this practice let me reconnect with my naturally loving and optimistic spirit, it unfolded fairly quickly that I felt deeply soothed and more..." Read more
"...She does a good job presenting the tradition of metta meditation, as far as I can tell, although I'm certainly no expert on it...." Read more
"...easy to follow and yet, I found that the author can also be poetic at times, and is even entertaining...." Read more
Customers appreciate the writing style of the book, finding it easy to follow and accessible, with one customer noting it is highly literate.
"...Thanks to its clear, simple explanations and easy-to-remember mantra, this book is the place to go when you need to be healed...." Read more
"...It didnt disappoint. It is well-written, easy to follow and yet, I found that the author can also be poetic at times, and is even entertaining...." Read more
"...How wrong I am . Every chapter is written so beautifully with such clarity about practising metta...." Read more
"...Her book is concise, clear and practical for the beginner as well as the advanced practitioner...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's teachings on loving-kindness, with excellent insights into its practice and emphasis on compassion and joy.
"...She gives practical guidance to set up a loving kindness habit as well." Read more
"...itself but I believe these are days that beg for Compassion and Lovingkindness, I would recommend many like-minded people to form their own sangha..." Read more
"...Empathy is a great thing but within limits. Otherwise this is a great book with a powerful message." Read more
"...Her courses in loving kindness were so sincere and her grace and loveliness as she walks you through the practice is so peaceful...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's pacing, with multiple reviews noting its golden insights and ability to improve overall happiness. One customer mentions feeling deeply soothed, while another describes it as eye-opening.
"Such a deep thoughtful book. This book is timeless and has so many golden insights that it filled up my Kindle highlights...." Read more
"...loving and optimistic spirit, it unfolded fairly quickly that I felt deeply soothed and more secure every minute of every day...." Read more
"...her grace and loveliness as she walks you through the practice is so peaceful...." Read more
"...in the book throughout the day, there is a new sense of pease and calmness...." Read more
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2017Such a deep thoughtful book. This book is timeless and has so many golden insights that it filled up my Kindle highlights. I'd love to re-read it.
Favorite quotes:
Abandoning unskillful states that cause suffering is not something we do out of fear of or contempt for those states, or out of contempt for ourselves for having those states arise in the mind. Abandoning the unskillful isn’t accomplished by angrily shoving or pushing away our habits of separation. Rather it comes as we learn to truly love ourselves and all beings, so that love provides the light by which we bear witness to those burdens, watching them simply fall away.
We can travel a long way and do many different things, but our deepest happiness is not born from accumulating new experiences. It is born from letting go of what is unnecessary, and knowing ourselves to be always at home. True happiness may not be at all far away, but it requires a radical change of view as to where to find it.
There is a word in Buddhist psychology, tathata, that can be translated as “thusness” or “suchness.” It describes a state in which the totality of our being is present; our awareness is not fragmented or divided. In the state of suchness, some part of ourselves is not sitting elsewhere waiting for something better or different to happen. We are not relating to our experience with either desire or aversion, but rather we accept what comes into our lives and let go of what leaves our lives. We are completely present and not beguiled by the token happiness promised by conventional assumptions. In experiencing the freedom of suchness, we discover who we actually are.
The simple act of being completely present to another person is truly an act of love—no drama is required.
A friend may disappoint us; she may not meet our expectations, but we do not stop being a friend to her. We may in fact disappoint ourselves, may not meet our own expectations, but we do not cease to be a friend to ourselves.
As we lose touch with our inner life, we become dependent on the shifting winds of external change for a sense of who we are, what we care about, and what we value. The fear of pain that we tried to escape becomes, in fact, our constant companion.
We so often in our lives serve as mirrors for one another. We look to others to find out if we ourselves are lovable; we look to others to find out if we are capable of feeling love;
Imagine taking a very small glass of water and putting into it a teaspoon of salt. Because of the small size of the container, the teaspoon of salt is going to have a big impact upon the water. However, if you approach a much larger body of water, such as a lake, and put into it that same teaspoonful of salt, it will not have the same intensity of impact, because of the vastness and openness of the vessel receiving it. Even when the salt remains the same, the spaciousness of the vessel receiving it changes everything. We spend a lot of our lives looking for a feeling of safety or protection; we try to alter the amount of salt that comes our way. Ironically, the salt is the very thing that we cannot do anything about, as life changes and offers us repeated ups and downs. Our true work is to create a container so immense that any amount of salt, even a truckload, can come into it without affecting our capacity to receive it. No situation, even an extreme one, then can mandate a particular reaction.
Forgiveness allows us to recapture some part of ourselves that we left behind in bondage to a past event. Some part of our identity may also need to die in that letting go, so that we can reclaim the energy bound up in the past.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2012After a terrible freak accident that left me with a near-death experience, four days in a coma, a week in intensive care, a month in a rehab hospital after that, and then five months' bed rest at home, punctuated only by five painful and grueling hours of physical therapy per day and two supervised walks, I was in a nasty state spiritually and psychologically. Some abusive treatment and also medical errors at the various hospitals where I was treated left me blasted, detached, tentative, nervous, and with the feeling that I no longer understood the world or what my place in it might be. Various helpful trauma therapies and psychological assistance left me feeling better, but still very unattached, confused, bamboozled, and out of sorts. What was this world I was living in? How would I understand myself as a permanently disabled person? Why was I so numb and baffled all the time?
After several months of advice and searching, someone suggested Metta meditation to help me reconnect to myself and the world, and to help me feel safer. They suggested I buy this book, because Metta classes are hard to find. Long story short, it worked. Even just using the instruction in this book, and even without an actual teacher to guide me, I was able to get a practice going that made me feel better almost immediately. Just two short Metta sessions per day based on Ms.Salzberg's instructions (which was all the time I could physically spend sitting), was enough to restore my sense of myself, make me feel much more attached to the world, and to feel powerful despite my disabilities. Once this practice let me reconnect with my naturally loving and optimistic spirit, it unfolded fairly quickly that I felt deeply soothed and more secure every minute of every day.
I cannot recommend this practice more highly, and if you don't have a Metta teacher available to you, this book is the best place to get started. If you suffer from some kind of trauma, sense of unreality or inability to connect with others and the world around you, or some kind of severe emotional pain, this is the way to go. I think that for ordinary life stresses or spiritual development, insight meditation or Zen or some other kind like that might be fine, but if something really nasty has happened to you, or if something really unpleasing happened to you in the past that's eroding your ability to live a normal, happy life, Metta meditation is the way to go. Thanks to its clear, simple explanations and easy-to-remember mantra, this book is the place to go when you need to be healed.
May you be happy
May you be peaceful
May you be free from fear and pain
May you live life with ease.....
May all beings be happy....
Top reviews from other countries
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Client d'AmazonReviewed in France on January 24, 2016
4.0 out of 5 stars lovingkindness
Le livre est arrivé en mauvais état , visiblement un vieux livre usagé ayant déjà servi: pages jaunies,couverture abimée,etc...Suite à ma réclamation, le site m'a proposé un remboursement ( je ne l'ai pas encore reçu mais bon...) et de garder le livre ...Cela me semblait correct...mais j'aurais malgré tout préféré avoir un livre neuf !!!
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FemmeReviewed in Mexico on December 9, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Hermoso
Hermoso
- Kamilla NavesReviewed in Brazil on December 3, 2014
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book that provides guidance to all people in pursuit of happiness
By teaching you simple yet profound Buddhist thoughts, this book is going to change the way you see the world. It praises love and compassion for all beings, inspiring and motivating readers to take the lead in their own lives in a positive and optimistic manner.
- Iona Main StewartReviewed in the United Kingdom on June 14, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book containing invaluable exercises that make you feel good
Sharon Salzberg has practiced Buddhist meditation for many years, so the book provides much information about Buddhism. Though reading the book requires focus and concentration, I found it to be enlightening and inspiring. It also absolutely exudes lovingkindness, which is a main factor attracting me to a book, though I was not previously familiar with the term.
Lovingkindness is a translation of the Pali word "metta", which is the first of the brahma-viharas, or the "heavenly abodes". The others - compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity - "grow out of metta, which supports and extends these states".
The author is open about her own shortcomings and episodes that have contributed to her development, and provides us with many personal stories that add to the book's readability.
The Buddha presented the metta meditation as an antidote to fear. A mind involved with lovingkindness cannot be overcome by fear. Lovingkindness overcomes the illusion of separatenesss and all its accompanying states - "fear, alienation, loneliness, and despair - all of the feelings of fragmentation".
When we feel love, we can allow ourselves to be fully aware of the entirety of life - both pleasures and pains. "Love can uproot fear or anger or guilt, because it is a greater power".
Metta begins with loving ourselves. We ourselves deserve our love and affection. We must focus on the goodness in others, and will thus forge a connection to them. The force of metta "allows us to cohere, to come together within ourselves and with all beings".
What I most appreciated in the book was the numerous exercises. The first exercise advises us to call to mind kind or good actions we have done, or qualities we appreciate about ourselves. In the second exercise we practice befriending ourselves by repeating phrases relating to what we wish for ourselves.
There are four phrases generally used:
"May I be free from danger."
"May I have mental happiness."
"May I have physical happiness."
"May I have ease of well-being."
I personally have chosen the phrases:
"May I be healed, completely healed."
"May I fulfill my life purpose."
"May I be loving."
"May I be blissful."
We begin by reflecting on the good within us or our wish to be happy. Then we repeat the four phrases we have chosen, again and again. After doing this exercise I feel really good.
In later exercises we repeat the chosen phrases directed towards others - a benefactor, a neutral person, a difficult person, difficult aspects of oneself, all beings, all females, all males, all enlightened beings, all those in ignorance, etc, etc.
There are chapters on facets of lovingkindness, hindrances to lovingkindness, working with anger and aversion, developing the compassionate heart, the power of generosity, etc, etc. (There is also a useful exercise on compassion for those who cause pain.)
I found this to be a most wonderful book, which I will need to re-read several times. I greatly recommend this well-written and absolutely inspiring book to all those who wish to develop a loving heart. I will be looking out for other books by this author.
One person found this helpfulReport - Maya BeWellReviewed in Canada on September 28, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars A gem- makes a great gift-
A deep book- invoking a lot of thought processes.
Take your time to read it, and RE - read it.
A must in the bookself of those who are
on their way to living a life of compassion.
I benefitted immensely- but I had to stop, pause and proceed
but I always came back to it.
A gem- makes a great gift-