Books and Tapes

www.sharonsalzberg.com

 

 

Sounds True, Inc.

Insight Meditation
An In-Depth Course on How to Meditate
Personal meditation instruction in a 12-week interactive course.

Available as a live online course from Sounds True,
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Over its 33-year history, the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts, has become a spiritual home to thousands and is now among the most respected centers for learning and deepening meditation practice. Based on curriculum first developed at IMS, the Insight Meditation online course invites you to experience one of history's great contemplative practices as it was taught by the Buddha himself, then passed “friend to friend” for more than 2,500 years.

This interactive, 12-week, intensive learning program is highlighted by five live audio teaching sessions with IMS cofounders Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein (If you can't make one of the live sessions, the audio will be available for download shortly after the session’s conclusion). The course also includes private journaling, along with online discussion groups to foster community. You will also receive 17 hours of audio instruction and online workbook material with exercises, articles, and more.

For most of us who have thought about meditation, the challenge has always been, “How do I get started and then keep going?” The Insight Meditation online course offers you the answer, as you explore for yourself the Buddha's path to true freedom one moment at a time.

For more information about this online course click here

 

 

 

Guided Meditations for Love and Wisdom
14 Essential Practices

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Ten million Americans will meditate today - and that number is only expected to rise. What’s the best way to get started? Learn from an experienced teacher. Sharon Salzberg, known for her ability to make meditation accessible while keeping true to tradition, offers Guided Meditations for Love and Wisdom. With more than a dozen beginner—friendly meditations, this program offers a well-rounded practice that will open your heart and mind. Join this cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society and meditation teacher of more than 30 years for step-by-step instruction in:

• Meditation for balance

• Meditation for seeing good

• Drinking tea meditation

• Compassion meditation

• Sensation meditation

• Meditation for emotions

• Walking meditation

• Lovingkindness meditation

 

 

 

Faith:
Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience
Unabridged audiobook read by the author.

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We tend to think of faith as a commodity you either have or you don’t. But in many of the world’s wisdom traditions, faith isn’t something you possess; it’s something you do. “Faith is a willingness to take the next step, to see the unknown as an adventure, to launch a journey,” teaches Sharon Salzberg.

On this four-hour program Salzberg invites you to explore:

• the crucial first step in the faith journey: embracing impermanence - the ever-changing nature of the world

• the surprising relationship between doubt and faith

• how to move forward when you feel lost in the mire of resignation and despair

• Faith as a refuge for even our hardest times

• the ingredients of true faith: love and respect for ourselves and others

 

 

 

The Kindness Handbook:
A Practical Companion

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In the Kindness Handbook, Sharon Salzberg explores with insight and clarity how kindness for ourselves and others can be the quality we choose to steer our lives by. From the foundation of this transformative practice and its entry point through you, to its daily expression in your life, this book features a thoughtful collection of anecdotes, stories, and practical tools to inspire kindness for any life situation. The Kindness Handbook is your personal companion to explore the rich landscape of kindness - and help you see just how it might shift and open up your life to greater joy, meaning, and compassion.

“For kindness to be more fully realized, it needs to be distinguished from being ineffectual or meek. It also needs to be infused with wisdom, supported by courage, and threaded with balance.” - Sharon Salzberg, the Kindness Handbook.

Read a review from Shambhala Sun.

 

 

 

Unplug: An Interactive Kit

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Unplug offers a respite from the pressures of daily life whenever and wherever you need it most - whether you have an hour, a day, or a weekend. Covering eight core topics including Calming the Mind, Facing Challenges, Being Present, and more, this interactive kit provides you with the keys to re-discover “who you fundamentally are.”
A restorative set of practices and supportive tools to help you learn to simply “unplug” includes: A 27-page guidebook, 32 contemplation cards, and 2 CDs with 10 guided meditations.

 

 

 

 

The Force of Kindness:
Change Your Life with Love & Compassion

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In The Force of Kindness, Sharon Salzberg, one of the nation’s most respected Buddhist authors and meditation teachers, offers practical instruction on how we can cultivate this essential trait within ourselves. Through her stories, teachings, and guided meditations, Sharon Salzberg takes readers on an exploration of what kindness truly means and the simple steps to realize its effects immediately. She reveals that kindness is not the sweet, naïve sentiment that many of us assume it is, but rather an immensely powerful force that can transform individual lives and ripple out, changing and improving relationships, the environment, our communities, and ultimately the world.

 

 

 

Faith:
Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience

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From the Introduction:

"I want to invite a new use of the word faith, one that is not associated with a dogmatic religious interpretation or divisiveness. I want to encourage delight in the word, to help reclaim faith as fresh, vibrant, intelligent and liberating. This is a faith that emphasizes love and respect for ourselves as a foundation. It is a faith that uncovers our connection to others, rather than designating anyone as separate and apart.

The faith I describe in this book does not require a belief system, is not necessarily connected to a deity or God, though it doesn't deny one. This faith is not a commodity we either have or don't have - it is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our own deepest experience."

 

 

 

Lovingkindness:
The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

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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 awaken in us the desire for freedom and the willingness to take up the spiritual path. In this inspiring book, Sharon 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 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.

 

 

 

A Heart as Wide as the World:
Living with Mindfulness, Wisdom, and Compassion

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In A Heart as Wide as the World, Sharon offers a book of encouragement and inspiration for anyone on the spiritual path. In short sections that include many stories and anecdotes culled from twenty-five years as a student and teacher of Buddhist meditation, Sharon reveals how our own happiness is found in the capacity to open our hearts to others. And that this capacity is far more vast than we aver thought possible. Through meditation and the practice of lovingkindness, we can discover our intimate connection to those around us and to the world as a whole. This realization acts like a hidden storehouse of strength, allowing us to face whatever the world offers us with wisdom and compassion. In these pages, Sharon shows us that our heart can be truly as wide as the world.

"Salzberg...exposes the warm beating heart at the center of Buddhism." -- New Age Journal.

"The elegance of Salzberg's work is...in her clarity, her sincerity, her pure manifestation of the dharma..." -- Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

"This the right book on the right subject for our troubled times." -- Body, Mind, Spirit.

 

 

 

Insight Meditaton:
A Step-by-Step Course on How to Meditate with Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein

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This set is also available through Sounds True, icon
1 (800) 333-9185.

This boxed set on Insight Meditation includes a workbook, study cards and two CDs of guided meditations. It is a complete self-guided introduction for new students and a support for those who are experienced in meditation practice.

 

 

 

Insight Meditation:
A Complete Correspondence Course

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Also available from Sounds True, icon
1 (800) 333-9185.

When you seek to live a spiritual life, what matters most is not what you know, but the actions you take. How do you best embody the spiritual principles that uplift you and those whose lives you touch? On Insight Meditation, you will learn one of the world's great contemplative practices, as it was taught by the Buddha himself, and then passed "candle to candle" for over 2,500 years.

Based on the curriculum developed at the Insight Meditation Society's retreat center in Barre, Massachusetts, this audio correspondence course is presented by IMS cofounders Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein, who are among the West's most respected meditation teachers. Students will learn with a qualified meditation instructor how to establish and sustain a daily meditation practice.

As each lesson unfolds, and the principles of mindful living are revealed, students learn to see past the illusion of life's obstacles, and move toward an awakened mind-state - the true freedom we seek to achieve.

Now you can experience this rich and sacred retreat environment in your own home, with these same masterful instructors. Insight Meditation presents:

12 sequential lessons - 18 hours of classical teachings, practices, and meditations
A 100-page workbook with interactive exercises, resources, articles, and much more

One-on-one guidance and ongoing support from your personal instructor From great mystics to those in chronic pain; from political leaders to spiritual seekers; from bus drivers to CEOs; those who have developed a personal meditation practice confirm its power to enrich every aspect of daily life. For most of us who have tried meditation, the question has always been: "How do I keep going?" Insight Meditation offers the answer to this question: 12 months of personal guidance and support as you illuminate for yourself the way to freedom, one moment at a time. Includes 100-page workbook. Approximately 18 hours

 

 

 

Lovingkindness Meditation
Audio CD

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Also available from Sounds True, icon
1 (800) 333-9185

In Lovingkindness Meditation, Sharon guides you through a six-step meditation designed to access the human heart's own limiless source of supreme enery--the energy of love. Known traditionally as metta (an ancient Buddhist term meaning "lovingkindenss"), this timeless practice is an easy-to-learn method for unlocking your greatest internal resorce for healing others and yourself. Here is a universal meditation to help you:

    - Melt away feelings of isolation
    - Awaken true compassion
    - Find freedom from needless, self-created suffering
    - Learn to trust your own loving, intelligent heart

Among the world's contemplative traditons, the meditation on how to love is perhpas the most basic, and most powerful. Lovingkindness Meditation is the perfect introduction to this enriching practice.

 

 

 

Beginner's Mind
Audio Tape

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The secret of meditation practice, taught the great Zen master Suzuki Roshi, is shosin,"beginner's mind" - a boundless and original mind that is compassionate and alert, and empty to receive all possibilities.

Now three leading voices in American Buddhism gather together to teach the traditional meditation techniques that make this supreme awareness state open to anyone on this program. Over four hours of instruction from three of America's most respected meditation teachers.

Offered for the first time as a collection, Beginner's Mind is a one-stop resource for new and old meditation students alike that includes:

Meditation for Beginners - Jack Kornfield. Easy-to-try meditations for anyone who has ever thought about learning to meditate, but didn't know how to get started. Covers the basics of breathing, postures, overcoming distractions, and much more.

Lovingkindness Meditation - Sharon Salzberg. The author of the bestselling book A Heart as Wide as the World teaches metta practice, the classic Buddhist meditation for using love to heal yourself and the world.

Meditation in the Zone - Shinzen Young. Learn to enter the "zone" - a peak state of consciousness - every time you work out using these special meditation practices for enhancing your awareness, as well as your physical performance.

 

 

 

Voices of Insight:
Teachers of Buddhism in the West Share Their Wisdom, Stories, and Experiences on the Path of Insight Meditation

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The founding of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in 1975 heralded a fresh expression of Theravada Buddhism among lay practitioners in the West. Today this flourishing tradition offers a path to liberation suited to people of our own time and place, amidst our own families and communities.

Here is the first collection of writings by leading teachers of insight meditation who have taught at IMS: Joseph Goldstein on "The Science and Art of Meditation", Jack Kornfield on "Path of Parenting, Path of Awakening", Larry Rosenberg on "Moving into Deep Silence", Sylvia Boorstein on "Perfecting the Heart", Carol Wilson on "The First Buddhist Women", and many others.

In all, seventeen men and women—hailing from North America, Hawaii, England, Australia, and South Africa—share their intimate experiences of the practice of mindfulness and lovingkindness meditation; their understanding of the basic teachings of the Buddha; the lessons they learned from their own teachers; and advice on following the Buddha Dharma in relationships, work, and spiritual practice.

Contributors: Steve Armstrong, Sylvia Boorstein, Christina Feldman, Joseph Goldstein, Narayan Liebenson Grady, Bhante Gunaratana, Gavin Harrison, Jack Kornfield, Kamala Masters, Michele McDonald-Smith, Larry Rosenberg, Sharon Salzberg, Rodney Smith, Steven Smith, Ajahn Sumedho, Christopher Titmuss, Carol Wilson

All royalties from this book will be donated to Ram Dass—author of Be Here Now and other modern spiritual classics, who recently suffered a major stroke—in gratitude for his teachings and in support of his ongoing medical needs.

 

 

 

Audio cassettes of many of Sharon's dharma talks are available from
Dharma Seed Tape Library