Customer Reviews

Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

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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"

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.

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.

This book is awesome! I wish they had found a better title for it because, "Happiness Is An Inside Job" sounds like just another inane self help book, which this is certainly NOT. My copy is so highlighted that the pages are wrinkly. Sylvia has a gift for communicating calmness and inspiring the willingness to walk through difficult times, rather than fighting, avoiding or trying to fix them. Words can't describe how much this book has helped me deal with my Dad's Alzheimer's and his slow disintegration into a vegetative state and ultimately death. Thank you, Sylvia, and for heaven's sake, keep on writing.

In this book Ms. Boorstein explores the three meditative steps on the Buddha's Eightfold Path - wise effort, wise mindfulness, and wise concentration. She begins this book with a story of being interrupted from her writing one day by a phone call from a friend, who has just learned her brother's cancer has worsened. After comforting her friend, she returns to work and discovers she has forgotten an idea she had, and notes the momentary annoyed reaction that arises in her mind towards her friend's brother. In response, she stops working, lights a candle, and thinks about her friend's brother, until she has restored her own caring connection to him, and everyone in her life.

This story introduces Ms. Boorstein's thesis and reason for writing the book. Often Buddhist practice is expressed in terms of finding some kind of permanent clarity, of reaching a state in which the mind is no longer confused or deluded, whether that is called enlightenment, nirvana, or something else. But, as she tells us in her introduction, that is not the way it has been for her, in over thirty years of practice, and I expect, most people. So this book is "not about avoiding confusion, because we can't - but about becoming unconfused and restoring [caring] connection, because [that] really is the best way to live."

To do this, she explores caring connection through the lens of Buddhist psychology and practice, within a variety of life-situations that anyone can relate to. For example, she explores the four Buddhist Brahma-Viharas of metta (friendliness), karuna (compassion), mudita (empathic joy), and upekka (equanimity) through three different experiences traveling on an airplane. She explores wisdom through an encounter she has with a store clerk, who has charged her much more than she expected for a mattress. Every chapter section includes a story that illustrates Buddhist practice in action in this way.

What is unique in her approach is the emphasis on metta, or lovingkindness, practice as intimately connected to mindfulness. As Ms. Boorstein notes, often metta and mindfulness are introduced as two separate practices, different in both "technique and goal." Her point is that these two are integral to each other - that when we restore caring connection, we return to mindfulness, and this is the essence of Buddha's path out of suffering. As she puts it, "restoring caring connection when it is disrupted, and maintaining it when it is present, is happiness. Not even, leads to happiness. Equals happiness."

Overall, this is an engaging book for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, that want to really bring the idea of metta into their daily lives.

This is the first Sylvia Boorstein book I've read, and I'll definitely be reading her others, as well. Her writing style is a dynamic mix of presenting information (especially about Buddhism, lovingkindness, mindfulness and meditation), sharing stories and anecdotes of all types to make her points, and revealing personal vulnerability. About herself and her own path, she states: "I continue to suffer, stumbling around in stories of discontent...then my own good heart, out of compassion, takes care of me." Very engaging and generous writing--highly recommended. Mary Lee Moser, author, There and Back: A Journal Companion for Special Needs Parents

I agree with a previous reviewer that the narrator is annoying and does not at all do justice to the content. Anyone who has heard Sylvia Boorstein speak knows that her voice is unique. If you want to read the book, I recommend a print copy. If you want to hear Sylvia, this is a poor substitute.

This cd book relies heavily on anecdotal examples of viewpoint shifting. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But I personally found the majority of the anecdotes to be quite boring. Consequently I lost interest in this cd halfway through.

Within the first 50 pages, Boorstein gives us examples of how she regains her balance and equanimity while: 1) waiting in line to board a flight to her home in France (her other home is in Sonoma, CA) and overhearing a couple argue; 2) trying to outwit a french antiquarian who has charged her excessively for a custom mattress for an antique bed (although her mindfulness practice may have been helpful, Boorstein actually had to calm herself with a follow-up shopping trip for lamps and end tables); and 3) (THREE EXAMPLES IN ONE STUNNINGLY INSENSITIVE PASSAGE) "Here are three examples that come from my living in France several months each year and traveling back and forth between San Francisco and Paris frequently."
(She beams from the back dust jacket as we are again informed that she and "her husband, Seymour, divide their time between Sonoma County, California, and their home in France.")
What a BOOR. . . Odd, I thought compassion required a heartfelt desire to comfort others, not one's self.
How fortunate are those of us who don't have Boorstein's travails.
And that perhaps is the lesson. All we unfortunate folk who can't afford a home in France or antique beds with custom mattresses really should be happier than she.
DON'T BUY THIS BOOK! Aside from the boorish perspective, it is insipid and not well written.
I would refer you to Mark Epstein, M.D., Going on Being; Robert Thurman, Inner Revolution; Lorne Ladner, The Lost Art of Compassion; even Jack Kornfield (although he did contribute a dust jacket note for this book).

I feel like I have found such a gem in Sylvia Boorstein. Each of her books is better than the last.