Description
Yongey Mingyur is one of the most celebrated among the new generation of Tibetan meditation masters, whose teachings have touched people of all faiths around the world. His first book, The Joy of Living, was a New York Times bestseller hailed as “compelling, readable, and informed” (Buddhadharma) and praised by Richard Gere, Lou Reed, and Julian Schnabel for its clarity, wit, and unique insight into the relationship between science and Buddhism.
His new book, Joyful Wisdom, addresses the timely and timeless problem of anxiety in our everyday lives. “From the 2,500-year-old perspective of Buddhism,” Yongey Mingyur writes, “every chapter in human history could be described as an ‘age of anxiety.’ The anxiety we feel now has been part of the human condition for centuries.” So what do we do? Escape or succumb? Both routes inevitably lead to more complications and problems in our lives. “Buddhism,” he says, “offers a third option. We can look directly at the disturbing emotions and other problems we experience in our lives as stepping-stones to freedom. Instead of rejecting them or surrendering to them, we can befriend them, working through them to reach an enduring authentic experience of our inherent wisdom, confidence, clarity, and joy.”
Divided into three parts like a traditional Buddhist text, Joyful Wisdom identifies the sources of our unease, describes methods of meditation that enable us to transform our experience into deeper insight, and applies these methods to common emotional, physical, and personal problems. The result is a work at once wise, anecdotal, funny, informed, and graced with the author’s irresistible charm.
In this remarkable sequel to his book, The Joy of Living, Buddhist scholar and teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche explores the role of positive thinking and how to overcome anxiety in everyday life.
Joyful Wisdom is divided into three parts, the way traditional Buddhist texts are organized:
* Part One offers an overview of the basic unease we feel, how it evolved, its true source.
* Part Two describes the methods of meditation that transforms our experiences into deeper insights.
*Part Three explores the application of these methods to emotional, physical, and personal problems.
Each chapter is underlined by examples drawn from Yongey Mingyur’s personal experience, the stories of friends and teachers, and in particular the conversations with people he’s met during the 12 years he has spent teaching around the world.