Sylvia Boorstein(b. 1936)

Sonoma County, California

About

Sylvia Boorstein is a co-founding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and a senior teacher at the Insight Meditation Society. A psychotherapist and author, she is known for her warm, accessible teaching style that integrates mindfulness with everyday life. Her books include 'It's Easier Than You Think' and 'Don't Just Do Something, Sit There.' She has been teaching vipassana meditation since the 1980s.

Studied under

Teachings

Books

Don't Just Do Something, Sit There2011

Get away from doing and into being with this lively, down-to-earth guide to your own meditation retreat by beloved mindfulness meditation teacher Sylvia Boorstein. Presenting what Jon Kabat-Zinn has called "endearingly personal mindfulness wisdom," she offers a three-day retreat plan accompanied by timeless lessons -- always grounded in real life -- on how anyone can achieve calm, clarity and joy through meditation practices.

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El secreto de la felicidad está en tu interior2010

¿Cómo podemos seguir comprometidos con la vida un día tras otro? ¿Cómo podemos continuar amando –manteniendo nuestra mente en estado feliz– cuando la vida resulta tan compleja y difícil? Todas estas cuestiones las afronta Sylvia Boorstein en La secreto de la felicidad está en tu interior. Durante más de tres décadas de práctica y enseñanza, ha descubierto que el secreto para alcanzar la felicidad radica en cultivar de manera activa nuestras conexiones con el mundo, con nuestros amigos, con nuestros familiares y con nuestros compañeros, incluso con aquéllos que puede que no conozcamos bien. La autora nos demuestra cómo la atención plena, la concentración y el esfuerzo –tres de los elementos del sendero budista que conduce a la sabiduría– pueden apartarnos de la ira, de la ansiedad y de la confusión e introducirnos en la tranquilidad, en la claridad y en la alegría de vivir en el presente.

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Happiness is an Inside Job2008

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.

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Making Friends with the Present Moment2015

Taken from Sylvia Boorstein’s influential contribution to Solid Ground, Boorstein invites readers to see things exactly the way they are, no matter how difficult.

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Não faça nada, só fique sentado1999

Um livro indicado para aqueles que, eventualmente, já se sentiram atraídos pela meditação budista mas não souberam como começar a praticar; para aqueles que já tentaram ler outros manuais e não entenderam ou não conseguiram resultados satisfatórios. Este é, seguramente, o livro adequado para preencher seus anseios. A autora, Sylvia Boorstein, psicoterapeuta de origem judaica, consegue trazer o budismo para o cotidiano da vida moderna. Em linguagem clara e direta, ela explica os ensinamentos milenares do budismo, de um jeito fácil de entender, acreditar e praticar. Seguindo este guia, com dedicação e perseverança, o leitor estará se iniciando ou se aprofundando na prática da meditação budista.

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Pay Attention, for Goodness' Sake2007

According to the Buddha, the path of kindness is the path of happiness. Now Sylvia Boorstein, nationally bestselling author of It’s Easier Than You Think, has taken the 2500-year-old practice of developing the qualities of a compassionate heart—the core of the Buddha’s own practice—and made it accessible to all. Pay Attention for Goodness’ Sake is the first book ever to guide Western readers on the path of the Buddha’s Ten Paramitas, the Perfections of the Heart. Boorstein combines traditional Buddhist teachings and parables with stories from her own life, as well as easy-to-follow meditations, to show how the practice of Mindfulness—paying attention in everyday life—can lead to these perfections that all of us strive for, including Generosity, Morality, Wisdom, Energy, Patience, Determination, and Equanimity. When we take on this practice, Boorstein notes, “our vision becomes transformed. We see, with increasing clarity, the confusion in our own minds and the suffering in our own hearts. . . . And we also see the extraordinariness of life, how amazing it is that life exists.” Boorstein’s lively and practical lessons about everyday generosity, morality, making and mending mistakes, the bliss of blamelessness, and other human concerns and frailties, help to clarify our distractions and connect us with our own goodness, “the part of ourselves that wishes it had done differently.” For Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike, Pay Attention for Goodness’ Sake is a cheerful, inspiring book that offers the possibility of a transformed life.

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Pay Attention, for Goodness' Sakes2002

From the bestselling author of "It's Easier Than You Think" comes a guide to the Buddha's Ten Paramitas, the "Perfections of the Heart." Boorstein combines traditional Buddhist teachings and parables with stories from her own life, as well as easy-to-follow meditations.

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Radical Generosity2018

"Gratitude and generosity go hand in hand--the more we appreciate our lives, the more we want to give to others. In Radical Generosity, M. J. Ryan provides tools for expressing thanks. In the best-selling Attitudes of Gratitude, she taught us the inner work of realizing the many blessings we take for granted. Now, in Radical Generosity, she presents her latest examination of the virtues we need to cultivate for the twenty-first century and takes a look at generosity: what creates it, what blocks it, and what the practice of generosity can bring to our lives."--Amazon.com.

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Solid Ground2007

A lively, topical guide on how to respond to life’s inevitable difficulties—from personal crises to broader societal challenges The issue of difficulty in life is at the very essence of Buddhism. One can reasonably translate the first noble truth as, “life is full of difficulties,” with the remaining noble truths serving as Buddhism’s analysis of those difficulties and how to work with them. In Solid Ground, celebrated Buddhist teachers Sylvia Boorstein, Zoketsu Norman Fisher, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche use their diverse wisdom to address the immediate and practical concerns of our lives, including individual crises as well as the political, economic, and social challenges society is currently facing. Together, they explore the most basic and profound questions of Buddhism: the difficulty of life in general and how we can work with that and ameliorate it. Filled with humor and personal stories, Solid Ground offers specific teachings for concrete situations as well as a way to explore the larger questions of finding equanimity in difficult times.

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That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist2010

This "touching and funny" book by a Jewish Buddhist "giv[es] a sense of the richness that comes with opening to more than one way of spiritual observance" ( San Francisco Chronicle). "How can you be a Buddhist and a Jew?" It's a question Sylvia Boorstein, author of It's Easier Than You Think, has he

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