real love and happiness: Barbara Graham, interview with the author, March 2016.
4. MEETING THE INNER CRITIC
off the golf course: George Mumford, The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2015).
she needs a rest: Mark Coleman, interview with the author, October 2016.
5. LETTING GO OF PERFECTION
have need of love: Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2012).
self-acceptance and self-love: Kathryn Budig, interview with the author, April 2015.
got a little better: Quoted in Kathy Jesse, “David Letterman, Even Retired, Keeps on Interviewing,” New York Times, December 1, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/arts/television/david-letterman-even-retired-keeps-on-interviewing.html.
6. BECOMING EMBODIED
heart never lies to us: Ben Harper, “You Found Another Lover (I Lost Another Friend),” Get Up!, Stax Records, 2013.
7. MOVING BEYOND SHAME
revolution is long overdue: Margaret Cho, “Self-Esteem Rant,” NOTORIOUS C.H.O.: Live at Carnegie Hall (New York: Wellspring Media, 2002).
9. FOLLOWING YOUR ETHICAL COMPASS
heals the maker: Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order, vol. 4 (Berkeley, CA: Center for Environmental Structure, 2002).
things seemed more challenging: Quoted in Olga Khazan, “Spill the Beans,” Atlantic, July 8, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/spill-the-beans/397859/.
SECTION 2 INTRODUCTION: LOVE AS A VERB
“The very essence of romance”: Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (Ballingslöv, Sweden: Wisehouse, 2016).
peacefulness of love: Linda Carroll, interview with the author, July 2015.
the passion itself: Zadie Smith, White Teeth (New York: Knopf, 2001).
I rose in it: Toni Morrison, Jazz (New York: Knopf, 2004).
interaction with other people: Atul Gawande, “Hellhole,” New Yorker, March 30, 2009, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/03/30/hellhole.
unwanted mental experiences: Baljinder Sahdra and Phillip Shaver, “Comparing Attachment Theory and Buddhist Psychology,” International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 23, no. 4 (2013).
emotion were particularly active: Richard Davidson et al., “Lending a Hand: Social Regulation of the Neural Response to Threat,” Psychological Science 17 (2006).
baby on the plane: Barbara Fredrickson, “Remaking Love,” TedX, January 10, 2014.
people in your midst: Barbara Fredrickson, Love 2.0: Creating Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (New York: Penguin, 2013).
10. BARRIERS TO FINDING REAL LOVE
Sufi poet and mystic: Rumi translation by Brad Gooch and Maryam Mortaz (unpublished).
ourselves more conscious: James Hollis, The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other (Toronto, ON: Inner City Books, 1998).
we cannot live within: James Baldwin, “Letter from a Region of My Mind,” The Fire Next Time (New York: Vintage, 1992).
world as a whole: Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving: The Centennial Edition (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2000).
11. CULTIVATE CURIOSITY AND AWE
considerable healing potential: Stephen Levine, Embracing the Beloved (New York: Anchor, 1996).
12. AUTHENTIC COMMUNICATION
coping is the problem: Virginia Satir, The Satir Model (Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books, 1991).
the kinder path: Quoted in Emily Esfahani Smith, “Masters of Love,” Atlantic, June 12, 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-ever-after/372573/.
attempt to find fault: Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks, “How to Create a Conscious Relationship: 7 Principles, 7 Practices,” Huffington Post, November 15, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathlyn-and-gay-hendricks/creating-conscious-relationships_b_1092339.html.
deeper layers as well: John and Julie Gottman, And Baby Makes Three: The Six-Step Plan for Preserving Marital Intimacy and Rekindling Romance After Baby Arrives (New York: Harmony, 2007).
can be powerfully transformational: George Taylor, interview with the author, October 2016.
they could give it: Mark Wolynn, It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle (New York: Viking, 2016).
13. PLAYING FAIR: A WIN-WIN PROPOSITION
make love last: B. Janet Hibbs, Try to See It My Way: Being Fair in Love and Marriage (New York: Avery, 2009).
14. NAVIGATE THE SPACE BETWEEN
room of our own: Deborah Luepnitz, Schopenhauer’s Porcupines: Intimacy and Its Dilemmas (New York: Basic Books, 2008).
before an immense sky: Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, translated by M. D. Herter Norton (New York: W. W. Norton, 1934).
“The beginning of love is”: Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island (Boston: Mariner, 2002).
15. LETTING GO
I am letting go: Alice Walker, “Even as I Hold You,” Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning (New York: Doubleday, 1979).
neurological and emotional network: James Hollis, The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other (Toronto, ON: Inner City Books, 1998).
but then move on: Christine Carter, “Raising Happiness,” Greater Good, April 29, 2014, http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/raising_happiness/.
quicker if they didn’t: Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams (New York: HarperCollins, 2009).
16. HEALING, NOT VICTORY
becomes second nature: George Taylor, A Path for Couples: Ten Practices for Love and Joy (self-published, 2015).
17. THE HEART IS A GENEROUS MUSCLE
winning an award: Shelly Gable et al., “Will You Be There for Me When Things Go Right? Supportive Responses to Positive Event Disclosures,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91 (2006).
18. FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION
The shared world: Naomi Shihab Nye, Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008).
nor should we: Helen Whitney, Forgiveness: A Time to Love and a Time to Hate, PBS, 2011.
world lives in you: Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Comedy, Tragedy, and Fairy Tale (New York: Harper & Row, 1977).
SECTION 3 INTRODUCTION: THE WIDE LENS OF COMPASSION
our intense times: Jason Garner, interview with the author, July 2016.
around the world: Jacqueline Novogratz, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2010).
to help the other: Quoted in “Feeling Others’ Pain: Transforming Empathy into Compassion,” Cognitive Neurological Society, June 24, 2013, https://www.cogneurosociety.org/empathy_pain/.
offering it to others: Julianne Holt-Lunstad et al., “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-Analytic Review,” PLoS Medicine 7 (2010).
find myself loving them: Kevin Berrill, interview with the author, September 2015.
rely on one another: Daniel Goleman, “Rich People Just Care Less,” New York Times, October 5, 2013.
19. PRIMING THE PUMP
or your community: Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want (New York: Penguin, 2007).
20. CHALLENGING OUR ASSUMPTIONS
an upscale neighborhood: Rhonda Magee, “How Mindfulness Can Defeat Racial Bias,” Greater Good, May 14, 2015, http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_mindfulness_can_defeat_racial_bias.
biases about them are true: Quoted in Karin Evans, “Fear Less, Love More,” Mindful, January 7, 2016, http://www.mindful.org/fear-less-love-more/.
just like me: Thomas Pettigrew and Linda Tropp, “A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90 (2006).
study’s lead author: Andrew Todd et al., “Does Seeing Faces of Young Black Boys Facilitate the Identification of Threatening Stimuli?” Psychological Science 27 (2016).
without freaking out: Evans
, “Fear Less, Love More.”
in love with each other: Ibid.
fourteen years later: Aman Ali’s story of 9/11, Facebook status post, https://www.facebook.com/amanalistatus/posts/10103715731256804?notif_t=like.
21. LOVE EVERYBODY
The more you understand: Thich Nhat Hanh, How to Love (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2014).
opposed and endangered her: Interview with Malala Yousafzai by Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, October 8, 2013, http://www.cc.com/video-clips/a335nz/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-malala-yousafzai.
better person too: Archbishop Tutu, TheForgivenessProject.com.
real and urgent conflict: Robi Damelin, “Palestinian and Israeli Bereaved Mothers Feel the Same Pain,” Haaretz, February 24, 2016, http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.703226.
be together forever: Quoted in Sharon Salzberg, “Three Simple Ways to Pay Attention,” Mindful, March 4, 2016, http://www.mindful.org/meditation-start-here/.
22. CREATING COMMUNITY
positivity and health: Barbara Fredrickson, Love 2.0: Creating Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (New York: Penguin, 2013).
a democratic society: Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Touchstone Books, 2001).
could really talk to: Miller McPherson et al., “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades,” American Sociological Review 71, no. 3 (2006).
generous enough—already exist: Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster (New York: Penguin, 2010).
I got off: Alix Kates Shulman, Drinking the Rain: A Memoir (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995). Reprinted with permission.
23. FROM ANGER TO LOVE
Love Your Enemies: Robert Thurman and Sharon Salzberg, Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit and Be a Whole Lot Happier (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2013).
effectively for other people: Mallika Dutt, interview with the author, April 2016.
in conflict with them: Quoted in Mark Engler, “Ai-jen Poo: Organizing Labor—With Love,” Yes! Magazine, November 9, 2011, http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-yes-breakthrough-15/ai-jen-poo-organizing-labor-with-love.
raise my children in: Quoted in “An Incredible Container for Transformation: An Interview with Labor Organizer and Feminist Ai-jen Poo,” Believer, May 9, 2014, http://logger.believermag.com/post/85221891259/an-incredible-container-for-transformation.
gender-related oppression: Quoted in Bryce Covert, “How the Rise of Women in Labor Could Save the Movement,” Nation, January 10, 2014, https://www.thenation.com/article/how-rise-women-labor-could-save-movement.
interview with The Nation: Quoted in Laura Flanders, “Can ‘Caring Across Generations’ Change the World?” Nation, April 11, 2012, https://www.thenation.com/article/can-caring-across-generations-change-world.
we were growing up: Atman Smith, interview with the author, April 2016.
spreading and spreading: Andy Gonzalez, interview with the author, April 2016.
the cohesive force: Ali Smith, interview with the author, April 2016.
24. SAY YES TO LIFE
helpful to a stranger: Paul Piff, Dacher Keltner, et al., “Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 108, no. 6 (2015).
moment of their lives: Quoted in Sean O’Neal, “Interview with Rashida Jones,” A.V. Club, April 8, 2009, http://www.avclub.com/article/rashida-jones-26240.
what I wanted: Sudha Chandran’s story, Humans of Bombay Facebook post, January 18, 2016, http://ow.ly/hjoe307axmx.
ALSO BY SHARON SALZBERG
Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace
The Kindness Handbook: A Practical Companion
Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit & Be a Whole Lot Happier (with Robert Thurman)
Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation
The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love and Compassion
Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness
Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience
Insight Meditation: A Step-by-Step Course on How to Meditate (with Joseph Goldstein)
A Heart as Wide as the World
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SHARON SALZBERG is a central figure in the field of meditation and a world-renowned teacher and author. She is the cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and the author of nine books, including the New York Times bestseller Real Happiness. Acclaimed for her down-to-earth teaching style, Sharon offers a secular, modern approach to Buddhist teachings, making them instantly accessible.
Visit her online at www.sharonsalzberg.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
DEDICATION
Introduction: Looking for Love
SECTION 1
Introduction: Beyond the Cliché
1. The Stories We Tell Ourselves
2. The Stories Others Tell About Us
3. Welcoming Our Emotions
4. Meeting the Inner Critic
5. Letting Go of Perfection
6. Becoming Embodied
7. Moving Beyond Shame
8. Taking a Stand on Happiness
9. Following Your Ethical Compass
SECTION 2
Introduction: Love as a Verb
10. Barriers to Finding Real Love
11. Cultivate Curiosity and Awe
12. Authentic Communication
13. Playing Fair: A Win-Win Proposition
14. Navigate the Space Between
15. Letting Go
16. Healing, Not Victory
17. The Heart Is a Generous Muscle
18. Forgiveness and Reconciliation
SECTION 3
Introduction: The Wide Lens of Compassion
19. Priming the Pump
20. Challenging Our Assumptions
21. Love Everybody
22. Creating Community
23. From Anger to Love
24. Say Yes to Life
TAKEAWAYS FROM EACH SECTION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
ALSO BY SHARON SALZBERG
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
REAL LOVE. Copyright © 2017 by Sharon Salzberg. All rights reserved. For information, address Flatiron Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.flatironbooks.com
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reproduce from the following:
Extract from “Our Weddings, Our Worth” by Frank Bruni, published in The New York Times, June 26, 2015. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.
Extract from “Even as I Hold You” from Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning by Alice Walker. Copyright © 1978 by Alice Walker. Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Extract from Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose by Naomi Shihab Nye. Text copyright © 2008 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Extract from “Rich People Just Care Less” by Daniel Goleman, published in The New York Times, October 5, 2013. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redi
stribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.
Cover design by Henry Sene Yee
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-07650-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-07652-6 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250076526
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: June 2017
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