Sylvia Boorstein
Sylvia Boorstein, PhD, has been teaching Dharma and mindfulness meditation since 1985. She is a founding Spirit Rock teacher, a psychologist, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. She is particularly interested in emphasizing daily life as mindfulness practice and including informed citizenship and social activism as integral to spiritual maturation.
Her books include: It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness; Don't Just Do Something, Sit There: A Mindfulness Retreat; That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist: On Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist; Pay Attention for Goodness' Sake: The Buddhist Path of Kindness and Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life.
Featured Audio Talk
January 13, 2023 - The first noble truth is really true, or the principal beneficiary of well wishing is the wisher. Or the only response to suffering is compassion!
I think of my whole life as being one long practice of attention and awareness. This doesn't mean that I know if I'm breathing in or out in each moment, or aware of how everything in my body feels. My practice moment to moment is to be attentive to the arising of negativity: of unwholesome thoughts, of greed, hatred, and delusion. And I might say to myself, Relax, or May I be free from danger, or This is aversion—but I likely don’t have to say much. If I notice it, it goes away. And this makes space in the mind that allows for something sweet to come.