Awakening the Mind, Lightening the Heart is His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s gentle and profoundly eloquent instruction for developing the basis of the spiritual path: a compassionate motive. With extraordinary grace and insight, His Holiness shows how the Tibetan Buddhist teachings on compassion can be practiced in our daily lives through simple meditations that directly relate to past and present relationships. This illuminating and highly accessible guide offers techniques for deepening and heightening compassion in our lives and the world around us.

The Library of Tibet.

The Library of Tibet.

"We can achieve enlightenment only through the practice of meditation; without it there is noway we can transform our minds." - His Holiness the Dalai Lama With extraordinary grace and insight, the dalai Lama shows how Tibetan Buddhist teaching on compassion can be practiced in our daily lives, through simple meditations that relate directly to past and present relationships. While many world religions have mind-transforming or purifying techniques, Buddhists have placed particular emphasis on these pratices for more than 2,000 years. Basing his discussion on a fifteenth- century Buddhist text, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people gives clear, highly accessible explanations of these methods and how they can be incorporated into the busy rhythms of modern life. The Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and is the author of two memoirs and several books on Buddhism. Awakening the Mind, Lightening the Heart is the second volume in the Library of Tibet series, which was founded in order to preserve and disseminate the cultural heritage of Tibet. The volumes of the Library will cover Tibetan history and culture, from meditations practices to social history. Volume Editor Donald S. Lopez is Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan. John F. Avedon, General Series Editor of the Library, is the author of In Exile from the land of Snows, the definitive history of modern Tibet.

Kathleen McDonald introduces two powerful methods for awakening the kind heart in us all. The first is the practice of the four immeasurable thoughts - love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. The second method is thought transformation, a beautiful practice based on a short, eight-verse text that is an exemplary guide to living compassionately.