Life Is Spiritual Practice: Achieving Happiness with the Ten Perfections

by Jean Smith

Overview

With this guide, find, and keep, true happiness by discovering and practicing Buddhism's ten virtues.

Discover the ten perfections--qualities of the heart and mind that cultivate happiness, wisdom, and compassion--and learn how to bring them into your life with this in-depth practice manual. Life Is Spiritual Practice carefully lays out the perfections, or paramis: the Buddha's foundational teaching for true happiness.
Generosity • Ethical Integrity • Renunciation • Wisdom • Wise Effort • Patience • Truthfulness • Resolve • Loving-Kindness • Equanimity
Drawing on her more than twenty years of teaching experience, Jean Smith teases out the subtleties of the perfections and offers helpful exercises, real-life examples, and instructions for an independent self-retreat for their practical application. With this book in hand, embody the ten perfections and achieve lasting happiness, regardless of your spiritual tradition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614291732
Publisher:	Wisdom Publications MA
Publication date:	02/10/2015
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Jean Smith is the author/editor of numerous successful books on Buddhism, including 365 Zen, A Beginner's Guide to Insight Meditation, Breath Sweeps Mind, and 12 Steps on the Buddha's Path. A longtime associate of the Insight Meditation Society, she is the head of the executive board of the Mountain Retreat Center, in Taos, New Mexico, where she lives.

Table of Contents

Introduction: So You Want to Be Happy 1

Part I Foundations for Happiness

1 Suffering as the Beginning of Happiness 9

Practice and Reflection: Aging 17

2 Impermanence and the Self: The Beginning of Suffering 19

Practice and Reflection: Impermanence 25

3 Karma: Creating Suffering or Happiness 29

Practice and Reflection: Karma 34

4 Cultivating Mindfulness 35

Practice and Reflection: The Hindrances 46

Part II Life Practice: Our Personal Ideals

5 An Introduction to the Perfections 51

Practice and Reflection: The Perfections 53

6 Generosity 55

Practice and Reflection: Generosity 62

7 Ethical Integrity 65

Practice and Reflection: Ethical Integrity 75

8 Renunciation 79

Practice and Reflection: The Senses 87

9 Wisdom 93

Practice and Reflection: Wisdom 101

10 Wise Effort 103

Practice and Reflection: Energy 115

11 Patience 117

Practice and Reflection: Patience 127

12 Truthfulness 131

Practice and Reflection: Truthfulness 137

13 Resolve 139

Practice and Reflection: Resolve 147

14 Loving-Kindness 149

Practice and Reflection: Loving-Kindness 158

15 Equanimity 161

Practice and Reflection: Equanimity 171

Appendix: A Self-Retreat on Metta and the Perfections 173

Suggested Reading 197

Index 199

About the Author 211