Heart’s Awakening: 108 steps to a life of love
In The Heart’s Awakening, renowned Buddhist teacher Bodhipaksa offers a transformative journey through the four Brahma Viharas – the ‘immeasurable’ qualities of kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Through 108 accessible and practical reflections, this book invites you to cultivate these qualities in your daily life, guiding you toward deeper self-acceptance, more meaningful relationships, and an openhearted connection to the world. Whether you’re new to meditation or a seasoned practitioner, this book will support you to live with greater peace, joy, and kindness – one revolutionary step at a time. Are you ready to awaken your heart?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bodhipaksa was born in Scotland and currently lives in New Hampshire with his wife and two children. He holds a master’s degree in Buddhism and business from the University of Montana, and a degree in veterinary medicine from the University of Glasgow.
He is a Buddhist teacher and author. He has been practicing meditation since 1982, and has been a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order since 1993. Bodhipaksa teaches at Aryaloka, his local Buddhist center. He is the founder of Wildmind, which is an online meditation resource, a pubisher of guided meditation CDs, and a meditation center offering online instruction. He has a passion for finding ways to harness new technologies for the teaching of meditation.
His books for Windhorse include Wildmind: A Step-by-Step Guide to Meditation (2010), and Vegetarianism: A Buddhist View (2009). He is also the author of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha! (2018), and This Difficult Thing of Being Human (2019), both published by Parallax, and several audio books.
PRAISE
"With his clear insights and heartfelt approach, Bodhipaksa offers an antidote to the fears, struggles, and stresses inherent in this human experience. His latest book is a sincere and accessible step-by-step guide to opening the heart to all aspects of our lives."
—Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Life
"What I love most about Bodhipaksa’s writing is that he includes himself as an ordinary human being. Just like us, he also sometimes gets irritable, makes mistakes, and struggles to be happy. From this place he offers us the fruit of his decades of meditation and self-compassion. He writes in plain language with practical advice about how we can also access more kindness towards ourselves and others."
—Satya Robyn, author of Coming Home: Refuge in Pureland Buddhism
"Bodhipaksa’s book is a warm, accessible, and practical roadmap to the surprisingly complex territory of loving-kindness. It is also a robust challenge to think, to feel, and ultimately to live differently."
—Will Buckingham, author of Hello, Stranger: Stories of Connection in a Divided World
"This book is a delightful and insightful roadmap back to our heart’s path of love, so that we can reclaim our joy and shine our light into this world, a world that really needs our light right now."
—Dr Mara Karpel, clinical psychologist, speaker, radio show host, and author of The Passionate Life: Creating Vitality & Joy at Any Age
"This book will not only tell you how to use the ancient Buddhist practice of metta bhavana or lovingkindness in your life but will give you many means of cultivating a compassionate attitude as you go about your day. The world has always needed compassion, but today we are more aware of that need than ever. Bodhipaksa brings his lifetime’s interest in, and practice of, metta bhavana to this work. It’s often said that you need to practice and not just read about metta bhavana in guides like this, and that’s true. However, the quality of this book means that just reading it will make you a more compassionate person, more at peace with the world."
—Padraig O’Morain, author of Kindfulness: Be a True Friend to Yourself – with Mindful Self-Compassion
"It takes a lifetime of practice to change, and a lifetime of trying to love well to know just how hard that is. In his beautifully rendered 108 reflections on kindness, Bodhipaksa exemplifies exactly why this Dharma work matters and can transform our very experience of being alive. This is a deeply felt, brilliantly researched, quietly revolutionary book on profound teachings. Bodhipaksa’s gift here is to make them seem as fresh as they must have been thousands of years ago when they first woke up the hearts of seekers after truth and peace in a world that has always needed kindness as much as it does today."
—Candradasa, founder of Free Buddhist Audio and The Buddhist Centre Online
"This book offers the meditator an imaginative and practical approach to cultivating kindness. Bodhipaksa offers personal insights from his life and teaching, creating an engaging and valuable resource for both teachers and practitioners alike."
—Suryagupta, Chair of the London Buddhist Centre