Love on Every Breath: Tonglen Meditation for Transforming Pain into Joy - Softcover

Drolma, Lama Palden

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1608685764 ISBN 13: 9781608685769

Publisher: New World Library, 2019

Synopsis

Today, when our human family is facing so many challenges, it is more important than ever that we find peace and sustenance in our hearts. Love on Every Breath, or Tonglen, is an eight-step meditation for anyone who wants to nourish and open their heart. An ancient and profound meditation that has been practiced in isolated mountain retreats in the Himalayas for centuries, it is now available to us in the modern world. Lama Palden Drolma, a Western teacher trained by Tibetan Buddhist masters and also schooled in contemporary psychotherapy, introduces readers to the meditation in this powerful, user-friendly book. She walks readers step-by-step through the meditation, from beginning issues of sitting with awareness and focusing on the breath to taking in and extending love. Real-life challenges of sadness, anger, and overwhelm are addressed with “On-the-Spot” versions of the meditation. Love on Every Breath is a meditation that changes our experience in the moment — and changes our lives.

About this title

About the Author

Lama Palden Drolma is a licensed psychotherapist, spiritual teacher, and coach. She has studied Buddhism in the Himalayas with some of the preeminent Tibetan masters of the twentieth century, including Kalu Rinpoche, who authorized her to become one of the first Western lamas. She is the founder of the Sukhasiddhi Foundation, a Tibetan Buddhist center in Fairfax, California.

Review

“As the rising voice of the feminine gives new life to perennial wisdom teachings, hidden jewels are being revealed through a feminine lens and rendering the esoteric utterly available. Tonglen is such a treasure. Through Lama Palden’s loving heart and lucid mind, we are offered practical tools with which to take the pain of the world all the way in, where it may be transmuted into a healing elixir for all beings.”
— Mirabai Starr, author of Caravan of No Despair and Wild Mercy

“Drawing on Eastern spirituality and modern psychology, Love on Every Breath offers a tried-and-true method for living joyfully in a suffering world. Indeed, this empowering book reveals how we can transform ourselves and our world by opening our hearts to others. If you want to bring more kindness into the world, read this book.”
— Christine Carter, PhD, author of Raising Happiness and The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less

“Love on every breath is not just for Vajrayana practitioners. Lama Palden offers alternative ways of framing the embodiment of love for people of other traditions. She says that love on every breath is a particularly helpful practice for activists confronting the suffering of this world.”
— Lion’s Roar

“The Tibetan Buddhist practice of Tonglen — breathing in suffering and breathing out compassion — is a once-secret treasure that our world now urgently needs. Lama Palden faithfully transmits the traditional instruction she received from her many Tibetan masters, while speaking in the warm, conversational tone of an intimate friend. . . . Love on Every Breath is rigorous enough to appeal to the dedicated Buddhist practitioner, while being accessible to people of every religious or nonreligious persuasion.”
— Lewis Richmond, author of Aging as a Spiritual Practice

“As a Catholic Sister, I found Lama Palden’s book, Love on Every Breath, to be an important spiritual work for persons of every spiritual tradition. Living in such a time of increasing hatred and violence, Palden’s sharing of how to grow our capacity for compassion through her enhanced practice of Tonglen is so needed. Her explanation of the Buddhist framework for this practice is clear and interspersed with examples from her life, making it very readable for those not as familiar with that tradition.”
— Sister Nancy Sylvester, IHM, Institute for Communal Contemplation and Dialogue

“With all the suffering in our world right now, there isn’t a better time to learn and use this compassionate and loving practice.”
— Krysta Gibson, New Spirit Journal

“Impressively informative, exceptionally well organized and presented, Love on Every Breath: Tonglen Meditation for Transforming Pain into Joy is a life changing, life enhancing, life celebrating read from first page to last.”
— Midwest Book Review

“In Love on Every Breath, Lama Palden offers us a clear and powerful treatise on how to turn suffering into compassion, both within ourselves and with all others. We all desire to be happy, to love, and to be loved. Through the exquisite practices of Tonglen, Palden presents straightforward and easy-to-follow guidelines for learning how to extend loving-kindness to ourselves and to all others. Both beginning and seasoned practitioners of meditation, as well as readers who desire a secular way to discover a path for embodying loving-kindness in their hearts, will find Palden’s offering of immeasurable value.”
— Richard Miller, PhD, founder of iRest Institute and author of iRest Meditation: Restorative Practices for Health, Resiliency, and Well-Being

“Love on Every Breath illuminates a clear and practical pathway for cultivating an awakened, loving heart. Drawing deeply from her Buddhist training and life experiences, Lama Palden Drolma masterfully presents a powerful guide for navigating the painful world we live in with compassion, openness, and healing. This book is an invaluable contribution for our times.”
— Wendy Garling, author of Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha’s Life

“With Love on Every Breath, Lama Palden offers an accessible and adaptable method to transmute suffering — our own and others’ — and to more deeply attune with our inherent loving awareness. An important, illuminating, and timely contribution!”
— John J. Prendergast, PhD, author of The Deep Heart and In Touch

“Love on Every Breath by Lama Palden Drolma brings to the public an ancient meditation practice, one that can help transform our personal and collective grief by awakening the love and compassion that are inherent in all beings. This book is a beautiful exploration of a practice that is so very needed today and is accessible to all. It is a practice that can be done in solitude in deep meditation or on the subway during one’s daily commute. As individuals and as a collective, we are dealing with much suffering in our world today, both human and planetary. There is no more urgent task than to learn to transform this pain into love so that we can awaken to a greater sense of well-being and to the true reality of what is. Lama Palden shows us the way by recounting stories from her own journey. She shows us that by practicing the Love on Every Breath meditation techniques, we, too, can find the beauty and love that reside in each and every heart.”
— Dena Merriam, founder of the Global Peace Initiative of Women and the Contemplative Alliance

“Lama Palden Drolma’s book, Love on Every Breath, is a beautiful guide for activating the awakened heart through her translation of this ancient Tibetan practice. She applies the teachings not only to Tibetan Buddhism but to all traditions, bridging the Eastern and Western practices, as her own lived experience. As a Western woman who was born into Christianity and who was called and trained to become a lama, she has the spiritual capacity to find the common ground and healing potential of love held at the core of the mystical traditions and bring it forth to her readers in a way that transforms pain into joy through love. Reading her book is a powerful blessing.”
— Carolyn Rivers, founder and director of the Sophia Institute

About this edition

• Publisher: New World Library
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1608685764
• ISBN 13: 9781608685769
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232