The Magnanimous Heart: Compassion and Love, Loss and Grief, Joy and Liberation (1)

In her long-awaited debut, a beloved master teacher shows us how to move from the “constant squeeze” of suffering to a direct experience of enoughness.

The magnanimous heart is a heart of balance and buoyancy, of generosity and inclusivity. It allows us to approach each moment exactly as it is, in a fresh and alive way free from agendas and “shoulds,” receiving all that arises. It has the capacity to hold anything and everything, transforming even vulnerability and grief into workable assets.

In writing evocative of Pema Chödrön’s, Narayan Helen Liebenson teaches us exactly how it is possible to turn the sting and anguish of loss into a path of liberation—the deep joy, peace, and happiness within our own hearts that exists beyond mere circumstances.

The Magnanimous Heart shows us how to skillfully respond to painful human emotions through the art of meditative inquiry, or questioning wisely. Readers will learn how to live from a compassionate love that guides our lives and warms whatever it shines upon.

With metta and compassion as companions and allies, we discover how our own magnanimous hearts can gently allow the inner knots to untie themselves.

Narayan Helen Liebenson is a guiding teacher at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has been teaching there since its inception in 1985. Narayan is also a guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where she offers residential retreats. She leads retreats as well in other parts of the country and the world.

Her training over the past forty years includes study in the United States and in Asia with meditation masters in the Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan traditions.  She was a student of the late Chan master Sheng Yen for over ten years. Asked by Master Sheng Yen to teach, Narayan decided to integrate her understanding of Zen into her already existing Vipassana lineage.

Narayan is the author and illustrator of a small book titled Life as Meditation, and for many years wrote a meditator’s advice column in Buddhadharma magazine.