Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening

A manifesto, a map, and a manual, this essential guide for spirituality in the twenty-first century replaces the concept of original sin with original love as the true foundation of our life.

An increasing number of people today feel disconnected, disengaged, and lonely, while divisiveness is at an all time high. Many of us are seeking solace, for ourselves, loved ones and the wider world. Original Love is the secular spiritual handbook we need to ease our troubles. 

Renowned mindfulness teacher Henry Shukman provides a way forward based on four "inns" of practice —Mindfulness, Support, Absorption, and Awakening. Together, they lead to deep and fulfilling meditation for practitioners at all levels. And it works! Shukman includes personal anecdotes and inspiring stories from his students that reveal how it has transformed their lives.
 
Urgently needed, Original Love helps us create peace for ourselves and our times by
 

• reducing stress, anxiety, and depression;
• relaxing the mind and body;
• easing feelings of worry and regret, anger and frustration;
• improving decision-making and executive functioning;
• and awakening to our true nature: unconditional love 

 
Finding a sense of love is a critical purpose of meditation. This book guides us back to the loving peace that lives at the center of things, which is Original Love itself.

Henry Shukman is a poet, author and Zen master in the Sanbo Zen lineage. He is co-founder of the single-path meditation app The Way, founder of the Original Love meditation program, and spiritual director emeritus at Mountain Cloud Zen Center. His most recent books are Original Love: the Four Inns on the Path of Awakening (HarperOne) and the Zen memoir One Blade of Grass. He has taught at Google and Harvard Business School, the Institute of American Indian Arts and Oxford Brookes University, and is the author of several award-winning books of poetry and fiction. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Sunday Times and Financial Times. Henry has an M.A. from Cambridge and an MLitt from St Andrews.