Safeguarding the Heart : A Buddhist Response to Suffering and September 11. This item is unavailable.Safeguarding the Heart : A Buddhist Response to Suffering and September 11

The horrific events of September 11, 2001—when two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, another into the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and a fourth in a field in Pennsylvania—were stark reminders of the tenets central to the Buddhist conception of existence: that life is full of suffering, that everything is impermanent, and that everything in existence is connected.

Buddhist nun Venerable Yifa explores these fundamental ideas by studying in detail what happened that day, the causes and effects of what occurred from a spiritual perspective, and how we can learn from the tragedy to access even deeper spiritual truths. In the process of this examination, Yifa reveals the Buddhist perspective on the nature of suffering, the meaning of justice, what is evil and what is good, and why some people die and others live.

Yifa then elucidates Buddhism’s eight different types of suffering from a practical standpoint, illuminating the essential Buddhist ideas of compassion and mindfulness and showing how we can apply these principles to everyday life and in our relationships. Her aim throughout is to help us both reach out to and heal others and protect ourselves—to safeguard our hearts—when suffering strikes.

Venerable Yifa has been a nun at Fo Guang Shan Monastery in Taiwan since 1979. She received her Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale University in 1996. She has been provost at Fo Guang Shan Buddhist College and dean at Hsi Lai University in California and Taiwan. She is the author of The Origin of Buddhist Monastic Code in Song China and a contributor to Benedict’s Dharma: Buddhists Reflect on the Rule of St. Benedict. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.