Why Is the Buddha Smiling? : Mindfulness As a Means of Bringing Calm and Insight to Your Life

This text offers readers the chance to explore ways of bringing clarity and insight to their everyday lives using the Buddhist principle of mindfulness. Mindfulness involves a re-examination of every aspect of life, from our relationships with ourselves and others to our behaviour and thought patterns in every situation - the workplace, at home and in the outdoors - in a way that shows us things clearly as they are and frees us from habitual reactions. The book includes exercises and practices that should help readers to live life with awareness of the present moment and to increase their connection with life. This awareness offers freedom from the grip of negative emotions, which lead to suffering. Mindfulness helps to steady, stabilize and strengthen the power of our attention and increases our "centre of gravity" so we are less easily distracted. In learning this practice, we will realize that the Buddha is smiling because he has discovered that there is a path to freedom from suffering. The path begins with mindfulness and it is open to everyone.

Mark Magill is the co-author of the best-selling Good Life, Good Death: Tibetan Wisdom on Reincarnation (Riverhead Books, 2001). He has served on the board of advisors of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. He is also a filmmaker whose work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He lives in New York.