Questions About Mindful Live
Will this Mindful Live session be available to watch again?
Yes, you can watch the Mindful Live session with Sharon Salzberg and Barry Boyce for a limited time here.
How can I stay up-to-date on upcoming Mindful Live events?
Sign up for our newsletter to stay in the loop about Mindful Live events. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for reminders and updates.
How can I learn more about loving-kindness meditation?
Find resources, guided meditations, and more at mindful.org. Or, join us to discover the power of loving-kindness in our new course Loving-Kindness Meditation with Sharon Salzberg.
Further Reading From Sharon Salzberg
Can you list the book you’re discussing?
You can read an excerpt from Sharon’s new book, Real Change: The Transformative Power of Loving-Kindness in the loving-kindness issue of Mindful magazine.
Enter for your chance to win a free copy of Real Change: The Transformative Power of Loving-Kindness.
How do you personally practice patience, kindness, tolerance, and unconditional love for yourself before doing so for all others?
Loving-kindness is so much more than “just” a feel-good practice. It is the force that can connect, inspire, and motivate us to transform the world. In the loving-kindness issue of Mindful magazine, founding editor Barry Boyce talks with Sharon Salzberg about attention, resilience, anger, and the need to be kinder to ourselves and the world. Read the full conversation: Meditation Teacher Sharon Salzberg Talks About the Power of Loving-Kindness.
If one is struggling to connect emotionally to the object of our loving-kindness meditation, is it acceptable to fake it until you make it?
In a Q&A from the Fall issue, Sharon talks about the first time she followed a loving-kindness practice. She reveals that we don’t have to make anything happen while practicing. With time, you’ll notice its benefits.
“Many times, practicing loving-kindness will be very very ordinary, very dry or very mechanical—but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean that nothing is happening or that it’s not working. What’s important is to do it, is to form that intention in the mind because we’re uniting the power of loving-kindness and the power of intention and that is what will produce the effect of that free flow of loving-kindness,” Sharon writes.
How do I offer loving-kindness to estranged family members?
Why Loving-Kindness Takes Time: “It’s a very powerful place because that person, in some ways, symbolizes the difference between love or loving-kindness, which is conditional, and that which is on uncondition that which goes beyond having our desires met, having affection returned, having people treat us well. It is that person that defines the line between that which is finite and that which is infinite. Yet it’s not easy. Very often to think of this person and you enmity, or anger, or fear, whatever. As a suggestion, when we begin that part of the practice, in the spirit of doing it in the easiest way possible, it’s probably better to start with somebody where there’s mild irritation rather than the person who has hurt you most in your life.
And slowly begin to open in levels of difficulty. Sometimes when we send loving-kindness to a difficult person, we do feel all of these other feelings, like anger. If possible, see if you can let go of it. Return the recitation of the phrases. If it’s too strong, then you can drop the loving-kindness. Pay careful attention to the feeling until it begins to subside some, very much with the sense of compassion for oneself: You don’t need to judge it. Now when you can you can pick up the loving-kindness again, perhaps with an easier person.” Sharon writes.
videos from the real change summit
Read more
Purpose, Fear, Love: A “Real Change” Q&A with Sharon Salzberg
Sharon Salzberg offers wise, compassion-focused views on where the world is right now and the part we each have to play in being the change we wish to see. Read More
A Practice to Welcome Gratitude with Sharon Salzberg
This practice, from Sharon Salzberg’s book Real Change, opens a doorway in your heart to gratitude and receiving happiness. Read More
A Guided Meditation for Gathering Your Energy
Sharon Salzberg shares this meditation for energy and helping to strengthen concentration so you can focus with more ease. Read More
A Simple Meditation to Connect With Loving-Kindness, from Sharon Salzberg
This classic loving-kindness meditation can help you to awaken to how connected we all are. You don’t have to like everybody, or agree with everything they do—but you can open up to the possibility of caring for them, because our lives are inextricably linked. Read More
A Guided Loving-Kindness Meditation with Sharon Salzberg
Sharon Salzberg guides us through a 20-minute practice for connection and awareness. Read More