Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and find a greater sense of connection with others. Our fear of intimacy--both with others and with ourselves--creates feelings of pain and longing, but those feelings can awaken in us the desire for freedom and the willingness to take up a spiritual path.

Longtime meditation practitioner and teacher Sharon Salzberg draws on Buddhist teachings, wisdom stories from various traditions, her own experiences, and guided meditation exercises to unearth the radiant heart within each one of us. Discover how the practice of lovingkindness illuminates a path to cultivating love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, helping us realize our own capacity for goodness and a new connection with all beings.

This book is part of the Shambhala Pocket Library series.

The Shambhala Pocket Library is a collection of short, portable teachings from notable figures across religious traditions and classic texts. The covers in this series are rendered by Colorado artist Robert Spellman. The books in this collection distill the wisdom and heart of the work Shambhala Publications has published over 50 years into a compact format that is collectible, reader-friendly, and applicable to everyday life.