Like that of fellow insight meditation teacher Jack Kornfield, Boorstein's teaching and writing style is like chocolate: what she has to say goes down easily and smoothly, and you want a whole lot more of it. The author of That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist
and other books uses clear and simple terms, apt examples drawn from daily life and a liberal lacing of humor to sweeten the lessons. Through traditional Buddhist story and contemporary personal anecdote, practical meditation techniques and a nifty "periodic table of virtue" that links qualities and practices, she engagingly and clearly lays out the Buddha's teaching of the 10 Paramitas, or "perfections of the heart." Her wonderfully self-deprecating teaching tales heighten her point that enlightenment and compassion are always conditions to be realized over and over rather than fixed states enjoyed by the advanced practitioner. Boorstein's fresh interpretations of the Buddha's teachings of renunciation, energy, patience and other heart-perfections make them desirable and, more importantly, highly doable. Showing that the Buddha's Four Noble Truths are a path of practice rather than a set of cognitions, this book of training in the everyday cultivation of virtue is a wonderful complement to books that train the mind through meditation. Even better than chocolate, this book can be savored again and again. (Sept.)
