Awakening Joy 10 Steps to True Happiness

Awakening Joy is more than just another book about happiness. More than simply offering suggested strategies to change our behaviour, it uses time-tested practices to train the mind to learn new ways of thinking. The principles of the course are universal, although much of the material includes Buddhist philosophy drawn from the author's thirty years as a Buddhist meditation teacher and spiritual counsellor. In these times of economic uncertainty Awakening Joy shows we can get through hard times and use our experience to keep the our heart open while moving from discouragement to well-being, regardless of the external circumstances. Genuine well-being is not expensive. True happiness is not about acquiring anything, but rather about opening to the natural joy and aliveness right inside you.

James Baraz has been teaching meditation for more than thirty years. He has taught the Awakening Joy course, both onsite and online, since 2003. A co-founding teacher of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, Baraz lives in Berkeley. Shoshana Alexander has studied Buddhism since the early 1970s and is the author of In Praise of Single Parents and Women's Ventures, Women's Visions. She lives in Ashland, Oregon.