Awakening Joy: 10 Steps That Will Put You on the Road to Real Happiness

For seven years, meditation teacher Baraz has been leading a 10-month ""Awakening Joy"" course on-site and on-line (from his Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, Calif.). Here, the Eastern practitioner, with Buddhism scholar Alexander, offers a step-by-step guide to exploring principles of enlightened self-awareness. For Baraz and Alexander, being happy is a decision to be made despite what is going on in personal life or the world at large; like much Eastern philosophy, they emphasize the fundamental role of change, and both the importance and difficulty of accepting change in mind and manner(the hardest part of self-awareness). Chapters like ""The Joy of Letting Go"" and ""The Bliss of Blamelessness"" are filled with helpful tips and ancedotes from former participants and other authors of books on happiness. Worth reading through for those who find happiness out of reach, this is also a reference ideal for revisiting on a regular basis.