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Meditation Teacher Sharon Salzberg Talks About the Power of Loving-Kindness

Founding editor Barry Boyce talks with his dear friend Sharon Salzberg about attention, resilience, anger, and the need to be kinder to ourselves and the world.

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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. Here world-renowned mindfulness teacher, Sharon Salzberg, one of the foremost teachers of loving-kindness, helps to pave the way.

Barry Boyce: You’ve been practicing mindfulness for quite some time and I’ve heard you talk about how meditation and kindness are inseparably linked. Can you explain?

Sharon Salzberg: Let me start with a little background. Nowadays, if you want to practice meditation, there are meditation centers and studios all over the place. Or you could take a course. You can go on online and find 50 or 100 books on meditation.

When I started, in the early ’70s, lots of us went to Asia. I chose India.

When I traveled there as an 18-year-old to meet great meditation teachers, I felt like I knew a lot. I had read plenty of Eastern philosophy and was pretty sure I had gained a good understanding. I was in for a bit of a surprise.  The first thing I was taught when I went on my first meditation…

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About the author

Barry Boyce

Barry Boyce is Founding Editor of Mindful and Mindful.org. A longtime meditation practitioner and teacher—as well as a professional writer and editor— he is the editor of and a primary contributor to The Mindfulness Revolution: Leading Psychologists, Scientists, Artists, and Meditation Teachers on the Power of Mindfulness in Daily Life. Barry also worked closely with Congressman Tim Ryan, as developmental editor, on A Mindful Nation and The Real Food Revolution. Barry serves on the board of directors of the Foundation for a Mindful Society and the Centre for Mindfulness Studies in Toronto as well as on the advisory board of Peace in Schools, in Portland, Oregon.

About the author

Sharon Salzberg

Sharon Salzberg is a meditation teacher and New York Times best-selling author. She is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and has played a crucial role in bringing Asian meditation practices to the West. Sharon has been a student of meditation since 1971, guiding retreats worldwide since 1974. She is a weekly columnist for On Being, a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and the author of many books including Real Happiness, Lovingkindness, and Real Change.