278: Sharon Salzberg: Real Love and Meditation

On today’s episode of the Healthy Wealthy and Smart Podcast, Sharon Salzberg joins me to discuss her new book Real Love which will be released on June 6th, 2017! In her tenth book, Sharon Salzberg provides a pathway towards more sustainable and authentic connection by offering a creative toolkit of mindfulness exercises and meditation techniques that guide us to strip away our layers of habit to access a truer understanding of love, “real love.” This journey enables us to become more present and to begin to experience real love—love based on direct interactions, rather than preconceptions. When we are truly engaged in these present experiences we are not only able to feel more connected to our own core selves, but also to those around us, and ultimately to life itself. Divided into three sections, Real Love explores love in three arenas of life: for oneself, love for an other, and love for all of life.

In this episode, we discuss:

-An introduction to Loving Kindness Meditation

-Practical strategies to incorporate meditation into a busy schedule

-Is self compassion through meditation considered laziness?

-What Sharon hopes readers will learn from Real Love and viewing love as an ability not a feeling

-And so much more!

Sharon believes that our human brain, “can tend to fixate on what’s wrong and not appreciate what’s right and what’s good.” Loving Kindness Meditation understands our bias to focus on the negative and balances it with positive reflection for a holistic view of ourselves.

Incorporating meditation into a busy schedule can be as simple as being more present in everyday activities. Sharon stresses that, “Just short moments that break the crazy momentum that we get lost in, they make a difference too.”

According to Sharon, meditation is not a process of resetting our inner thoughts but rather enhancing them. “Our goal is not to wipe out thoughts, our goal is to develop a different relationship to our thoughts... The kind of awareness we are cultivating is balanced, it’s clear, it’s present, it’s loving.”

Sharon shares that the ultimate effect of meditation is revealed through a constant practice. By mastering the skill, “We learn to let go and begin again. When we do that over and over and over again, what happens is that our attention starts to get stabilized.”

For more information on Sharon:

Born in New York City in 1952, Sharon Salzberg experienced a childhood involving considerable loss and turmoil. An early realization of the power of meditation to overcome personal suffering determined her life direction. Her teaching and writing now communicates that power to a worldwide audience of practitioners. She offers non-sectarian retreat and study opportunities for participants from widely diverse backgrounds. Sharon first encountered Buddhism in 1969, in an Asian philosophy course at the State University of New York, Buffalo. The course sparked an interest that, in 1970, took her to India, for an independent study program. Sharon traveled motivated by “an intuition that the methods of meditation would bring me some clarity and peace.” In 1971, in Bodh Gaya, India, Sharon attended her first intensive meditation course. She spent the next years engaged in intensive study with highly respected meditation teachers. She returned to America in 1974 and began teaching vipassana (insight) meditation. In 1976, she established, together with Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield, the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts, which now ranks as one of the most prominent and active meditation centers in the Western world. Sharon and Joseph Goldstein expanded their vision in 1989 by co-founding the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS). In 1998, they initiated the Forest Refuge, a long-term retreat center secluded in a wooded area on IMS property. Today she teaches a variety of offerings around the globe. Sharon resides in Barre, Massachusetts, and New York City. She served as a panelist with the Dalai Lama and leading scientists at the 2005 Mind and Life Investigating the Mind Conference in Washington, DC. She also coordinated the meditation faculty for the 2005 Mind and Life Summer Institute, an intensive five-day meeting to advance research on the intersection of meditation and the cognitive and behavioral sciences. At the 2005 Sacred Circles Conference at the Washington National Cathedral, Sharon served as a keynote speaker. She has addressed audiences at the State of the World Forum, the Peacemakers Conference (sharing a plenary panel with Nobel Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Jose Ramos Horta) and has delivered keynotes at Tricycle’s Buddhism in America Conference, as well as Yoga Journal, Kripalu and Omega conferences. She was selected to attend the Gethsemani encounter, a dialogue on spiritual life between Buddhist and Christian leaders that ...