Breath By Breath - The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation - Softcover

Larry Rosenberg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0722538189 ISBN 13: 9780722538180

Publisher: Thorsons Publishing Group Ltd., 1999

Synopsis

Freedom from suffering is not only possible, but the means for achieving it are completely within our grasp—literally as near to us as our own breath. This is the 2,500-year-old good news contained in the Anapanasati Sutra, the Buddha's own teaching on cultivating both tranquility and deep insight through the full awareness of breathing. In this book, Larry Rosenberg brings this timeless meditation method to life for people today, using the insights gained from his many years of practice and teaching. With wisdom, compassion, and humor he shows how the practice of breath awareness is quietly, profoundly transformative—and also supremely practical: if you're breathing, you've already got everything you need to start.

About this title

Review:

In any meditation class, one of the first things one learns is the importance of breathing. For Larry Rosenberg, a seasoned instructor of insight meditation, the breath is everything. And he's not in bad company since the Buddha himself delivered a sutra on the subject. Rosenberg's Breath by Breath is an elaboration on this short classic but couched in familiar language, liberally spiced with anecdotes from Rosenberg's decades of practice and teaching. It's Rosenberg's earthy humor and patient instruction that make him such a popular teacher and that make Breath by Breath a rewarding read. He takes the beginning student from the wandering "doggy mind" to becoming a chicken, along the way getting a teacher's bite and sitting like a frog. For the hurried and harried, he includes a nutshell, two-step version of the sutra's 16-step practice (appended in the full text of the sutra). More of a coach than a disciplinarian, Rosenberg takes a see-what-happens attitude. "You don't make liberation happen," he says. "To contemplate breathing is to contemplate life itself." --Brian Bruya

About the Author:

Larry Rosenberg is founder and resident teacher of the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thorsons Publishing Group Ltd.
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0722538189
• ISBN 13: 9780722538180
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224