Sharon Salzberg's first book, drawing on her Burmese training under Sayadaw U Pandita and her co-founding role at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. The book centres metta — the brahmaviharas of lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity — as a discrete contemplative practice rather than as an emotional disposition that 'should' arise.
Reception
The book that made metta a standard part of Western Vipassana practice, alongside Salzberg's continued teaching at IMS. Inside the Insight tradition it is treated as the canonical short presentation; outside it, the practice has propagated into secular mindfulness curricula, into psychotherapy (Compassion-Focused Therapy draws on it), and into chaplaincy training. Salzberg's broader work with Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield (the IMS triumvirate) gives the book institutional weight that smaller Western dharma works lack.
Frequently asked
What is Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness about?
It is Sharon Salzberg's introduction to metta meditation — the Buddhist practice of cultivating lovingkindness toward oneself and others. The book presents the four brahmaviharas (lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity) as trainable qualities developed through systematic meditation rather than as emotions that arise spontaneously.
What are the brahmaviharas?
The brahmaviharas are four qualities of heart cultivated in the Theravada meditation tradition: metta (lovingkindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (sympathetic joy), and upekkha (equanimity). Salzberg presents them as the structural spine of the book, devoting chapters to each and connecting them to practice instructions drawn from her training in Burma.
Who is Sharon Salzberg?
Sharon Salzberg (born 1952) is an American Buddhist teacher who co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts in 1974, alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield. She trained under Sayadaw U Pandita in Burma and has been one of the primary teachers responsible for bringing metta practice into the Western Vipassana curriculum.