It's Easier than You Think

The Buddhist Way to Happiness

By: Sylvia Boorstein

Narrated by: Sylvia Boorstein

Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Using delightful and deceptively powerful stories from everyday experiences, beloved Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein demystifies spirituality, charts the path to happiness through the Buddha's basic teachings, and presents the means to eliminate hindrances and see clearly to develop a realistic course toward wisdom and compassion. A wonderfully engaging guide, full of humor, memorable insights, and love. Boorstein, known by friends and colleagues as a "Jewish grandmother bodhisattva," is highly-skilled in making the universal wisdom of traditional Buddhist teachings available to all.

©2014 Phoenix Books; Copyright ©1995 by Sylvia Boorstein (P)1996 Audio Literature

Critic reviews

"Sylvia Boorstein's teachings will be helpful to anyone interested in cultivating wisdom, compassion, and self-awareness." (Frances Vaughan, author of The Inward Arc)

Relatable and Accessible

Sylvia offers Westerners an entry point in which to explore Buddhism. And I had a few chuckles along the way.

Great lessons!

Ms. Boorstein has a quiet, soothing voice that would make any book easy to listen to.

The lessons of Buddha that she teaches are ones that we can use every day to make our lives better no matter who we are, no matter where we live, and no matter what our history and past are.

This is all you need

This book is I think perhaps the best introduction that one could have to the fundamentals of Buddhism. Sylvia’s clarity and compassion make everything simple and accessible. Simply listening already changes how one feels and opens the door to realizing even more. One of my absolute favorites and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Thank you Sylvia Boorstein.

Great beginner's book on Buddhism

What made the experience of listening to It's Easier than You Think the most enjoyable?

It's easy to understand, clearly laid out with lots of examples to clarify the principals. The author does a very nice job reading her book. Her style is warm and conversational with gentle humor. I enjoyed every word, and I was able to apply some of the practices right away. I would like to read it again to help me to remember the teachings and to help me put them into practice.

Any additional comments?

The writing was wonderful and the performance was great. My only issue was with the recording quality. The sound was quite muffled. This forced me to have to pay close attention to be able to understand what was being said. I find it humorous and ironic that I am writing that, because the whole point of the book is that we would suffer less if we could learn to pay attention and really work to understand what is being said. So I am not complaining about that, but I think it will be helpful to other listeners if they know this is the case.

Encouraging and practical

I enjoy Sylvia‘s stories, and her ability to relate every day experiences, and how Buddhism principles can help create more peace. Although nothing is permanent, the ability to adjust, process, and gain tools to create balance has been very helpful to me. Many thanks.

Simple and elegant

Sylvia Boorstein wrote (and delivered) one of the most simple, elegant books on living zen. In a concise but interesting way she tells you how to follow Buddha's teachings and why following them makes your life work.

Soothing to go to sleep to

Sylvia Boorstein’s humor and good storytelling makes nightly listening a pleasure. I love going to sleep imprinting these valuable lessons on my mind.

Do you have 10 stars?

Her manner of speaking is such an easy way to listen.....I never wavy it to end

A simple wonderful book !!!

Sylvia Boorstein did such a wonderful job with this book. I enjoyed it si much I listened to it twice. Lots of great stories and pragmatic wisdom for dealing with the most difficult experiences this life throws at us.

Wonderful

Many thanks to Dani Shapiro for insisting her podcast listeners download this book. Just a total gift.