Book Description
The increasing complexities and mysteries of life have inspired a journey back to the essential teachings of the world’s ancient religions. Drawing on basic Buddhist tenets, Living Kindness helps the seeker on that journey. The same principles that guided the historical Gautama Buddha on his path to enlightenment are here — generosity, effort, patience, ethics, simplicity and meditation, wisdom, thoughtfulness, steadfastness, equanimity, and loving-kindness. Poetically drawn stories and anecdotes from the author’s life and the lives of his teachers demonstrate how these ten principles endure in the rituals and practices of many of the world’s great religions — and how they apply to modern living. The clarity, comfort, and guidance found in this book will help to teach and inspire sacred living.


Excerpted from Living Kindness: The Buddha's Ten Guiding Principles for a Blessed Life by Donald Altman, Lama Surya Das, Don Altman. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Living Kindness focuses on wise, timeless, and enduring spiritual principles, or values, that were promoted and followed by the historical Gautama Buddha. The Buddha Vamsa Pali Texts, or lineage of the Buddhas, tell the story of how the Buddha-to-be found the ten conditions necessary for becoming a Buddha. These principles are astonishingly fresh and easily adapted to modern life. Some Buddhist teachings use these as their ideal, a means by which one becomes a Bodhisattva, or an "awakening being" seeking enlightenment. But do not assume that this makes them exclusively "Buddhist" principles or standards. Or that you have to be a Bodhisattva to experience them. Who can benefit from these principles? Anyone can. Whatever your faith, creed, or background, living kindness represents an inclusive, tolerant, and interfaith path that is not steeped in dogma or ideology. These ten principles—generosity, effort, patience, ethics, simplicity and meditation, wisdom, truthfulness, steadfastness, equanimity, and lovingkindness —offer a universal path to spiritual growth and compassionate living kindness. They can also help us cope with the many challenges facing us today, both personally and as a community.

FROM THE PUBLISHER