Real Happiness
Sharon Salzberg · 2010
A leading meditation teacher turns decades of practice into a doable 28-day program built on three trainable skills, concentration, mindfulness, and lovingkindness, proving that real happiness is less about what happens to you and more about how you relate to it.
A practical, step-by-step meditation workbook from a leading mindfulness teacher, ideal for actionable summaries.
Three of the ideas you’ll keep
The Clif summary of Real Happiness pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first three.
- Meditation is a skill, not a personality trait, treat it like exercise: short, consistent reps (even 20 minutes a day) beat rare heroic sessions, and improvement comes from showing up, not from talent.
- You don't have to stop thinking to meditate. The goal isn't an empty mind; it's changing your relationship to thoughts so they stop running the show.
- Noticing you've wandered IS the practice. Salzberg calls the instant you realize 'I drifted' the magic moment, your one chance to drop self-judgment and gently begin again, over and over.
The other 4 — and the full 9-minute summary — are in the app.
What’s inside: 7 chapters
The whole summary runs about 9 minutes, read or listened to.
- Why Meditate? What It Actually Does
- The Three Skills: Your Whole Toolkit
- Week 1: The Breath and the Art of Starting Over
- Week 2: Mindfulness of the Body
- Week 3: Working with Thoughts and Emotions
- Week 4: Lovingkindness and the Widening Circle
- Keeping the Practice Going
Finish Real Happiness tonight.
Read or listen to the full summary in about 9 minutes, then keep the ideas with a minute of review a day. Start with the 2-minute quiz — no card required.
Close to Real Happiness
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10% Happier Dan Harris A hugely popular, accessible memoir that demystifies meditation for busy, skeptical adults. -
Altered Traits Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson A well-known evidence-based look at what meditation actually does to the brain and behavior. -
Mindfulness in Plain English Bhante Henepola Gunaratana A clear, classic, widely recommended manual on insight meditation, perfectly summarizable as how-to. -
The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness Andy Puddicombe From the Headspace founder, a hugely popular, beginner-friendly take-ten-minutes approach to meditation. -
Waking Up Sam Harris The rare meditation book that treats selflessness as a testable fact, not a belief, spirituality rescued from religion and handed… -
Wherever You Go, There You Are Jon Kabat-Zinn The foundational popular text on mindfulness meditation in everyday life, by the man who brought it to mainstream medicine.