Drawing from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sufism, each of the 66 chapters includes a dharma (teaching) and sadhana (practice) to help people shift from suffering to peace. The aim is to move from an agitated \u201cmonkey mind\u201d and to instead \u201cperceive what is truly happening in the freshness, juiciness, and awe of the present moment.\u201d The book covers concepts like Buddha\u2019s \u201cFour Immeasurables\u201d: mudita (sympathetic joy), metta (loving-kindness), karuna (compassion), and upekkha (equanimity). The \u201cspirit-like Self (felt as I am)\u201d is differentiated from the \u201cperson-like self (identifiable as I am this or that).\u201d Croce introduces tools such as the \u201c6-Second Sacred Pause\u201d (to avoid knee-jerk reactions) and urges readers to exercise their \u201clet me go muscle\u201d to release self-centeredness. The book advises talking back to the \u201cvoice-in-the-head\u201d or writing a haiku to interrupt it. Croce presents \u201cRAIN\u201d (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture) as a way to free yourself from disturbing thoughts or feelings. Dance and karma yoga are among the recommended ways to touch the divine through physical activity, while embracing uncertainty, listening to silence, and celebrating the beauty in art are other suggested practices. Croce offers readers bite-size mindfulness advice that should be easy to implement in their lives. The author encourages self-inquiry through insightful prompts such as, \u201cHow is clinging to this negative thought and feeling working for me?\u201d Memorable three-word mantras like \u201cSpace is Grace\u201d or \u201cRAIN on pain!\u201d help readers retain each chapter\u2019s lessons. The book incorporates stories, poetry, and quotes from legends such as Rumi, Hafiz, Pema Chodron, and Eckhart Tolle, as well as anecdotes from the author\u2019s own spiritual journey. However, some may find questions like \u201cWhy am I choosing to suffer?\u201d or \u201cIf I see no reason for giving thanks and feeling grateful at this moment, whose fault is that?\u201d more reproachful than helpful.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Drawing from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sufism, each of the 66 chapters includes a dharma (teaching) and sadhana (practice) to help people shift from suffering to peace. The aim is to move from an agitated \u201cmonkey mind\u201d and to instead \u201cperceive what is truly happening in the freshness, juiciness, and awe of the present moment.\u201d The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}