A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives

Review of Thupten Jinpa’s A Fearless HeartBy Mary E. Latela, M.DivIf you’ve ever viewed His Holiness the Dalai Lama giving a lesson on Buddhism, compassion, or science, you have seen Thupten Jinpa, his closest translator, nearby. Sometimes there are phrases which the Dalai Lama does not understand, and Mr. Jinpa takes the phrase apart or translates into Tibetan, and the inevitable “Aha!” moment comes. For many years Thupten Jinpa was a Buddhist monk, becoming a professor, and also an expert on the intersection of the sciences and contemplative knowledge. He recently helped to create a vibrant program on Compassionate Cultivation Training at Stanford University.The discussion of his difficult decision to leave the monastery enables the reader to understand the anxiety in returning to the lay community, because he really wanted to have a family. Descriptions of his discomfort in telling his parents, and even the Dalai Lama, are heartwarming. Here is a down-to-earth and helpful lesson for those who must leave the service to humanity to become a single person in the real world, including to get a job. The author earned a Ph.D in World Religions and became a professor. He met his life partner, they married, and now are raising their two daughters.Mr. Jinpa realized that a certain area was particularly difficult for himself, and – it turns out – for many others. The chapter “May I Be Happy?” addresses the exhaustion of people doing good work and forgetting to take care of themselves, leading to emotional harm and even burnout. The author and his students worked through the two pronged essence of compassion – cultivating compassion for ourselves and cultivating loving-kindness toward others. He helped to create a vibrant program on Compassionate Cultivation Training at Stanford University.The discussion of his difficult decision to leave the monastery enables the reader to understand the anxiety in returning to the lay community, because he really wanted to have a family. Descriptions of his discomfort in telling his parents, and even the Dalai Lama, are heartwarming. This is a down-to-earth and helpful lesson for those who must leave their service to humanity to become a single person in the real world, including to get a job. The author earned a Ph.D in World Religions and became a professor. He met his life partner, they married, and now are raising their two daughters.The book is a delight to read; the writing is clear and rich. The many short exercises and the true-to-life illustrations of real people make reading very fruitful. This is a must-read book. I recommend it to my many colleagues in service to humanity, and to all who wish to experience a fuller life, wherever they are on their life journey.(ccare.stanford.edu/tibetclassics.org)

Can a book have more than 5 stars? I am so grateful to Dr. Thupten Jinpa for this clear, elegant and life-changing book, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives. My daughter, immersed in a course on Asian philosophy, told me that she thought she could sum up Confucian thought in one phrase: Be excellent to each other. Yes! I replied But, how?Thankfully, A Fearless Heart provides a roadmap to answer that question for the modern age. Based on his extraordinary background as a leading scholar of Tibetan Buddhist teachings and psychology, decades of translating the teaching of the Dalai Lama, and a student of emerging neuroscience, Dr. Thupten Jinpa gracefully distills these learnings into an understandable and actionable guide to embodying the “universal secular ethics” His Holiness espouses. The gentleness of his writing is itself a testament to the value of his instruction.A Fearless Heart already has changed my mind, my heart—and perhaps in the long run most importantly—my practice. As he advises, I am setting my intention for the day and, with this guidance, have a much clearer idea how to implement a life more compassionate to others and to myself.This book both respects and transcends our respective beliefs. I am recommending this book to everyone I know who is in search of ways to live a more fully engaged and human life.

A Fearless Heart, How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives is a timely and needed pointer for awakening the Heart of humanity. It offers a direct and individual experience of finding the One that is universal within us all, and through this a direct path through suffering for our self as well as others. It opens the door to happiness and kindness as a life direction and through the research at Stanford's Center for Compassion and Altruism and Education Research (CCARE) supports the lived understanding that Compassion is the path to peace within as well as peace experienced without. Thupten Jinpa makes it very clear that the way out of suffering within our life as well as in the greater world is living with the great happiness that compassion brings to each of us individually and the importance of this for health and wellbeing in our interactions with others. As the world becomes more violent this book shows the way to lived 'Peace' for our life, for our families, and the regeneration of our fragile Earth. .

Fearless Heart is a manual for developing compassion in all aspects of life. The text is based on the extensive work the author has done through the Stanford Cultivating Compassion Training (CCT) program, of which he is a founder. The many exercises and real life examples provide the reader with a solid basis for compassion practice based upon a Tibetan Buddhism. The author's extensive experience and close ties with the Dalai Lama are apparent in the applicability of this work. My only qualm is that the author mentions CCT so many times that it seems like he is trying to hard sell the program and it came be very distracting to the rest of the work. If the other material was not so highly valuable I would have rated this much lower. Overall, I highly recommend this work to those unfamiliar with meditation, Buddhism, or a Buddhist understanding of compassion.

When I put great effort, time and thought into a complimentary review it gets rejected by Amazon. However, if I write a non thought provoking and grammatically incorrect review such as “It Good” there are no issues. So be it! My review for this product is “It Good”.

Good to read

I love the book. The book is very well written and the author clearly knows about it. Absolutely great!

The insights and information offered in this book are relevant and applicable in our modern world. The author draws from scientific research and personal experience,making this a useful tool for everyday people and the professionals alike.

Wonderful book

Meeting Thupten Jinpa and his life's love- message through his newest book is a rare gift. It's to face an outstanding intelligent and a compassionate person, who has been dedicating his whole life to share his wisdom and help redeem from suffering, so as to realise kindness,humility modesty in life- gestaltung,serving, wherever we are. Deeply rooted in the perspective of Prajna & Maha Karuna, as ancient Contemplative Traditions design The Path - Thupten Jinpa offers an understandable concept and Compassion Meditations to encourage us readers to overcome fear, become inwardly free and truly wise and compassionate towards ourselves and our surrounding. This book can turn our burned-out lives upside down to lit anew the enigmatic spark of Compassion . Geshe-ma Tulku Thögyal / Elisabeth Diendorfer,Vienna.