Creating a Life of Integrity: In Conversation with Joseph Goldstein

by Gail Andersen Stark

Conversations with Joseph Goldstein, one of today’s most renowned meditation teachers who taught ABC news anchor Dan Harris (author of 10% Happier) to meditate, on the topic of integrity.Creating a Life of Integrity is our personal trainer for strengthening our integrity muscles. When we don’t speak or act from our own sense of integrity, we feel lousy. Find out how you can live with more integrity—and subsequently more joy—as you follow these lively conversations between Joseph Goldstein, a founder of the modern mindfulness movement, and Gail Stark, a businesswoman and his student and friend of twenty-five years.  As Joseph and Gail unpack the components of integrity—generosity, virtue, renunciation, wisdom, courage, patience, truthfulness, resoluteness, loving-kindness, and equanimity—we discover each is a step on a path that transports us to an empowered place of clarity, commitment, and, consequently, more joy. As we strengthen and weave these qualities into our daily lives they become our trusted first response in a world that needs our integrity now. “A lovely, practical, intimate, and wise book. Read and you can enjoy an intimate conversation with a great teacher, and learn how to lovingly refine the study your own mind.”—Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart

Genres: Buddhism

281 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 5, 2020

Reviews

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure there's anything special about this book, but I'm excited for the 10-month course based on it. :) I just went to a one-time class through SIMS about the Paramis, and the woman I was in a breakout room with mentioned she was taking it. I always want to take long classes, but either they don't exist, or I can't afford them. I got a scholarship this time! Anyway, integrity is great, and so are the Paramis! Looking forward to focusing on practicing one each month.

The ten Paramis are:

Generosity - giving help and benefit to other living beings
Morality - live an ethical life
Renunciation - renounce worldly expectations
Wisdom - achieve a right understanding of life and the world
Energy - persistent effort and not being discouraged by failures
Patience - patiently accept life’s ups and downs
Truthfulness - honesty and truthfulness in all things
Determination - unwavering determination to progress on the path
Loving-kindness - show benevolence and compassion to all things
Equanimity - develop a mental equilibrium.

[lyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

When presented as abstractions, the Buddhist principles can read like a list of things everyone agrees with, but learning to put them into practice requires examples and real-life elucidations, which are richly provided here. The interview dialog between the author and Joseph Goldstein is lively and interesting and includes many practical tips for establishing a practice of meditation and mindfulness

[Jeanne Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book not only illuminated one of the many "lists" of Buddhism (the 10 Paramis) but also provided an excellent template for a meditation group to experiment and discuss how to cultivate these qualities in our own lives. Though the discussions of each of the qualities are not exhaustive (how could they be?) they are wise and instructive, and also accessible, human and often funny, and a great place to begin one's own personal explorations.