Original Love

The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening

By: Henry Shukman

Narrated by: Henry Shukman

""Powerful, poetic, transformative.""—Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance\

""Henry Shukman is one of the wisest and most poetical teachers of dharma we have today. In an increasingly fragmented world, he is unusually good company.""—Sam Harris

New York Times bestselling author of Waking Up and host of the Making Sense podcast\\The essential meditation guide for the twenty-first century: renowned mindfulness teacher Henry Shukman replaces the concept of original sin with original love, teaching us to tap into the love that shapes our world and can transform who we are.

An increasing number of people today feel disconnected, disengaged, and lonely. Many of us are seeking solace, beginning with ourselves. Original Love is the secular spiritual handbook we need to ease our troubles and find the highest possible happiness.

Henry Shukman, spiritual director of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, provides a way forward based on four paths—Mindfulness, Support, Absorption, and Awakening—that promote growth and healing through meditation for practitioners of any level. And it works! Shukman includes inspiring stories from the students of his Original Love program that reveal how it has transformed their lives.

Urgently needed, Original Love helps us create peace for ourselves and our times by

• reducing stress, anxiety, and depression;
• relaxing the mind and body;
• easing feelings of worry, regret, anger, and irritation;
• and improving decision-making and executive functioning.

Finding a sense of love is a critical purpose of meditation. Finding your way back to the loving peace that lives at the center of things is Original Love.

A gift

Quit reading reviews and dive in! Henry is thoughtful, thorough, and kind. One of my favorite meditation books.

Shattered

This book is amazing. As a semi-jaded westerner the title gave me pause. Thankfully, I was familiar with the author and pressed on. This book broke not only my half unrecognized bias towards the concept of love but blew my heart and mind open in ways I didn’t think possible. As a long time practitioner who still had issues with opening to ‘love’ because of the way it’s usually presented, Henry distilled the essence of Zen and Buddhism in such a way as to finally nudge me over the edge and allow me to fall into the sweet, rich universe of the heart. A must read.

Mystical Zen

Excellent! I liked the mystical bent of this book. It had a lot of the usual ingredients of a good Dharma book. What was unique for me was the focus on awakening and the mystical side of practice.

Will listen again right away

I love the beautiful poetic imagery and the pointings to what is beyond language. Thank you, Henri, for walking us to Truth.

What a brilliant book

I thoroughly enjoyed Shukman’s book as well as his narration. There is something beautiful and calming about the way he speaks. His voice invites you in and makes you feel welcome. And pretty soon his words make you feel loved. I cried so many times. Will be listening to it again very soon.