Press Release
Making Love Accessible — And Relevant
Awakening Through Love pioneers new ways of using Tibetan Buddhist practices: in family, work, service, social action
“Offers us practical methods for cultivating our capacities for empathy and compassion — not in some remote mountain hermitage, but in the midst of
life.” — Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence
“It’s a must-read if you yearn for freedom, peace, and healing, not to mention unshakeable joy.” — Raphael Cushnir, author of Setting Your Heart on Fire
“An uplifting and joyful reminder of our human potential. As a manual for practice,
it wonderfully supports our shift from a contracted self-centeredness to the
profound expansiveness of connection with others.” — Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness
Love is often considered an abstract concept or, when discussed in popular culture, often portrayed as a one-dimensional caricature of sex and romance. But Boston College professor and Tibetan Buddhist lama John Makransky suggests everything that is most important to everyone is dependent on love.
In his new book Awakening Through Love: Unveiling Your Deepest Goodness (Wisdom Publications, $16.95), Makransky adapts Tibetan Buddhist practices using plain, practical instructions to show readers how to develop a deeply wise, enduring power of love and compassion for every part of their lives — and why these qualities are so relevant and important. He puts particular focus on family and work relationships, service, and social action.
Tibetan Buddhism is widely acknowledged for its time-tested meditation methods to actualize deep wisdom in loving connection to others. Ongoing scientific studies continue to prove the dramatic benefits of such centuries-old practices for human well-being. Rooted in Tibet’s Dzogchen tradition, Awakening Through Love distills these practices into an accessible, practicable form for Westerners of all faiths and backgrounds. Each chapter includes a guided meditation, powerful techniques to connect with sources of inspiration and blessing. Makransky shows that these need not be mystifying, comprehensible only to accomplished monks and yogis; they can be actualized in daily life by anyone willing to practice them.
John Makransky is a capable guide: He combines his thirty years of practice in these teachings with his life as a husband and father of two and a prestigious academic career. He is a Buddhist lama (honored spiritual teacher) who teaches regularly at meditation retreats as a leader of Dzogchen Center, which translates the tradition to Westerners and has 15 community groups across the U.S. and Canada. He is a close student and colleague of bestselling author Lama Surya Das, one of the foremost Western Buddhist meditation teachers and founding director of Dzogchen Center. Surya Das wrote the foreword to Awakening Through Love.
Though it may not be readily apparent in a time of endless war on terror and a media-saturated, cynical consumer culture, love is abundantly available, Makransky argues. “The claim that love pervades this world may not sound real to you but not because it isn’t true,” he writes in Awakening Through Love. “Rather, many of us haven’t learned to pay much attention to countless moments of love, kindness, and care that surround us each day: a child at the store reaching for her mother’s hand, an elderly stranger at the park who smiles upon a young family, a waitress who beams at you with kindness as she hands you the change.”
Awakening Through Love might be considered a spiritual self-help guide but not in the typical sense. As Makransky writes, “Whatever the strategies for a successful life promulgated in self-help books, and no matter how hard someone may thump a holy book to declare a particular belief as the answer to all life’s problems, none of these approaches works if the basic motive of genuine love, of actual care for persons, is not present.” This is where the book begins.
about the author
John Makransky is a professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College and a guiding teacher with Lama Surya Das in the Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He is also a senior faculty advisor for Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s Center for Buddhist Studies in Nepal. A practitioner of Tibetan meditations of compassion and wisdom for thirty years under the guidance of revered teachers, he has pioneered new ways of making these accessible to people of all backgrounds and faiths. He lives outside Boston with his wife, two sons, and dog.