The Gate of Tears Sadness and the Spiritual Path explores the counterintuitive insight that sadness and joy are not opposites and that human capacities often suppressed or rejected can, instead, be gateways to deep joy, creativity, and liberation. Its eightytwo short, poetic, sometimes epigrammatic chapters draw on contemplative traditions, art, even pop songs. They are reflections on the path of surrender, alchemy, and the sacred. Written over a ten year period, and completed in the mourning period after the death of the authors mother, The Gate of Tears is not a selfhelp book. If anything, it is a selfhelpless book, discovering a happiness deeper than transitory joys that emerges precisely when the resistance to sadness is released. As the contemporary Buddhist teacher Lama Surya Das says in his foreword to the book, "the only thing that prevents happiness is searching for it." The Gate of Tears draws on Jay Michaelsons fifteen years as a student, and now a teacher, of Buddhist and Jewish contemplative paths. Michaelson is a rabbi, and holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Thought, and has taught Jewish mysticism in and outside the academic world. Yet he is also a longtime teacher of insight meditation in Western Buddhist and secular mindfulness contexts, who has sat many monthslong silent meditation retreats. With his usual blend of erudition and accessibility, Michaelson weaves together Hasidic tales and Dharma teachings, Leonard Cohen and Langston Hughes.The Gate of Tears is not...

Binding: Paperback;200 pages; Publisher: Ben Yehuda Press; Classification: N/A; Weight: 381.27 g; Dimensions: N/A

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