Get some insight — and much more — from Sylvia Boorstein

Our new Sylvia Boorstein spotlight page features the best of her work from the Shambhala Sun, including her latest piece, "I Want to Be… Insightful," from the July 2012 magazine. In it, she writes that we suffer not because there's anything inherently wrong with us but simply because we misunderstand the nature of reality.

"The idea of no separate, enduring self—emptiness—is a peculiar idea until we have a direct experience of it. It certainly feels that there is a little "Me" living in our bodies that decides what to do, that sees out of our eyes, that realizes it has woken up in the morning. The "Me" has thought patterns that are habitual associated with it, so it feels enduring. If I woke up one morning thinking other people's thoughts it would be deeply disturbing.

"So it was a complete surprise to me, some years into my retreat practice, to be practicing walking meditation, sensing physical movements and sights and smells and heat and cool, and realizing that everything was happening all by itself. No one was taking that walk: "I" wasn't there."

You can read a longer excerpt from "I Want to Be… Insightful" here, and you'll find the whole thing inside our July 2012 magazine—click here to order a copy of this issue, and here to subscribe.

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