Deschene - Tiny Buddha : simple wisdom for lifes hard questions

How can we find happiness and peaceright now, right here? In her engaging, thought-provoking book Tiny Buddha, Lori Deschene explores this enormous question to help readers grapple with challenges like money, love, pain, control, and meaning, in order to find greater happiness.

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project

Lori is one of a kind. Her amazing heart and wisdom shine through in everything she writes! I am a HUGE fan of Tiny Buddha, and I'm constantly inspired by Lori and her work.

Mastin Kipp, founder of The Daily Love (thedailylove.com)

There's nothing tiny about the extra-large dose of awesome stuffed into Lori's writing. Read it and feel good about the world.

Neil Pasricha, founder and author of 1000 Awesome Things and The Book of Awesome

Few people in our time have more passionately or more creatively applied wisdom teachings to a new digital generation than Lori Deschene. I am continually inspired by her writing, and also by her sincere dedication to learning, growth, and wisdom. I feel tremendously fortunate to have had the chance to get to know her work through Tiny Buddha, and to know her as a person. Both embody the same essential truths.

Soren Gordhamer, founder and author of Wisdom 2.0

Lori Deschene doesn't claim to be anybody's guru. But it's that lack of pretense and her total candorhow she tells her own often-wild story without flinchingthat is so magnetic, inviting a sense of ease with our own wrinkles, too, and fostering a sense of personal possibility. As she asks: Are you ready to be free?

Margaret Roach, author of And I Shall Have Some Peace There

I spent months retweeting posts from a mystery handle called @tinybuddha. I wasn't the only one: Hundreds of thousands of people followed the daily messages. I was intrigued and made it a point to meet the woman behind the message. Today, Lori Deschene is a friend and fellow author who spreads truth and inspiration throughout the twittersphere, her blog, and now her new book! Lori has shifted the energy of the Internet with her loving daily posts and now she is sharing more with the world through her incredible book!

Gabrielle Bernstein, author of Add More ing to Your Life and Spirit Junkie

Tiny Buddha is a moving and insightful synthesis of evocative stories and ancient wisdom applied to modern life. A great read!

Jonathan Fields, author of Uncertainty

First published in 2012 by Conari Press, an imprint of

Red Wheel / Weiser, LLC

665 Third Street, Suite 400

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2012 by Lori Deschene

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel / Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

Certain names and defining characteristics have been changed here to protect people's privacy. ISBN: 978-1-57324-506-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Deschene, Lori.

Tiny Buddha, simple wisdom for life's hard questions / Lori Deschene.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-57324-506-7 (hardback)

1. Mind and body. I. Title.

BF161.D453 2012

158dc23

2011036925

Cover design by Nita Ybarra

Interior by Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Typeset in Perpetua Regular with Formata Bold and Rosewood Fill.

Printed in the United States of America

MAL

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992 (R1997).

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In loving memory of Henry Grandpa Joe Santoro. This one's for you, too!

In March of 2007, when Twitter exploded at the South by Southwest Festival, more than 60,000 tweets addressed the question, What are you doing? At the time, I was certain I'd sooner post my organs for auction on eBay than choose a Twitter handle. I didn't see any benefit in using technology to narrate my life as it happened. Why would I want to update my social circlelet alone strangerson my most mundane daily activities? I assumed that if I joined, I'd bore my friends with TMI and have less to discuss when I saw them in personthey'd already know I ate a Rice Krispies Treat at ten, practiced yoga at lunch, and seriously considered cutting my bangs at four. I thought I couldn't live mindfully if I traced my steps with a digital bread-crumb trail. If I did use the web to share random details about my everyday life, I'd want to answer a far more interesting question than, What are you doing?

In 2008 I realized how badly I'd underestimated that question. What was I doing? I was writing for a series of websites that didn't mean anything to me on a personal level. I was trying to figure out how to be an independent, valuable part of society after years of crawling, one inch at a time, out of self-loathing and depressionan ascent that felt as knuckle-draggingly prolonged as humans' evolution from apes. I was for all intents and purposes doing a lot better, but I was not feeling better about the things I was doing. And I was drowning in spiritual texts and self-help books looking for answers everywhere outside myself. What I wasn't doing was living an empowered life, driven by my passions and guided by my gut instincts.

After years of obsessing over who I was, it felt empowering to shift my focus to what I was doing. Suddenly I was considering that maybe Twitter wasn't as superficial as I thought it had to be. It could be like tofu and take the flavor of whatever it's marinated inand I could mix it up as my taste buds demanded. That's the beauty of Twitter: each tweeter decides which questions to answer, and they can be as helpful and meaningful as you make them. Asking the questions that shape our lives and exploring potential solutionsnow that was something worth doing.

The simultaneous lack and abundance of answers is the answer.

I had lots of questions to answer: What makes a person happy? How can you live a meaningful life? How do you move forward after a poor decision or disappointment that eats away at your sense of possibility? How can you push yourself out of your comfort zone and live the life you dream about? How can you find a sense of security in a world with so many unknowns? The list was endless, really.

No matter what religion we follow, what politics we support, what family we were born into, or where we've placed our roots, we all deal with universal problems. Regardless of our differences, we all live our lives around the same questions. How we answer them dictates the choices we'll make and what kind of person we'll be from moment to moment. Some answers are clichs that look great on paper but don't actually breathe when we inflate them and try to find a pulse. Others seem implausible and yet make a world of sense when we step inside them and wrap them around our circumstances. And others still can feel absolute for what seems like an eternity until life cross-examines them and reminds us how fragile most answers are.