Original Love

The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening

By: Henry Shukman

Narrated by: Henry Shukman

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.

©2024 Henry Shukman (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

A gift

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

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.

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.

An important book in this day and age, or other ages for that matter

I’ve been following Henry Shuktman for since about 2020 when I first heard a podcast on Sam Harris’ Waking Up app and he immediately struck a nerve in me that has since lasted.

For me Henry is able to convey a the message about meditation and intrinsic love in plain English. He does it in a way that understandable for ordinary people and in a way that doesn’t make it into a large mystic and spiritual project. He anchors the whole project towards normal people’s lives and maybe especially for people grown up in western/Christian influenced cultures.

Maybe the most striking part of the book is when he explaines the level of consciousness where we can experience x and not x at the same time - a way which eastern societies and philosophy has seen the world for millennia. While our western traditions have divided the world into x and not x as two separate worlds.

This is just one example of how a key insight is conveyed in a simple and understandable matter.

If you were to listen to one meditation/spiritual book this year, I highly recommend this to be the one.

Invest in this stand out guide to Life.

Henry Shukman is a remarkable human. A kind, experienced, wise Teacher; Mr. Shukman has composed the clearest, most insightful guidebook on Life, Love, and enlightenment I have come across.
This is a book that will remain useful throughout one's entire Life. Between Sam Harris and Henry Shukman, the world has access to deep wisdom, boundless love, a path to healing the world, and the path to living a truly good life.

Revelatory

All of the wisdom I have been seeking, and more, in one clear, concise, and rich text.

Deep wisdom

A much needed teaching. Henry gives us a broad, inclusive overview of the way to awakening. I found it to be extremely helpful - a thorough explanation of the path. He includes many stories and personal experiences along with the ancient teachings and practices. This makes it an understandable and engaging read. I Highly recommend for anyone who is seeking truth, peace and love.

incredible and fulfilling

this book is just amazing, especially the audio version. Henry Shukman's voice guides you along the chapters of this amazing book, always surprising and illuminating. the book has both depth and simplicity. it combines broader aspects of healing and trauma work and weaves them beautifully into the meditative frame. I just had to share how much I'm enjoying this book and how helpful it is !

Perfect

Henry Shukman hits it out of the park. Listen to this book immediately upon reading this.