“In a unique voice that is at once scholarly and eloquent, Joe Loizzo offers the reader a vast, integrated vision of wellbeing for the individual and society. This book lifts our understanding of mindfulness in health care to a new level, describing in exquisite detail the innate brilliance and potential of the human mind. For those who have been wondering what Tibetan contemplative science and mind training is all about, this is the roadmap you’ve been waiting for.”
“On our way to sustainable development and global consciousness, our greatest challenge lies not outside us but within: in the shift we each must make from scarcity thinking and self-enclosure to optimism and altruism. In Sustainable Happiness, Joe Loizzo lays out a treasure chest of maps and tools for this sea-change, melding current neuroscience with the ancient contemplative science of India and Tibet into a clear path to sustainable living today.”
“If we want real happiness in our stressful lives, we need the mindfulness to cultivate it and the loving-kindness to share it with everyone. Tibetan Buddhism is devoted to making everyday life a way to combine personal happiness with the shared happiness of compassion and altruism. Joe Loizzo’s Sustainable Happiness guides us through the rich Buddhism of Tibet, clarifying its many arts of compassion in light of both current science and living tradition.”
“For anyone who has ever been curious about the method of Tibetan Buddhist practice, in Joe Loizzo’s remarkable book Sustainable Happiness, they will find the only substantive, accessible and illuminating blueprint for Westerners that I know of. This book is a first of its kind – a readable curriculum written by a long-term Western practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism. With patience and determination, Loizzo helps the reader understand the history and teachings of the contemplative mind/body science utilizing Tantric imagery and symbolism first developed at the University of Nalanda, a Buddhist monastic institute in North India.
As an integrative psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Loizzo masterfully addresses the psychological impact of this practice, the ways in which it works with the full spectrum of our psycho-spiritual conditions, methodically ushering the practitioner to an experience of genuine wellness that is sustainable, even in the midst of external stressors or struggles.
For the reader who has been practicing Tibetan Buddhism, he/she will find answers to the endless questions that arise when we embark on any healing path that works. Having practiced this method for several decades, as I read Sustainable Happiness, I was simultaneously riveted and aware that if I had had access to such a book when I began this practice, I would have been helped in integrating what, at times, felt like a culturally-determined method steeped in an ancient and arcane time and place.
Loizzo writes with tremendous clarity and insight, helping the reader understand the intimate relationship between our neurology, our psychological experience, and our need for spiritual methods that effectively address and work with both realms of our lived experience.
Sustainable Happiness is a spectacular contribution, a book that will prove to be endlessly useful to clinicians interested in better understanding the psychologically healing impact of Tibetan Buddhist practice, to Western Buddhists wishing to deepen their ongoing spiritual practice, and to anyone for whom happiness and well-being are longed for experiences they hope to achieve.”