One of my meditation teachers used to end each of our interviews … and say to me, “Remember, Sylvia, be happy.”  I actually for a long time thought it was a salutation, like “have a good day” or something that you say just in a routine kind of a way, and it took me a long time to realize that it was an instruction, “Be happy.” Not only that it was an instruction but that it was a wisdom transmission –  that happiness was a possibility. I understand that happiness to mean,  the happiness of a mind that’s alert, that’s awake to the amazing potential of being a person in a life, with a mind that’s opened, that sees everything that’s going on, and realizes what an amazing possibility this is, and with a heart that’s open, the heart that responds naturally as hearts do, in compassion, in connection with friendliness, with love, with consolation when it needs to:  That that’s the happiness of life –  a mind that’s awake, a heart that’s engaged.

Sylvia Boorstein, Stanford Keynote Speech, 2005

photo joe sarembe