Author Guide · Meditation & Buddhism
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Sharon Salzberg’s mother died when she was nine, and by sixteen she had lived with five different families. In 1969, in an Asian philosophy course at the State University of New York at Buffalo, she first came across Buddhism; in January 1971 she sat her first intensive meditation course in Bodh Gaya, India. Back in the United States she helped found the Insight Meditation Society, whose retreat centre opened in Barre, Massachusetts, in February 1976, with Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield. Her books take one practice from that tradition, metta or lovingkindness, and keep finding new places to use it: at work, in love, in politics, in loss. This guide covers her 12 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 12 key books · 1995–2023 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Sharon Salzberg has published about fifteen books, including edited, co-written and children’s titles. The best known are Lovingkindness (1995), Real Happiness (2010), a New York Times bestseller, and Real Love (2017). Start with Real Happiness, a 28-day meditation programme; then go back to Lovingkindness for the practice her whole career is built on.
Where to Start with Sharon Salzberg
If you have never meditated
→ Real Happiness (2010) — the 28-day programme, one week at a time.
If you want the practice she is known for
→ Lovingkindness (1995) — her first book, on metta and the other three ‘divine abodes’.
If you want her own story
→ Faith (2002) — her childhood, India and what faith means without belief.
If you are going through loss or change
→ Real Life (2023) — her most recent full-length book.
12 Sharon Salzberg Books, in Order
Lovingkindness
Her first book, published by Shambhala, on the four brahmaviharas of Buddhist teaching: lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. It starts with kindness towards yourself before extending it to others, and deals with what gets in the way, such as clinging and long-held anger. Each chapter comes with exercises, and it has stayed in print in new editions.
A Heart as Wide as the World
Short pieces built from stories of her own practice, her teachers and her students, published by Shambhala two years after Lovingkindness. Each takes one theme, such as patience, fear or generosity, and shows how insight meditation and lovingkindness meet in ordinary situations.
Faith
Her most autobiographical book, published by Riverhead. She goes back over her mother’s death, her father’s breakdown, the relatives who raised her and her first years in India, and argues that faith in the Buddhist sense is not belief in a doctrine but a willingness to trust and test your own experience.
The Force of Kindness
A short book from Sounds True arguing that kindness is a strength rather than a softness, with reflections and practices, originally issued with an audio CD of guided meditations.
The Kindness Handbook
A small companion volume, also from Sounds True, of brief reflections and exercises for practising kindness during an ordinary day, aimed at readers without a meditation background.
Real Happiness
A 28-day programme in four weeks: concentration and the breath, mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of emotions, and lovingkindness, with guided meditations for each week. Published by Workman, it reached the New York Times bestseller list in 2011, and a revised 10th-anniversary edition followed in 2019.
Real Happiness at Work
The Real Happiness method applied to working life: stress, difficult colleagues, communication, burnout and the question of meaning, with short exercises meant to fit inside a working day.
Love Your Enemies
Written with the Tibetan Buddhism scholar Robert Thurman and published by Hay House. The book works through four kinds of enemy, from the people who harm us to the anger and self-preoccupation inside us, and on how to stop being ruled by them. A new edition appeared in 2023.
Real Love
Published by Flatiron Books, it looks at love in three directions: towards yourself, towards other people, including partners, family and strangers, and towards life itself. It separates love from the romantic ideal and treats it as a capacity that can be trained, with exercises in every chapter.
Real Change
On meditation and social action. Salzberg argues that fight, flight or freeze reactions trap activists in cycles of defensiveness and exhaustion, and mixes interviews with organisers, lawyers, artists and philanthropists with meditation instructions. Publishers Weekly found it discerning, if not new.
Real Life
Published in April 2023, drawing on more than forty years in the Buddhist tradition. It is organised around the cycles of a life: loss, crisis, uncertainty, letting go and starting over, with practices for moving from isolation towards connection and for befriending yourself.
Finding Your Way
A small Workman book of short meditations, reflections and quotations drawn from her teaching, made to be opened at any page rather than read straight through.
In What Order to Read Sharon Salzberg
Her books do not depend on each other, and most of them teach the same core practices from a different angle, so you can read by need rather than by date. The one real sequence is the “Real” series — Real Happiness, Real Happiness at Work, Real Love, Real Change and Real Life — which moves from basic meditation outwards to work, relationships, politics and loss.
If you are new to meditation, start with Real Happiness, which is a course. If you already meditate, Lovingkindness is the deeper book and the source of most of what came later. Faith is the one to read when you want to know who is teaching you.
A reading path
1. Real Happiness (2010)
2. Lovingkindness (1995)
3. Faith (2002)
4. Real Love (2017)
5. Real Life (2023)
Everything Else Sharon Salzberg Published
Beyond the 12 key books: 3 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Edited, co-written and children’s books
3
3 books · 1999–2025
- 1999Voices of Insightan anthology of teachings by Western insight meditation teachers, which she edited
- 2002Insight Meditation: A Step-by-Step Course on How to Meditatea course written with Joseph Goldstein
- 2025Kind Karl: A Little Crocodile with Big Feelingsa picture book written with Jason Gruhl, illustrated by Sébastien Mourrain
The years · 1952–2023
Quick facts about Sharon Salzberg
- Known for
- Bringing lovingkindness (metta) meditation to Western readers, and co-founding the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts
- 1952
- Born in New York City
- 1971
- First intensive meditation course in Bodh Gaya, India
- 1976
- Insight Meditation Society opens in Barre
- 1995
- Lovingkindness
- 2010
- Real Happiness
- 2023
- Real Life
- Born
- 5 August 1952, New York City, to a Jewish family
- Childhood
- Her parents divorced when she was four and her mother died when she was nine; she was raised largely by her paternal grandparents
- Education
- Encountered Buddhism in 1969 at the State University of New York at Buffalo; studied in India from 1970
- Teachers
- Including S. N. Goenka, Anagarika Munindra, Dipa Ma and Sayadaw U Pandita
- Founded
- Insight Meditation Society (with Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield), Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (1989), the Forest Refuge (1998)
- Podcast
- Metta Hour, with more than eight million downloads
The red mark is 1995: Lovingkindness, the book on the practice her whole career is built around.
How Sharon Salzberg Writes: One Practice, Many Rooms
Almost everything she has written comes back to one practice: metta, or lovingkindness, in which you silently repeat phrases such as “May I be safe” and “May you be at peace”, first for yourself and then for wider and harder circles of people. Lovingkindness sets it out in 1995; the later books take it into new settings, from the office in Real Happiness at Work to political activism in Real Change.
Her books are built like courses. Real Happiness is literally a 28-day programme in four weekly themes, and most of the others end chapters with an exercise or a guided meditation, several of them originally issued with audio. The writing is plain, in short sections, with very little Pali or Tibetan terminology left unexplained.
She teaches through stories, often her own. Faith retells her childhood and her years in India in detail, and the later books keep returning to scenes from retreats and conversations with students and, in Real Change, interviews with activists, lawyers and artists. The result is less doctrine than demonstration: a practice shown working, or failing, in a recognisable life.
Frequently asked questions about Sharon Salzberg’s books
How many books has Sharon Salzberg written?
About fifteen, counting edited, co-written and children’s books. This page covers her 12 key books, from Lovingkindness (1995) to Finding Your Way (2023); the other three are Voices of Insight (1999, as editor), Insight Meditation (2002, with Joseph Goldstein) and the picture book Kind Karl (2025).
What are Sharon Salzberg’s books in order?
Lovingkindness (1995), A Heart as Wide as the World (1997), Faith (2002), The Force of Kindness (2005), The Kindness Handbook (2008), Real Happiness (2010), Real Happiness at Work (2013), Love Your Enemies (2013, with Robert Thurman), Real Love (2017), Real Change (2020), Real Life (2023) and Finding Your Way (2023).
Where should I start with Sharon Salzberg?
Real Happiness (2010). It is a 28-day programme that teaches concentration, mindfulness of the body and emotions, and lovingkindness one week at a time. If you already meditate, start with Lovingkindness instead.
What is Sharon Salzberg’s most famous book?
Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (1995) is the book most associated with her teaching, and Real Happiness (2010) is her best-selling one: it reached the New York Times bestseller list in 2011.
What is lovingkindness meditation?
Lovingkindness, or metta, is one of the four brahmaviharas of Buddhist teaching, alongside compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. In practice you silently repeat phrases such as “May I be safe” or “May you be at peace”, first for yourself and then for others. Her book Lovingkindness (1995) is a full guide to it.
What is the “Real” series?
Five books with the same title pattern: Real Happiness (2010), Real Happiness at Work (2013), Real Love (2017), Real Change (2020) and Real Life (2023). They can be read in any order, but publication order moves from learning to meditate to using it at work, in relationships, in social action and through loss.
Is there a new edition of Real Happiness?
Yes. A revised 10th-anniversary edition of Real Happiness was published by Workman in 2019.
Did Sharon Salzberg found the Insight Meditation Society?
Yes, together with Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield. Its first retreat centre opened in Barre, Massachusetts, in February 1976. With Goldstein she later co-founded the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (1989) and the Forest Refuge (1998).
Is Sharon Salzberg Buddhist?
She grew up in a Jewish family in New York and has practised in the Buddhist insight meditation tradition since 1971, when she sat her first intensive course in Bodh Gaya, India. Her teachers include S. N. Goenka, Anagarika Munindra, Dipa Ma and Sayadaw U Pandita.
Does Sharon Salzberg have a podcast?
Yes, Metta Hour, in which she talks with meditation teachers and others; according to her own website it has passed eight million downloads.
Footnotes
- Sharon Salzberg — Wikipedia
- Bio — sharonsalzberg.com
- Real Life — sharonsalzberg.com
- Insight Meditation Society — Wikipedia
- Practicing Meditation — PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, 2011
- Real Change — Publishers Weekly
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“The simple act of being completely attentive and present to another person is an act of love.”
— Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness (2010)
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