Phillip Moffitt is a mindfulness meditation teacher. Dancing with Life is his first book—and it’s a beauty. It is, Jack Kornfield says, “a book that will be on the reading lists of sincere Buddhist students for generations ahead.”

In 1987, Moffitt walked away from his successful post as editor-in-chief of Esquire:

I had no plans. I did not know what city or even what country I would be living in, let alone what I would be doing with my time. Had I known that I would spend most of the next few years living in various meditation centers in rooms so small that I often could reach out and touch both walls, I might not have so cheerfully left my comfortable
Manhattan apartment.

For years he lived a moment-to-moment practice of living without goals: “Just now. Just be present in this moment.” Gradually, he learned how to dance with life.

Even under the best of circumstances, life is challenging, and much of the time it is difficult. It is always uncertain, constantly changing, and mostly out of your control. Whether it is taking you on a wonderful ride or stepping on your toes, life will move you with the rhythm and in the direction of its own unfolding, irregardless of your best intentions. Life dances and you must dance with it. This is the necessary price and mysterious gift of being incarnate—alive in a body…

Finding a way to be at ease with the dance itself is a crucial skill in finding freedom and meaning in life.

Why do we suffer? Is there a purpose to our pain? Can we affect how much we suffer? Noting how we humans have wrestled with such questions for thousands of years, Phillip explores the twelve insights that underlie the Buddha’s core teaching of the Four Noble Truths.

These twelve insights teach you to dance with both the joy and pain, finding peace in a balanced mind and calm spirit. As the most specific, practical life instructions I have ever encountered, they serve as an invaluable tool for anyone who seeks a life filled with meaning and well-being.