As Tarthang Rinpoche says in the Introduction to this book "Life exacts a price for less than full participation. We lose touch with the human values and qualities that spring naturally from a full engagement with work and life: integrity, honesty, loyalty, responsibility, and cooperation." With a strong focus in this book on awareness and working at the gut level, Rinpoche shows how change can flower on its own. A set of 19 exercises makes all of this practical and real. From the Introduction, by Tarthang Tulku: "Working is the natural human response to being alive, our way of participating in the universe. Work allows us to make full use of our potential, to open to the infinite range of experience which lies within even the most mundane activity. Life extracts a price for less than full participation. We lose touch with the human values and qualities that spring naturally from a full engagement with work and life: integrity, honesty, loyalty, responsibility, and cooperation. Without the guidance these qualities give to our lives, we begin to drift, prey to an uneasy sense of dissatisfaction. Once we have lost the knowledge of how to ground ourselves in meaningful work, we do not know where to turn to find value in life. Skillful means is a three-step process that can be applied to any situation in our lives. The first step is to become aware of the realities of the difficulties, not simply by intellectual acknowledgment, but by honest observation of ourselves. Only in this way will we find the motivation to take the second step: making a firm resolve to change. When we have clearly seen the nature of our problems and have begun to change them, we can share what we have learned with others. This sharing can be the most satisfying experience of all. . ."
