Please order books domestically, relatively than from Amazon, by, Shambhala, Indiebound (US), or Bookshop.org (US and UK)
A short while in the past I acquired an e mail from Sumi Loundon Kim, telling me a few new bedtime e-book for kids that she’d simply had printed. The e-book is an adaptation of a conventional Buddhist loving-kindness meditation, which helps us to develop heat and kindness, and to take our personal and others’ well-being under consideration.
Sumi’s household practiced this meditation each night time for 5 years as they snuggled in mattress. She went on to show it to different households. and found it was a well-liked method that many mother and father and kids ended up doing collectively.
When my overview copy arrived, my coronary heart melted! The heat and love embodied within the cowl picture by Laura Watkins is just beautiful. The truth is, the illustrations are attractive all through: lively and love.
Sumi Kim’s textual content offers a stunning, child-friendly information to bedtime loving-kindness observe. There are a number of pages that describe a collection of transient practices that put together the bottom for kindness to come up: arriving by acknowledging that snuggling we’re in mattress; grounding ourselves with deep out and in breaths; stress-free (“smooth and heavy, melting into our resting spot”); and connecting with kindness by putting our palms on our hearts and picturing a heat glow radiating outward.
Title: “Goodnight Love: A Bedtime Meditation Story”
Writer: Sumi Loundon Kim, Laura Watkins (illustrator)
Writer: Shambhala
ISBN: 978-1-61180-944-2
Obtainable from: Shambhala, Indiebound (US), or Bookshop.org (US and UK).
As is conventional, the loving-kindness directions start with adopting a form and loving perspective towards ourselves: “Might I be wholesome. Might I be secure and guarded. Might I be completely happy and peaceable.” They then widen into cultivating kindness and love for our households and family members, our associates, together with associates who’re hurting, after which out but additional, into forests, mountains, oceans, and the entire world.
In case you assume it’s odd to want a mountain effectively, the illustrations make it clear that we’re contemplating not only a hunk of rock, however all of the residing creatures that dwell on and round it. The identical is true for forests and oceans.
Lastly — and this was a extremely beautiful transition — we come again to the intensely private, because the grownup reader needs their snuggling youngster effectively: “And now, toddler, it’s my flip to share my love for you: Might you be wholesome. Might you be secure and guarded. Might you be completely happy and peaceable, all the time and ceaselessly.”
The return from the common to the intimate was very successfully accomplished. This have to be so pleasing to any youngster, reminding them that out of all of the billions of being in our world they’ve a really particular place of their household.
My kids are about the identical age as Sumi’s — they’re each youngsters – and past the goal age for this e-book. I actually want one thing like this had been accessible once they had been youthful, as a result of I’d like to have had the expertise of sharing it with them.
I wholeheartedly advocate Sumi Loundon Kim and Laura Watkin’s e-book to all mother and father of younger kids. Books like this are uncommon. They’re essential instruments for bringing extra love and kindness into the world.
Obtainable from the writer (Shambhala), Indiebound (US solely), or Bookshop.org (UK and US).
