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A Little Book of Love: Heart Advice on Bringing Happiness to Ourselves and Our World by Moh Hardin
In the Buddhist tradition, love is not just a feeling but a way of being present in the world. We may feel great love for our partners, our children, our friends—but how do we put that love into action so that others are nurtured by it? And what about loving ourselves—how do we develop self-acceptance and self-compassion?Here are the essential Buddhist teachings on opening the heart, deepening our relationships, and finding true contentment. Longtime meditation teacher Moh Hardin offers key insights and simple practices from the Buddhist tradition that can transform our relationships and help us to find more meaning and fulfillment.Topics Simple Buddhist practices for awakening the heart How and why to become your own best friend Guidance on listening and speaking with love Building trust Expanding the circle of our loving Loving and letting goHardin ultimately introduces the inspiring idea of becoming a "bodhisattva warrior," a person who commits to living open-heartedly and working to ease the suffering of the world. Written with unusual clarity, simplicity, and warmth, this little book contains a wealth of wisdom that could change your life.
- GenresSpirituality
Hardcover
First published December 27, 2011
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49 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 18, 2022
Short and sweet, Hardin gives an introduction to Buddhist philosophies about love and happiness. The first chapter about being your own best friend struck me the most. It served as a reminder to be in tune with my own emotions, and to be nonjudgmental of what I find.
A gesture of friendship:
1. Acknowledge yourself and how you feel.
2. Be kind to whatever you find.
3. Experience the resulting warmth of friendship.
"The first step is to feel ourself, however we might feel. Be aware of yourself from the top of your head down through your body to your feet and your contact with the earth. Very quickly, like the brush of a feather, scan your body and be aware of how you feel: good, bad, emotional, depressed, angry, in love, anxious, peaceful-- whatever it might be. Allowing yourself to feel yourself is in itself gentleness. Nothing extra called gentleness has to be added. That is the initial posture: 'I am here, and I feel like this.'"
What I'll take away is the reminder to be kind to myself, to practice authentic presence, and to extend that to others.
______
Some other quotes and moments of the book I enjoyed:
[Ch 2 Loving your Partner]
"Seeing who is there, and not just our idea of who is there, is the wakeful quality of bodhichitta. In a good relationship, that kind of seeing brings appreciation. In an unhealthy relationship, it can help us to realize when a relationship is problematic."
Flash of generosity
[Ch 4 The Power of a Wish]
"The first Buddhist teaching that really stopped me in my tracks was a short contemplation from the Tibetan monastic tradition that I read in the 1960s. The name of the book is long since lost to my memory, but the contemplation remains. It has three parts:
I am not better than anyone else.
I am not worse than anyone else.
I am not equal to anyone else.
The last line stopped me because I had always been taught to believe that I was equal to others. I grew up in the United States, where everyone is believed to be equal. Yet this Buddhist contemplation said, "I am not equal to anyone else." There is no comparison, no measurement at all. So it is not a contradiction to say that in our uniqueness, we are all equal."
Bodhichitta - awakened mind & heart. "Rather than living in your own dream world, your mind and heart are awake."
[Ch 6 Love and Loyality]
"Gentleness is the key to opening the treasury of bodhichitta. It opens the doorway of friendship with ourself, which then opens us to others and the world around us. Gentleness does not feel weak, but strong and genuine. It allows us to touch what is true. 'I am alive. I am here. I feel the way I do. I am awake.' Being gentle with ourself is the opposite of being hard on ourself, and if we not struggling so much with who we are, we have created some peace and can be more present. Not having to become something, not having to fool anyone, we can be genuine and true. We can be right here, open and available to life."
A gesture of friendship:
1. Acknowledge yourself and how you feel.
2. Be kind to whatever you find.
3. Experience the resulting warmth of friendship.
"The first step is to feel ourself, however we might feel. Be aware of yourself from the top of your head down through your body to your feet and your contact with the earth. Very quickly, like the brush of a feather, scan your body and be aware of how you feel: good, bad, emotional, depressed, angry, in love, anxious, peaceful-- whatever it might be. Allowing yourself to feel yourself is in itself gentleness. Nothing extra called gentleness has to be added. That is the initial posture: 'I am here, and I feel like this.'"
What I'll take away is the reminder to be kind to myself, to practice authentic presence, and to extend that to others.
______
Some other quotes and moments of the book I enjoyed:
[Ch 2 Loving your Partner]
"Seeing who is there, and not just our idea of who is there, is the wakeful quality of bodhichitta. In a good relationship, that kind of seeing brings appreciation. In an unhealthy relationship, it can help us to realize when a relationship is problematic."
Flash of generosity
[Ch 4 The Power of a Wish]
"The first Buddhist teaching that really stopped me in my tracks was a short contemplation from the Tibetan monastic tradition that I read in the 1960s. The name of the book is long since lost to my memory, but the contemplation remains. It has three parts:
I am not better than anyone else.
I am not worse than anyone else.
I am not equal to anyone else.
The last line stopped me because I had always been taught to believe that I was equal to others. I grew up in the United States, where everyone is believed to be equal. Yet this Buddhist contemplation said, "I am not equal to anyone else." There is no comparison, no measurement at all. So it is not a contradiction to say that in our uniqueness, we are all equal."
Bodhichitta - awakened mind & heart. "Rather than living in your own dream world, your mind and heart are awake."
[Ch 6 Love and Loyality]
"Gentleness is the key to opening the treasury of bodhichitta. It opens the doorway of friendship with ourself, which then opens us to others and the world around us. Gentleness does not feel weak, but strong and genuine. It allows us to touch what is true. 'I am alive. I am here. I feel the way I do. I am awake.' Being gentle with ourself is the opposite of being hard on ourself, and if we not struggling so much with who we are, we have created some peace and can be more present. Not having to become something, not having to fool anyone, we can be genuine and true. We can be right here, open and available to life."
June 2, 2025
A lovely little book with very practical advice on how to be more intentional about treating others (and yourself) lovingly. I feel like Jesus did a great job of describing what type of people we should be, but Buddhists do a great job of laying out the steps for how to get there.
Read
February 8, 2012I recently finished reading “A Little Book of Love: Heart Advice on Bringing Happiness to Ourselves and Our World” by Senior Shambhala teacher Moh Hardin - a book which was infused with compassion, loving-kindness and a profound desire to help others to invoke love in their hearts, homes, communities and our world.
I have a fuzzy recollection of Moh from my time at the Halifax Shambhala Center but I do remember him to be a very warm and compassionate teacher as well as a great practice center director. Fast forward many years and I caught a video of him on Vision TV (Canada’s Multi-faith/Multi-Cultural TV station) in an interview that they did with him relating to love and loss, as his first wife Judith had passed away from cancer in 1990. Something as devastating as watching your beloved embody such bravery in their journey towards death can be the trigger to either cause complete rage, sadness and a full range of negative emotions or can be the catalyst for generating boundless loving-kindness and acceptance.We all know the route Moh has taken based on the release of this book and given his 40 years of practice and study, he is certainly qualified to help readers along in their journey to discover, uncover and extend love both to self and other.
The book begins with an examination of what exactly is love and practical advice for how to cultivate love, to understand it fully, to embrace it and how to share it skillfully with others and then encourage its development in our world. The concept of the Bodhisattva is relayed throughout the various chapters as awakened beings are the perfect conduits for love and compassion.
Hardin speaks to the need for having confidence in the practice of cultivating love as this will help to propel us on the journey and enable us to expand our compassion outwards rather than hoarding it only to ourselves and those who either we are attracted to or are directly associated with. Starting with the person who is sometimes hardest to love, the author relates how many people are terribly hard on themselves and constantly engage in self hatred or self judging, therefore blocking them from both receiving and giving love and compassion. Becoming friends with ourselves is the basis of where big things can happen as no genuine transformation can occur in our hearts and minds without acknowledging that we possess basic goodness. We are without sin and our nature is that we are a decent, awesome person.
After we’ve recognized that we’re not as horrid and damaged as we initially thought and we see a ray of sunlight peek through, we’re then able to extend this love towards another person. There are many famous quotes relating to the principle of “First you must love yourself before you are able to love another” and Hardin speaks to this concept eloquently in this book. The chapters on “Loving Your Partner” and “Loving Your Child” provide wise counsel to help see us through the various day-to-day gripes we have in being householders with families and lovers and hands down, the utility of these 2 chapters is well worth the cover price of this book.
“A Little Book of Love” wraps up with chapters relating to extending one’s love, compassion and bodhichitta into the world and wishing for happiness for all sentient beings. The path of the Bodhisattva is explored in detail and this is where the heavy lifting of the book’s material comes into play with a detailed explanation of each of the Four Limitless Ones (aka The Four Immeasurables), The Six Far Gone Actions (aka The Six Paramitas) and a short piece on the notion of loyalty as it relates to the concept of love and within the framework of relationships.
There are pithy sections within each chapter of the book titled “Bringing it into our Experience” which suggests real world examples of how we can use these philosophies in our lives and exercises that we can try. It’s quite possible that some may set this up as a practice path if one is so inclined.
Moh Hardin’s “A Little Book of Love” possesses the word ‘Little’ in its title but is anything but little when it comes to its ability to cover the rock terrain of affairs of the heart and the emotions that can tangle us up. It is a solid entry in the Buddhist self-help series of books without being too rudimentary or fluffy in its approach.
***While this book isn’t inherently for Buddhists only, it is helpful that you are curious about Buddhism as the various terms used within the text may prove to be a bit high-level for the average person on the street that doesn’t have a background in basic, introductory concepts.
I have a fuzzy recollection of Moh from my time at the Halifax Shambhala Center but I do remember him to be a very warm and compassionate teacher as well as a great practice center director. Fast forward many years and I caught a video of him on Vision TV (Canada’s Multi-faith/Multi-Cultural TV station) in an interview that they did with him relating to love and loss, as his first wife Judith had passed away from cancer in 1990. Something as devastating as watching your beloved embody such bravery in their journey towards death can be the trigger to either cause complete rage, sadness and a full range of negative emotions or can be the catalyst for generating boundless loving-kindness and acceptance.We all know the route Moh has taken based on the release of this book and given his 40 years of practice and study, he is certainly qualified to help readers along in their journey to discover, uncover and extend love both to self and other.
The book begins with an examination of what exactly is love and practical advice for how to cultivate love, to understand it fully, to embrace it and how to share it skillfully with others and then encourage its development in our world. The concept of the Bodhisattva is relayed throughout the various chapters as awakened beings are the perfect conduits for love and compassion.
Hardin speaks to the need for having confidence in the practice of cultivating love as this will help to propel us on the journey and enable us to expand our compassion outwards rather than hoarding it only to ourselves and those who either we are attracted to or are directly associated with. Starting with the person who is sometimes hardest to love, the author relates how many people are terribly hard on themselves and constantly engage in self hatred or self judging, therefore blocking them from both receiving and giving love and compassion. Becoming friends with ourselves is the basis of where big things can happen as no genuine transformation can occur in our hearts and minds without acknowledging that we possess basic goodness. We are without sin and our nature is that we are a decent, awesome person.
After we’ve recognized that we’re not as horrid and damaged as we initially thought and we see a ray of sunlight peek through, we’re then able to extend this love towards another person. There are many famous quotes relating to the principle of “First you must love yourself before you are able to love another” and Hardin speaks to this concept eloquently in this book. The chapters on “Loving Your Partner” and “Loving Your Child” provide wise counsel to help see us through the various day-to-day gripes we have in being householders with families and lovers and hands down, the utility of these 2 chapters is well worth the cover price of this book.
“A Little Book of Love” wraps up with chapters relating to extending one’s love, compassion and bodhichitta into the world and wishing for happiness for all sentient beings. The path of the Bodhisattva is explored in detail and this is where the heavy lifting of the book’s material comes into play with a detailed explanation of each of the Four Limitless Ones (aka The Four Immeasurables), The Six Far Gone Actions (aka The Six Paramitas) and a short piece on the notion of loyalty as it relates to the concept of love and within the framework of relationships.
There are pithy sections within each chapter of the book titled “Bringing it into our Experience” which suggests real world examples of how we can use these philosophies in our lives and exercises that we can try. It’s quite possible that some may set this up as a practice path if one is so inclined.
Moh Hardin’s “A Little Book of Love” possesses the word ‘Little’ in its title but is anything but little when it comes to its ability to cover the rock terrain of affairs of the heart and the emotions that can tangle us up. It is a solid entry in the Buddhist self-help series of books without being too rudimentary or fluffy in its approach.
***While this book isn’t inherently for Buddhists only, it is helpful that you are curious about Buddhism as the various terms used within the text may prove to be a bit high-level for the average person on the street that doesn’t have a background in basic, introductory concepts.
February 29, 2012
Such a lovely, helpful book. Hardin does a wonderful job of conveying the heart of the Buddhist path in a way that is accessible to readers of any spiritual background. It is a quick read that you'll want to return to again and again.
November 9, 2012
A sweet little book of practical methods to apply Buddhist principles in everyday life.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews