Devotion

by Dani Shapiro

Dani Shapiro, the acclaimed author of the novel Black and White and the bestselling memoir Slow Motion, is back with a searching and timeless new memoir that examines the fundamental questions that wake women in the middle of the night, and grapples with the ways faith, prayer, and devotion affect everyday life. Devotion is sure to appeal to all those dealing with the trials and tribulations of what Carl Jung called “the afternoon of life.”

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Religion, Biography Memoir, Jewish, Judaism

245 pages, Hardcover

First published January 26, 2010

About the author

Dani Shapiro is the bestselling author of the memoirs Hourglass, Still Writing, Devotion, and Slow Motion, and five novels including Black & White and Family History. She lives with her family in LItchfield County, Connecticut. Her latest memoir, Inheritance, will be published by Knopf in January, 2019.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook memoir... read by Dani Shapiro.
....”Devotion” was a perfect fit-read for my mood.
Dani’s writing is kinda- phenomenal!! REALLY GORGEOUS!!!

I found it fascinating that Dani’s Father was an Orthodox Jew and her mother was an atheists...

It’s almost impossible not to share the book’s contents.... but my hands are tied.
MANY LIFE-WORTHY -THEMES ARE COVERED.

I DO WANT TO STRESS THIS IS A ***WONDERFUL***
AUDIOBOOK COMPANION...

Dani Shapiro faced her emptiness-her inner struggles - and the losses with gut honestly....

She spoke with grace, with clarity, and wisdom.

No... she doesn’t provide answers -
However, Dani crafted a path to better understanding and finding peace.
Sounds like a ‘woo-woo’ book?
Honest.... it’s not!!!!

If you are Jewish - or not - have kids or not - married or not - lived through 911 or not- your parents are alive or not - you do yoga or not -
enjoy family dinners of pasta -French bread - and dessert - or not -
are a group joiner or not -
There is value in book for everyone.

Read it or not .... wishing freedom & well being for everyone! ☯️

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.8] Dani Shapiro's writing resonates with me and Devotion was enjoyable listening. This is my third memoir by Shapiro and I notice that she does have the memoir formula down pat. Questioning, wondering, worrying, searching into her past... This memoir didn't move me as much as Inheritance but I still liked it.

[Marilyn (not getting notifications) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapiro reflected upon the author’s self examination of her own life as she entered her forty’s and found her way into her fifty’s. She had been brought up in a very Orthodox Jewish home and community in Brooklyn, New York. Over the years, as her life took shape and evolved, Dani Shapiro found herself questioning the life she led while she lived with her parents and among the most observant. As she approached her forty’s, Dani explored yoga, the teachings of Buddha and continued to struggle to find the most comfortable way to let Judaism back into her life and that of her family. She struggled to come to terms with loosing both her parents fairly young. She tended to question all aspects of her life but could not always find easy answers. Faith, G-d, and spiritual guidance plagued her the most. Her findings and discoveries were so enlightening. I found myself able to relate to some of the things Dani experienced and questioned. I listened to the audio CD read by Dani Shapiro. It was masterfully written and read. I highly recommend this book.

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was great. I thought it was going to be another project-for-a-year-memoir (like Eat, Pray, Love or The Happiness Project), this time about finding spirituality. But it's much better than that - instead of being a formulaic project, it's a book-length meditation on the meaning of life, on joy, on mortality, and on God and faith. It's beautifully written and deeply absorbing.

Early in the book, it's clear that the author is a pretty anxious person:

"Nothing - absolutely nothing I could put my finger on - was the matter. Except that I was often on the verge of tears. Except that it seems that there had to be more than this hodgepodge of the everyday. Inside each joy was a hard kernel of sadness, as if I was always preparing myself for impending loss."

Um, hello, that's me. I struggle with many of the questions and feelings that Shapiro does, and I found it really comforting to read this book. Both because I identified with her, and because though this book doesn't offer any answers, I feel like I understand just a little bit more how I want to live and how I want my life to be.

[Joan Winnek · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first book by this author, it gripped and enlightened me, and prompted me to order more of her books. A well-written, thoughtful memoir that intricately explores many ambiguities, the book draws from private and particular experiences and circumstances, and doesn't lose its footing as it approaches meaning-of-life issues. It's how we live, explored from the perspective of one woman, and enlightened by her explorations into many traditions and practices.

When I finish a book that particularly moves me, I go back through my postit flags and enter some passages on my quotations on this site. I don't know how to share these with my friends, but if you go to quotes and sort for my name and the author (and title maybe), you can see what I've recorded.

I can't resist adding, snarkily, that this book sharply contrasts with Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love, which left me mildly disaffected--but now I hate it.

[Barb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I may take a rest from this genre (middle age spiritual quest) for awhile, even though I liked this book very much. Much like "discovering" motherhood in my 20's and 30's, I'm coming head to head with the visceral knowledge of death as a reality, not just some abstract occurrence in the far off future. It's that time of life when the busyness of children and career start to fade; the importance of things seems inconsequential; the body starts its revolt and the essential "aloneness" of life reasserts itself. No wonder we start looking for answers!! And reading about others' journeys helps me with my own.

[StMargarets · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been following this author since I first picked up Fugitive Blue in the library way back in the early 1990's. I was fascinated with the tension between her Orthodox Jewish background and living in the secular world.

She followed up her novels with a series of memoirs and from them, I learned of her great love and respect for her father, a very devout man. I also learned how she never felt she fit in with his family and community, but she kept seeking answers.

Well, taking an Ancestry. com test on a whim gave her an answer - that man wasn't her bio dad. This memoir takes a deep dive into just how that happened (her parents were both dead when she discovered this). It seems her parents went to an unlicensed fertility clinic. Her mother was inseminated with sperm from an anonymous medical student.

So this memoir is part solving a mystery and following clues - part vindication for always feeling an outsider - and part how to deal with such an existential crises when you're 54 years old.

I thought the first two parts were handled well. The last - that existential crisis - is still a work in progress.

I guess the lesson I took away from this is that your story is never really over, it it? No neat bows to tie every thread together.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not that I can't enjoy a memoir about exploring one's spirituality -- for all its problems, I really kind of enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love, the book with which this one will inevitably be compared. Dani Shapiro's memoir is blessedly shorter, and far less indulgent, and really struck much closer to home. She's a mom, I'm a mom; her father had a deep connection to and daily practice of his faith, just like my dad has. But for all that, and despite some lovely writing in spots, this left me just kind of wondering what the big deal was.

[Stacye · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to work to get through this one. From the very beginning this author sounds whiny and self-involved. As she goes on and on describing her navel, I could't help thinking "Damn! What would she do with a real problem?" Ok...that's not fair. There was a scare with her child, but COME ON! Move on already! As she describes herself in her beautiful home in an affluent area where she probably looks good in her yoga pants, I flashed on Elizabeth Gilbert, whose book I enjoyed much more than this but who, also, basically bought her enlightenment. Moral of this story? My income isn't high enough to achieve nirvana. But we already knew that, didn't we?

[Phyllis · Rating 1 out of 5]

This woman is an idiot. I wanted to slap her. She needs to do some volunteer work and see people who really have problems.

[Ashleigh Walls · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was really disappointed. After watching Dani Shapiro on the Today show describing her first face-to-face interaction with her yogi ("when the student is ready the teacher appears"), I had high hopes for this book. Instead it was self-serving and whiney the entire way through. Ms. Shapiro's disjointed search to quantify or label her spirituality leaves the reader thinking she is nothing but a spoiled housewife. Nowhere in her story does she practice the true meaning of spirituality -- sharing.

[Judith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This year, I am interested in reading books about how people find and/or lose their faith, which brought me to this book about a middle-aged woman's search for her own religious and/or spiritual journey. She had a nice style and a nice story to tell, which is why I kept reading it. But by the time I was finished, I felt like I had spent an afternoon talking to a passenger in the seat beside me on a trip across the country. Entertained but not enlightened. I think maybe I have read enough of those spiritual journey memoirs, but I am afraid that this trend will be popular for awhile yet to come.

I liked hearing about her handsome husband and her beautiful son and their life together on a farm in Connecticut where they moved after 9/11 from NYC. I really liked all the anecdotes about her very wealthy and totally bitchy mother and their doomed relationship. But I felt like an outsider when she described all the Jewish ceremonies and uniforms, rituals and icons. An outsider like someone was telling me, "You wouldn't see the significance of this unless you were Jewish."

In the end, it was ultimately a very articulate and well-written book. I just found that I wasn't interested in the religious aspects of the book, which were the whole point of reading the book.

[M · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think Dani is just not for me. This obsessive, dark and brooding memoir details, extensively, her confused and confusing thoughts about God and her place in the world which, though a relatable struggle, is simply not all that interesting when it's someone else's. I found this to be repetitive, whiny and irritating. It touched upon a lot of Liz Gilbert's thoughts in EPL, but this one lacked the punch and likability and seemed to instead deliver only the stream of consciousness and me me me -ness.

[Michelle]

I've mentioned this before - and the more I experience the life of a book reviewer/blogger, the more I firmly believe this to be true - books have a way of coming across our path when they are most needed, when they will speak to us the most. Over the past two-plus years, as I have finally started paying attention, I have read many a novel or memoir that resonated with me specifically because they touched on something for which I too was searching. Dani Shapiro's Devotion is yet another example of this phenomenon.

Ms. Shapiro is facing what most of us without deep faith end up questioning - is this all there is to life? How many of us have sat in an endless meeting and wondered the same thing? How many of us have actually done something about it, whether it is searching out a like-minded group, starting a daily meditation practice, taking up yoga, attending a church group, or some other search for something larger than the mundane? When facing the rest of her life, at a personal crossroads and searching for peace of mind and a greater purpose, Ms Shapiro actively sought out these practices and shares her experiences with readers. Deeply personal, incredibly poignant, her soul-searching takes her on a roller coaster of a journey, through which the reader can glean his or her own key points to adapt to his or her own life.

One's search for greater meaning is personal, as is Ms. Shapiro's. Yet, there is much a reader can learn from Ms. Shapiro's journey. Having faith, of any sort, means standing on the edge of a precipice and not fretting about the fall, or the potential to fall. It means living in the moment. This, to me, is the greatest gift and most meaningful lesson to be learned in this day and age of multi-tasking and constant connection to the world.
"One afternoon at Garrison, Sharon Salzberg spoke about a Buddhist teach in India, a widowed woman with many, many children who had no time to sit on a cushion, meditating. How had she done it then? Sharon had once asked her. How had she achieved her remarkable ability to live in the present?
The answer was simply this: she stirred the rice mindfully." (pg. 211)
To focus only on the task at hand means to live in the moment, to learn to put aside the fears and concerns, the demands and constant pulls we feel in our lives. It allows us to be still and be calm, whether we are driving, writing, sitting in meetings, running errands or stirring the rice. Something so simple has the ability to change so much.

Devotion is not for everyone, although I do feel there is much that everyone could learn from Ms. Shapiro's journey. She goes into detail about her Jewish heritage, her religious upbringing and the conflicts that resulted as she grew older, rebelled, and started her own family. She spends a lot of time discussing her yoga and meditation. In addition, her writing style is very journalistic. Each chapter is relatively short and discusses whatever happened to be on her mind at the time of writing. This means that the story of her son's illness is explained slowly throughout the story, popping up on one page and not mentioned again for another 20 or 30 pages. This modified stream-of-consciousness adds an air of poignancy and intimacy to the entire memoir, as the reader catches more than a glimpse of Ms. Shapiro's inner yearnings and struggles. The result is a beautiful reminder that wanting more is okay, but we also need to be willing to put forth the effort to finding more to life. For those who have ever questioned, Devotion is a great start to one's own search for more.

Thank you to Erica Barmash from Harper Collins for my review copy!

[Sarah Joyce Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Devotion in two days/two sittings. The structure of the book – chapters starting right where the last ended – made it difficult to find a place to stop reading and I loved it. Dani Shapiro’s narrative was so personal and spoke to me on such a deep level and that structure gave me permission to keep reading…just one more chapter. What Shapiro wrote about: Is this all there is to life? If so, why do I feel like something’s missing?, and the spiritual quest that she began, is something universal to many of us these days as we watch the ground we once thought was impenetrable disintegrating before our eyes. Shapiro has what seems a charmed life, but at the root of her quest are a lot of loss, deep loneliness, and an inability to relinquish control of the uncontrollable. For those who have experienced great loss and tragedy or have come through a “near miss” it is very difficult to trust that everything will be okay. Instead, they spend most of their time thinking about what bad thing might happen next and how they can avoid it. Shapiro addresses how “…we’re all complicated by the way we were raised” as she tries to come to terms with her strict religious upbringing and the guilt she feels for seeking other ways to find God and meaning in her life other than just the Judaism in which she was raised.

I loved the interweaving of samskara (our knots of energy that each tells a story) throughout Shapiro’s narrative. She says, “Release a samskara and you release that story. Release your stories, and suddenly there is more room to breathe, to feel, to experience the world” which is what she is doing by writing this book. We are all a compilation of these stories. Some we share. Some we cannot bare to acknowledge. I equally loved Sylvia Boorstein’s metta meditation chants (the condensed version). I believe it is a wonderful way to begin a meditation routine and is something so simple that we can bring it with us wherever we go. There is also a practice Shapiro discovers at a California yoga studio that she incorporates into the end of her yoga routine that is again so simple, yet extremely powerful.

There are so many stunning moments that pierced right through me, so many questions that I have asked myself sitting right there on the page. Shapiro writes in such an accessible way you feel like you are taking the journey with her, discovering what she is discovering right there with her, and equally feeling her frustration at the lack of solid answers to the existential questions that haunt us. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is unsettled and is searching for that elusive something that will help them feel more grounded. Keeping an open mind and reading about others’ experiences are the best ways to move towards that more peaceful state of being even if we find that there are no answers and we must just “live inside the questions.”Devotion: A Memoir Dani Shapiro

[Jen Brodehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

5+++ Stars- I couldn’t love this book or Dani Shapiro more! She has so much wisdom about living life and I just relate to her so easily that if feels like listening to the wisest of friends. She navigates through marriage, motherhood, her writing career, loss and all the challenges that life throws her way with such grace and strength yet is so openly vulnerable when writing about it all. I can’t wait to read all of her books! I listened to this book which I loved because she narrates it. But I found myself bookmarking and saving so much that I ended up buying the hard copy too. I know this will be a book that I want to refer back to often. Definitely a favorite!! Thank you Dani for writing this book and all the wonderful life tips you include for your readers.

[Sharon Bright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shapiro has a way about her writing; simple and inspiring. Chapters don't necessarily run in chronological order but at the end you feel you've been invited into her world and nothing is left unanswered. She has a beautiful way of choosing the most relevant moments to share, in order to have you relating and provoked, without necessarily wrapping events into an unrealistic neat bow. This is the third book I've binged of hers. The woman knows her way around a memoir. How amazing that she has gathered so much creative steam from what life has given her.

[Antonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this because I’d just finished Shapiro’s Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage and wanted more, but this wasn’t really it. I should have known from the title. In general, I’m just not interested in faith, prayer, and spiritual seeking. Shapiro is a really good writer and that kept me reading, but it was far less satisfying than Hourglass.

[Arielle · Rating 1 out of 5]

An excellent combination of being both boring and pointless. Plus, her transliterations from Hebrew to English are terrible.

[thewanderingjew · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the first page, I believed that Dani Shapiro was presenting an honest appraisal of her search for herself and the meaning of her life. As she pretty much bares her soul and her secrets, she seems to be exposing her fears and weaknesses in an effort to face them in the light of day and better deal with them. She worries about things that haven’t happened but devises all sorts of scenarios about what might happen and then spends her time trying to prevent them from happening or prepares for their eventuality. She is wasting a lot of time and effort on imaginary circumstances. It can be exhausting and draining. She is plagued with insecurity. Having suffered through a near tragedy and some loss in her life, she is more susceptible to fears about them recurring; however, I believe that having escaped and/or dealt with the suffering, one usually becomes more sensitive to, and appreciates far more, the meaning of life and its value. Life is seen through the lens of experience and there is an essential feeling of gratitude for the second chance that has been given. There is a feeling that there might be a greater power out there that is controlling events, someone else pulling the strings of the human puppets.
Through various events in her life, she explains the anxiety she experiences, just from living everyday. She connects with the reader and as I began to think about my own life, I remembered how I reacted in similar circumstances. It was as if I was seeing parts of my life through the mirror of her eyes. The writing style is light but the message is deep, not trivial.
At the end of the book, Dani Shapiro is still a somewhat quasi atheist, questioning her beliefs and viewing the world through the teachings of her religious background. She has taken a spiritual journey and, although not actually practicing her Judaism devoutly, she is instead following traditions and rituals. She explores her past, hoping for self discovery, looking inward, mostly through yoga meditation. She constantly engages in soul searching in an attempt to live in the moment and find inner peace.
There are 102 flashbacks which reveal her attempts to analyze and work through her worries; she explores her relationship with her mother, her experiences regarding 9/11, her attendance at AA meetings, her son’s illness, her love for her father, and several other momentous occasions in her life.
Although at first, I wasn’t sure I would like this book as much as I did, I came to really appreciate its message. It made me stop and think about moments in my life, memories that I have not come to terms with, and helped me to view them in another light, more openly and with less sorrow and anger. Her message, throughout the book, is "live safe, live happy, live strong, live with ease". Paraphrasing from a quote in her book, “don’t live so far into the future that you lose the present”. Enjoy the moment.

[Erika Robuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I had begun to feel–and it was a bitter feeling–that the world could be divided into two kinds of people; those with an awareness of life’s inherent fragility and randomness, and those who believed they were exempt…I didn’t know that there was a third way of being…The third way…had to do with holding this paradox lightly in one’s own hands.” (Ch. 57)

Devotion: A Memoir, by Dani Shapiro, was released in January of 2010. This intimate exploration of Shapiro’s spirituality was inspired by her son’s innocent questions about God and the afterlife that she couldn’t answer. In small chapters and reflections, Shapiro reveals how a yogi, a rabbi, and a Buddhist helped guide her on her journey toward understanding. While she doesn’t necessarily find the answers, she at least learns to ask the questions and find peace with her doubt, her process, her heritage, and her loved ones.

I thought I’d dip a toe into this memoir and read it in small bites with all the other books I’m reading, but it edged out everything else. Ms. Shapiro’s voice is at once confident and unsure, serious and humorous, quiet and assertive. Her honesty is captivating, and she has the courage to name many of the struggles of family, career, and spirituality that others have difficulty articulating.

I enthusiastically and widely recommend Devotion. There are a thousand gems worth mentioning in the book, but without their context they lose their impact. I’ll leave you with this small passage from Ms. Shapiro that sums up one of the simplest (yet most challenging) ways of finding meaning amidst the chaos of daily life.

“One afternoon…Sharon Salzberg spoke about a Buddhist teacher in India, a widowed woman with many, many children who had no time to sit on a cushion, meditating. How had she done it, then?…How had she achieved her remarkable ability to live in the present? The answer was simply this: she stirred the rice mindfully.” (89)

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I came to this book at exactly the right moment. Like Dani Shapiro, I am looking to “opt back in” to a religious - or, at least, a spiritual - identity and want to “form – if not an opinion – a set of feelings and instincts by which to live.” Her struggles toward feeling and defining a presence in her life larger than herself especially resonated with me.

Shapiro presents the book in a series of mini-chapters, which do leap around a bit, but which I think symbolize her search for lessons in faith wherever she might find them. I suppose that this reflective memoir might border on navel gazing at times, but, since I'm gazing at my navel in the same way these days, I felt lucky to join Shapiro on her journey.

[Tanya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. I got halfway thru and just couldn't take it anymore. The author was SO whiney and I thought her flippant attitude toward her religion was unnecessary and frankly offended. Maybe she achieves her sense of devotion by the end of the memoir but I have other books to read. Such a disappointment.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful memoir about searching for answers. Sometimes we pick up books at just the right time. This was one of those cases.

[JoAnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 / 5 stars
Excellent memoir about the role of faith in daily life. I listened to the audio version read by author, but will also purchase a print copy.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been on a bit of a Dani Shapiro kick lately, though I've been reading her memoirs in a strange order: first Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love, her latest; followed by Slow Motion, her first memoir, published over twenty years earlier. In Devotion, published in between the two I'd already read, Dani focuses on her spiritual quest, as a Jewish woman who grew up witnessing her orthodox father's intense devotion to the faith, but is now more of a lapsed Jew herself. Even though I am not a Jew, I could relate to her search for meaning and her own spiritual beliefs, through yoga, meditation, reading, and so forth.

I found the book well-written and affecting, like the memoirs I'd read previously, since I can relate to Dani Shapiro in many ways. I have several things in common with her, from being the same age, to dealing with the loss of a beloved father due to a car accident (and eerily, both our fathers were on strong painkillers following back surgery, which contributed to the crashes), to miscarriage, to drinking too much at certain life stages, to an interest in and practice of yoga. There are also many differences between us, like her relationship with her prickly mother and her Judiaism, of course, but having anxious worries like the ones she explores in this book is yet another thing I could relate to. I think maybe once one loses a parent unexpectedly and tragically, it can lead to a loss of innocence and a bit of magical thinking: that since crazily bad things can happen in an instant, if one thinks about them, imagines them, perhaps one can keep them from happening.

I took off one star because the focus on her Jewish faith was of less interest to me than the rest of the story, but really, that was my only ding. The pages flew by in this thoughtful memoir -- and her words made me think and reflect on my own life as well.

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 4.5/5

It's been at least a dozen years since I read Dani Shapiro's novel, Family History, and sadly, I don't remember anything about the book other than I liked it enough keep an eye out for more by this author. I picked up one of her memoirs (Slow Motion) earlier this year, but found it too depressing and gave up after 60 pages. I've had a copy of Devotion on my shelf for several years and decided to give it a try for Nonfiction November and am happy to say that I loved it! This beautifully written memoir spoke to me on several levels and while some might disparage Shapiro's navel-gazing, I was inspired by her honesty and desire to rediscover her spirituality, not only through the traditions of her Jewish faith, but with the incorporation of yoga and meditation, as well.

Passages of Note:

I had reached the middle of my life and knew less than I ever had. Michael, Jacob, and I lived on top of a hill, surrounded by old trees, a vegetable garden, stone walls. From the outside, things looked pretty good. But deep inside myself, I had begun to quietly fall apart. Nights, I quivered in the darkness like a wounded animal. Something was very wrong, but I didn't know what it was. All I knew was that I felt terribly anxious and unsteady. Doomed. Each morning I drove Jacob down a dirt road to his sweet little school. We all got yearly physicals. Our well water was tested for contaminants. Nothing--absolutely nothing I could put my finger on--was the matter. Except that I was often on the verge of tears. Except that it seemed that there had to be more than this hodgepodge of the everyday. Inside each joy was a hard kernel of sadness, as if I was always preparing myself for impending loss.

and

Turn right, turn left. Stay home that day. Take a different route. Cross the street for no apparent reason. Say yes, say no. Get up from the breakfast table, slip into the elevator just as the doors are closing. Book the afternoon flight. Drive exactly sixty-three miles per hour. Flip a coin. Call it coincidence, luck, fate, destiny, randomness. Some would call it the hand of God. I was sure what to call it. What I did know is that this was a huge, blinking neon sign I couldn't ignore or dismiss. All these seemingly disconnected bits--a new yoga class, a teacher's particular selection of a poem, the wonders of Google and Amazon, an impulsive one-click purchase, an agreement to participate in a local charity event--all these formed a pattern, invisible to see. Do this, a gentle voice seemed to be saying. Now this. And now this. All of which had led me to be seated next to Stephen Cope: author, yogi, scholar--and director of the Institute for Extraordinary Living at Kripalu.

and

"Metta meditation," she went on, "is a concentration practice. It's the protection formula that the Buddha taught the monks: one of being able to depend on your own good heart. So"--she clasped her hands together--"how do we do this? By tempering one's own heart and restoring it to balance. Metta is a practice of inclining the mind in the direction of good will."
Sylvia [Boorstein] then laid out for us her four favorite phrases--variations on the Buddha's original phrases--to chant silently during metta:

May I feel protected and safe.

May I feel contented and pleased.

May my physical body support me with strength.

May my life unfold smoothly with ease.

The idea was to silently repeat the phrases again and again, at first focusing on ourselves, but then eventually directing the phrases to others: our closest teachers and benefactors; then our loved ones; our friends; strangers; and eventually--after much practice--to those with whom we have difficult relationships, or as it is known in Buddhist scripture, our enemies.

and

Writers often say that the hardest part of writing isn't the writing itself; it's the sitting down to write. The same is true of yoga, meditation, and prayer. The sitting down, the making space. The doing. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? Unroll the mat. Sit cross-legged on the floor. Just do it. Close your eyes and express a silent need, a wish, a moment of gratitude. What's so hard about that? Except--it is hard. The usual distractions--the clutter and piles of life--are suddenly, unusually enticing. The worst of it, I've come to realize, is that the thing that stops me--the shadow that casts a cold darkness across the best of my intentions--isn't the puppy, the e-mail, the UPS truck, the school conference, the phone, the laundry, the to-do lists. It's me that stops me. Things get stuck, the osteopath once said with a shrug. He gestured to the area where the neck meets the head. The place where the body ends and the mind begins. Things get stuck. It sounded so simple when he said it. It's me, and the things that are stuck. Standing in my way.

and

May I be safe.

May I be happy.

May I be strong.

May I live with ease.

I recently asked Sylvia why she had simplified the metta phrases. I knew there had to be a reason. She smiled at me, then beyond me, as if looking over my shoulder into the distance. She nodded, as she often did before formulating a response.

"I wanted something I would always be able to say--in old age, in sickness--and have it be realistic," she said. "No matter what happens, I can always wish for strength."

I'm glad I didn't let my disappointment in Slow Motion sway my decision to skip reading Devotion. This inspiring memoir is one I plan to share with my yogi friends and return to in the future. I'm eager to read Shapiro's most recent memoir, Inheritance, and may even give Slow Motion another try.

[Siobhan Fallon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find myself using Devotion like a book of daily reflections. I like picking it up and reading one of the brief chapters and then pausing and thinking on it. Very meditative and relaxing, though Dani Shaprio writes this the way she writes her fast paced novels: you get caught up in the tension of the first page and keep reading to find out what could possibly happen next to the narrator. But the questions on faith, and what we should pass on to our children in this world of doubt, resonates with me each time I take a look.

[Lauren Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this I liked very much -- I'm a sucker for sobriety stories -- and Shapiro has a clear, straightforward writing style, but in the end I found the insights not quite as well.. insightful... as I might have hoped. I was anticipating seeing something old in a new way, or seeing something heretofore unnoticed. That didn't quite happen. I didn't find anything new, although a few things I could easily identify with. Perhaps another reader, in a different place in his or her life, would have a different takeaway.

[Sarah Fite · Rating 5 out of 5]

2nd read. Absorbed every passage.