Buddhist tradition tells us that enlightenment is possible for each and every one of us. It's actually the best thing we can do for others and for the world, but also the best thing we can do for ourselves, because it means being free from all misery, pain, depression, dissatisfaction, and negative emotions, and abiding forever in peace, joy, love, and compassion. What could be more wonderful than that? Kathleen McDonald (Sangye Khadro), a Western nun with decades of experience and author of the bestselling book How to Meditate, guides us through the next step in our meditation practice: the transformative meditations on the Tibetan lamrim stages to enlightenment. She helps us see that the whole purpose of meditation is to transform our mind in a constructive way. For this to happen, we need to become so thoroughly familiar with the lamrim topics that they become our natural way of thinking and living our life.

How to Meditate on the Stages of the Path: A Guide to the Lamrim, Kathleen McDonald, Wisdom Publications, Paperback, 416 pages, $24.95

Originally from California, Kathleen McDonald (Sangye Khadro) began studying Buddhism with Tibetan lamas in Dharamsala, India, in 1973. She became a nun in Nepal the following year, and received full (bhikshuni) ordination in 1988. At the request of her teachers, she began teaching in 1980, and since then has been teaching Buddhism and meditation in various countries around the world, occasionally taking time off for personal retreats. She served as resident teacher in Buddha House, Australia, for two years and in Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore for eleven years. From 2008 to 2013 she followed the Masters Program at Lama Tsong Khapa Institute in Italy. Since then she served for seven years as a faculty member of the Human Spirit Psychoanalytic-Buddhist Training Program in Israel, and for a year and a half as the resident teacher at the Center for Wisdom and Compassion in Copenhagen, Denmark. She currently resides at Sravasti Abbey in Washington State, USA, and teaches online. She is the author of How to Meditate: A Practical Guide and Awakening the Kind Heart: How to Meditate on Compassion.