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Sylvia Boorstein

Sylvia Boorstein

1936 CE · Modern · Brooklyn (NY)

b. 1936 (living)

Sylvia Boorstein (b. 1936) is an American psychotherapist, author, and insight-meditation teacher, and a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. A practicing Jew as well as a Buddhist meditation teacher, she is known for warmly accessible books such as That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist and Happiness Is an Inside Job, and for exploring the meeting of Jewish life and Buddhist practice. She continues to teach.

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Stop 1 of 2Born

Brooklyn (NY)ברוקליןNew York, USA

What they did here

Born in 1936; later earned a master's in social work and a doctorate in psychology while raising a family in Marin County, California.

About Brooklyn (NY)

Brooklyn, coextensive with Kings County, is one of the five boroughs of New York City. It began as the Dutch village of Breuckelen, chartered in 1646, remained an independent city until it was consolidated into New York in 1898, and is today the most populous borough. Roughly a fifth of its residents are Jewish, and since the mid-twentieth century it has been a world centre of Orthodox and Hasidic life: Chabad-Lubavitch has had its headquarters in Crown Heights since 1940, Satmar is centred in Williamsburg and Bobov in Borough Park, alongside many yeshivas and Modern Orthodox congregations. Several American Buddhist teachers, among them Bernie Glassman and Bhikkhu Bodhi, were born in Brooklyn.

In Brooklyn (NY) at the same time

Bernie Glassman, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Lama Surya Das

Across the traditions, in Brooklyn (NY) at the same time

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Sylvia Boorstein’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Sylvia Boorstein’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(2)

Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

Spirit Rock Meditation Center (Woodacre) · 2007

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It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

Spirit Rock Meditation Center (Woodacre) · 1995

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