From the inside cover: Sylvia Boorstein teaches mindfulness and leads retreats across the United States. She is a co-founding teacher (with Jack Kornfield) at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, and a senior teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in the Barre, Massachusetts. [She] is also a practicing psychotherapist."

From p. 6 of the book: "The becoming wise part is a gradual process. By paying attention calmly, in all situations, we begin to see clearly the truth of life experience. We realize that pain and joy are both inevitable and that they are also both temporary. We remember, more and more often, that struggling causes suffering and that compassionate, considered responses make life manageable."