A couple of months ago I blogged about how I met Rinpoche. We left off with my wife and I riding off into the sunset, disappearing into retreat. After leaving retreat, I created a popular mediation program for the monastery where I did retreat. Having been absent from the world for quite awhile and drawing on my Tech industry experience designing products, I wanted to do some market research. I enrolled in various meditation courses, buddhist, hindu and secular. I went to lectures and seminars. I beta tested the new courses by  teaching them in New York City. I saw a hunger in people coming to my classes for a better way to live, to actualize the full promise of human existence.

Yet, perhaps because of the recent financial melt down, there was a lot of cynicism about old school hierarchies, be they government, business or religious. People were coming to the center where I was teaching to learn wisdom tools but definitely not to join any “ism” (e.g. mediationism, mindfulism or Buddhism). Secretly, I wanted to write a book that would have helped me and my friends cope in the business world, my students to thrive and was totally authentic to the great tradition of wisdom and compassion I spent year studying and practicing. A book that was beautiful to look at and met people in the lives they were already living.

Turns out my dear, old friend Phakchok Rinpoche was thinking along the same lines! Here is a video where Rinpoche and I speak about our coming together to write our book.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments section.

Phakchok Rinpoche and Erric Solomon have collaborated on Radically Happy: A User’s Guide to the Mind. The book was released on October 16, 2018. Order your copy of Radically Happy via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound or wherever good books are sold.