A guide for those seeking a meaningful spiritual path while living everyday lives full of families, work, and friends. Vajragupta gives clear explanations of Buddhist teachings and the necessary guidance on how to apply these to enrich our busy and complex lives. The personal stories, examples, exercises, and questions in this book help transform Buddhist practice into more than just a fine set of ideals. They make the path of ethics, meditation, and wisdom a tangible part of our lives. Vajragupta, born Richard Staunton in London, is experienced in teaching Buddhism to students of all ages. Extracts: Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone's life is a unique combination of events, full of dark and light, hope and disappointment, meetings and partings, the unusual and the mundane. Living a Buddhist life is about understanding our story, knowing for what our heart most truly wishes, and feeling we have the tools to change direction if we wish. Life will have dealt us a certain hand of cards, but we can learn to play them more and more skilfully. One great danger of the today's busy world is that life can slide past us without our really noticing it. How often have you eaten a meal, made a journey, or even had a conversation with someone, and afterwards realized that you weren't really there, and that your mind was caught up with anticipation or worry about the next thing? Although, in the western world, life is often enjoyable and comfortable, there is a danger of superficiality, of living too often in a twilight zone of distraction.