Spirituality Buddhism

Whether you’re just beginning your mindfulness journey or seeking to deepen your spiritual path, The Monk and the Butterfly offers quiet companionship in a noisy world. You can listen to the stories in any order, revisit them again and again, and let them settle where they may. These are not stories to be rushed through. They are pauses. Reminders. Gentle nudges back to yourself.

In this classic work of spiritual guidance, the founder of the Rochester Zen Center presents a comprehensive overview of Zen Buddhism. Exploring the three pillars of Zen - teaching, practice, and enlightenment - Roshi Philip Kapleau, the man who founded one of the oldest and most influential Zen centers in the United States, presents a personal account of his own experiences as a student and teacher, and in so doing gives listeners invaluable advice on how to develop their own practices.

Adyashanti asks us to let go of our struggles with life and open to the full promise of spiritual awakening: the end of delusion and the discovery and expression of our essential being. After 15 years as a spiritual teacher, Adyashanti has found that the simpler the teaching, the greater its power to initiate this awakening. On Falling into Grace, he shares what he considers fundamental insights to "open ourselves to that mysterious element that enters in the hidden and quiet moments and sparks a revolution in the way that we perceive life."

When does enlightenment come? At the end of the spiritual journey? Or the beginning? In After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, Jack Kornfield brings into focus the truth about satori, the awakened state of consciousness, and enlightenment practices today. The result is this extraordinary look at the hard work we all must do - the laundry - no matter how often we experience ecstatic states of consciousness through meditation and other disciplines.

Buddha Standard Time shares one of the great realizations of Buddhism, one that anyone can learn to apply. Buddhist wisdom teaches that the minutes and hours of our days do not simply march from future to present to past---looming, engulfing us, passing us by forever. Rather, each moment is intersected by a fourth dimension, a dimension of timelessness.

The world moves fast, but that doesn't mean we have to. In this best-selling mindfulness guide - it has sold more than three million copies in Korea, where it was a number-one best-seller for 41 weeks and received multiple best book of the year awards - Haemin Sunim (which means "spontaneous wisdom"), a renowned Buddhist meditation teacher born in Korea and educated in the United States, illuminates a path to inner peace and balance amid the overwhelming demands of everyday life.

A single purpose lies at the heart of all the great religious traditions: awakening to the astonishing reality of the true nature of ourselves and the universe. At the same time, through centuries of cultural accretion and focus on myth and ritual as ends in themselves, this core insight has become obscured. Here Ken Wilber provides a path for reenvisioning a religion of the future that acknowledges the evolution of humanity in every realm while remaining faithful to that original spiritual vision.

One of the earliest of all Buddhist texts, the Atthakavagga, or Book of Eights, is a remarkable document, not only because it comes from the earliest strain of the literature - before the Buddha, as the title suggests, came to be thought of as a "Buddhist" - but also because its approach to awakening is so simple and free of adherence to any kind of ideology. Instead the Atthakavagga points to a direct and simple approach for attaining peace without requiring the adherence to doctrine.

This wide-ranging anthology brings together pioneering Tibetan Buddhist teachers, scientific researchers, and health professionals to offer fascinating perspectives on the mind and emotions, new studies, and firsthand accounts of how meditation is being applied to great effect in health and social care today. Sogyal Rinpoche and Jetsn Khandro Rinpoche on how meditation unlocks the mind’s healing power. Jon Kabat-Zinn on the benefits of mindfulness in mainstream health care.

The jhānas are eight progressive altered states of consciousness that can be identified with the aspect of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path called Right Concentration. Training in concentration leads to these states, each of which yields a deeper and subtler state of awareness than the previous one. The jhānas are not in themselves awakening, but they are a skillful means for stilling the mind in a way that leads in that direction, and they are attainable by anyone who devotes the time and sincerity of practice necessary to realize them.

Twenty-four of the Buddha's most distinguished disciples are brought to life in ten chapters of rich narration. They include monks who were very close to him throughout his life, including Sariputta and Mahamoggallana; his cousin and companion Ananda; his principal women disciples, including the nun Isidasi and his lay disciple, the courtesan Ambapali; and the serial killer Angulimala, whose character was transformed after meeting the Buddha.

In chapters such as "During Your Swing Is Not the Time to Give Yourself a Lesson" and "How to Enjoy a Bad Round of Golf," the author guides golfers with simple yet powerful techniques to prepare for, execute, and, equally important, respond to the results of any golf shot. The author, Dr. Joseph Parent, is a PGA Tour Instructor who draws on his teaching experience to offer special methods that have led to amazing improvements in the games of professionals and amateurs alike.

The Long Discourses of the Buddha (Dīgha Nikāya) is the first of the five Nikāyas (Collections) in the Sutta Pitaka and has its own particular character. Unlike the others which contain thousands of shorter discourses (suttas), it comprises just 34 but of much longer length - as the name indicates! This makes it in some ways a more focused collection of teachings of the Buddha and especially accessible in audio.

For those of us who feel deeply committed to spiritual realization and to being instruments of benefit in the world, what Carl Jung called "the second half of life" represents a remarkable curriculum for awakening. When wisely understood, the bodily changes inherent in the aging process become stepping-stones on the road to liberation and the actualization of our best human qualities like wisdom, loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.

The notion of dignity is crucial to the question of how best to live a meaningful and fulfilling life, particularly for today’s environment in which so many of us experience self-doubt, low self-esteem, and feelings of being trapped by anxiety, dissatisfaction, or even success. How, in such a circumstance, can we gain authentic and unshakeable dignity? In Awakening Dignity, Phakchok Rinpoche draws from the Tibetan Buddhist wisdom tradition to offer a unique and fresh approach to answer this question.

It’s true, as they say, that we can only love others when we first love ourselves and we can only experience real joy when we stop running from pain. The key to understanding these truisms lies in remaining open to life in all circumstances, and here Pema Chödrön shows us how. Because when we embrace the happiness and suffering, intelligence and confusion that are a natural part of life, we can begin to discover a wellspring of courageous love within our hearts.

The Library of Wisdom and Compassion collects the Dalai Lama’s decades of presentations of every step of the path to enlightenment. It has been compiled and coauthored by one of his chief Western disciples, the American nun Thubten Chodron. This first volume provides a wealth of reflections on Buddhist history and fundamentals, contemporary issues, and the Dalai Lama’s own personal experiences.

Dzongsar Khyentse describes in accessible language—sometimes even goading and poking fun at us—what it really means to follow the Buddha’s teachings. Khyentse starts by explaining how Buddhists are not just smiling pacifists in robes. He goes from there, cutting through common misperceptions, but the real essence of the book is what a Buddhist is: namely, someone who follows the teachings of Buddha.

This audiobook offers a clear, concise account of the Eightfold Path prescribed to uproot and eliminate the deep underlying cause of suffering—ignorance. Each step of the path is believed to cultivate wisdom through mental training, and includes an enlightened and peaceful middle path that avoids extremes. The theoretical as well as practical angles of each of the paths—right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration—are illustrated through examples from contemporary life.

Alan Watts introduced millions of Western listeners to Zen and other Eastern philosophies, but he’s also recognized as a brilliant commentator on Judeo-Christian traditions as well as a celebrity philosopher who exemplified the ideas — and lifestyle — of the 1960s counterculture.