Spirituality Buddhism

The most well-known Buddhist teachers on the planet all have something in common: they are excellent communicators. This is not by accident, as the Buddha taught what are called the four elements of right speech over 2,600 years ago. In this one-of-a-kind book, certified meditation and mindfulness instructor Cynthia Kane has taken the four elements of right speech and developed them into a modern practice based on mindful listening, mindful speech, and mindful silence.

In his new book, There is No App for Happiness, Strom illustrates three imperatives to take back control of our lives. Learn that joy and fulfillment require us to be active participants, not passive viewers. We should not strive for a virtual life - but a life truly lived. There is No App for Happiness helps us to overcome our negative presets and propels us into a new and more meaningful experience of living.

The people who get under your skin the most can in fact be your greatest teachers. It’s not a matter of overlooking differences - for those very differences offer a path to profound connection. Diane Hamilton’s practical, reality-based guide to living harmoniously with even your most irritating fellow humans - spouses, partners, colleagues, parents, children - shows that “getting along” is really a matter of discovering that our differences are nothing other than an expression of our even deeper shared unity.

This book offers a refreshing Buddhist approach to understanding the role of digital technology in our world and how we can better manage our relationship to it. Our engagement with digital devices connects us to people and ideas, but it also causes anxiety, distraction, imbalance, and suffering. Rather than a digital detox, we can train our minds to leverage our negative habits and digital temptations to deal with life more effectively, improve our attention span, reduce mental fatigue, and deepen our happiness.

The Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra is among the best known of all the Buddhist scriptures. Chanted daily by many Zen students, it is also studied extensively in the Tibetan tradition, and it has been regarded with interest more recently in the West in various fields of study - from philosophy to quantum physics. In just 35 lines, it expresses the truth of impermanence and the release from suffering that results from the understanding of that truth with a breathtaking economy of language.

Alchemists sought to transform lead into gold. In the same way, says Tara Bennett-Goleman, we all have the natural ability to turn our moments of confusion and emotional pain into insightful clarity. Emotional Alchemy maps the mind and shows how, according to recent advances in cognitive therapy, most of what troubles us falls into ten basic emotional patterns, including fear of abandonment, social exclusion (the feeling we don't belong), and vulnerability (the feeling that some catastrophe will occur).

Immigrant daughter, novice chaplain, bereaved friend: author Chenxing Han (Be the Refuge) takes us on a pilgrimage through the wilds of grief and laughter, pain and impermanence, reconnecting us to both the heartache and inexplicable brightness of being human.

The Urban Monk, a New York Times best seller, reveals the secrets to finding an open heart, sharp mind, and grounded sense of well-being, even in the most demanding circumstances. Shojai's no-nonsense life mastery program brings together clear tools and exercises that can elevate your existence.

Shunryu Suzuki’s extraordinary gift for presenting traditional Zen teachings using ordinary language is well known to the countless readers of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. In Zen Is Right Here, his teachings are brought to life through stories told by his students. These living encounters with Zen are poignant, direct, humorous, paradoxical, and enlightening - and their setting in real-life contexts makes them wonderfully accessible.

The Sutra of 42 Chapters is a scripture complied in the first century CE. Each saying comes from Buddha, but the whole work was a new anthology created especially for introducing Buddhism in a new country. That’s why it makes such a good, basic introduction to the world view of Gautam Buddha.

The question-and-answer format makes this introduction to Zen especially easy to understand - and also to use as a reference, as you can easily look up just the question you had in mind. The esteemed Zen teacher Norman Fischer and his old friend and teaching colleague Susan Moon (both of them in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind) give this collaborative effort a playful tone: Susan asks a question on our behalf, Norman answers it, and then Sue challenges him.

L’effondrement de la biosphère à l’échelle planétaire fait planer une menace d’extinction sur la vie terrestre. Cette crise est révélatrice d’une Nouvelle Réalité. Le Dalaï-lama exhorte chacun à se transformer par la paix intérieure, l’altruisme et la compassion. La prise de conscience de nos interdépendances, intuition singulièrement moderne de la sagesse bouddhiste ancestrale, est partagée désormais par le pape, les scientifiques et les philosophes. Pour survivre à ce millénaire, l’humanité doit réaliser que tout est relié, de l’infiniment petit à l’infiniment grand.

Trauma does not just happen to a few unlucky people; it is the bedrock of our psychology. Death and illness touch us all, but even the everyday sufferings of loneliness and fear are traumatic. In The Trauma of Everyday Life renowned psychiatrist and author of Thoughts Without a Thinker, Mark Epstein uncovers the transformational potential of trauma, revealing how it can be used for the mind's own development. Western psychology teaches that if we understand the cause of trauma, we might move past it while many drawn to Eastern practices see meditation as a means of rising above, or distancing themselves from, their most difficult emotions.

In Japanese gardens, composition follows from placement of the first stone; all elements and plantings become interconnected. These eight essays on Kyoto gardens similarly begin with keen description and build into richly meditative excursions into art, Buddhism, nature, and science. Landscape architect Marc Keane shows how Japanese gardens are both a microcosm of the natural universe and a clear expression of our humanity, mirroring how we think, worship, and organize our lives and communities.

Transcending brings together more than 30 contributors from both the Mahayana and Theravada traditions to present a vision for a truly inclusive trans Buddhist sangha in the 21st century. Shining a light on a new generation of Buddhist role models, this book gives voice to those who have long been marginalized within the Buddhist world and society at large.

I love the statement that the "man of Zen walks in Zen and sits in Zen" for the simple reason that meditation cannot be just a part of your life. You cannot make a fragment of your life meditative.

Connect with the present moment in each movement. Award-winning author, meditation leader, and mental health advocate Nita Sweeney shows listeners that fitness can be mindfulness. She teaches listeners how to bring meditation and mindfulness into any activity by incorporating centuries-old techniques. Studies show that both exercise and meditation reduce anxiety, stabilize blood pressure, improve mood and cognition, and lead to a deeper self-relationship and wisdom. Movement is medicine, and meditation is medicine. Let's combine the two with exercise as meditation.

Tao has been built into the foundation of East Asian culture for millennia, and many books have been written to explain it. But Tao cannot fully be explained in words; it can only felt and experienced. Tao is something you live, day by day, moment by moment. It's the omnipresent oneness beyond ephemeral phenomena that expresses itself in everything.

How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and their Caregivers is a life-affirming, instructive, and inspiring book about living gracefully and purposefully with the challengesfaced by those with chronic pain or illness. These conditions, while not always life-threatening, are life-disrupting and stressful. The audiobook contains over two dozen tools and practices to help people live skillfully and to find equanimity and joy despite the profound changes in their lives.

The dumpster fire of life rages on, but you got this. Practice six rules to keep you grounded, weather the storm, and actually be a decent person. It may seem like the world is going to hell in a hand basket right now. Whether it's big stuff like politics and climate change, or just the daily spin of paying your bills, getting to work on time, and fending off social media trolls, we can all admit, modern life ain't easy.