Spirituality Buddhism

Millions outside of Asia become curious about Tibetan Buddhism through hearing and being touched by the words of the Dalai Lama, reading a book about Tibet, seeing images, or watching films. Many who are curious about Buddhist ideas eventually find themselves reaching a point where they are exposed to aspects of Tibetan Buddhism but are unsure what participating in the tradition and its practices entails. In this candid, practical guide from a longtime practitioner, Bruce Newman offers guidance. Special emphasis is placed on the pitfalls and benefits of the guru-disciple relationship.

Written by the 17th-century Zen master Takuan Soho (1573-1645), The Unfettered Mind is a book of advice on swordsmanship and the cultivation of right mind and intention. It was written as a guide for the samurai Yagyu Munenori, who was a great swordsman and rival to the legendary Miyamoto Musashi.

Lojong is the Tibetan Buddhist practice that involves working with short phrases (called "slogans") as a way of generating bodhichitta, the heart and mind of enlightened compassion. Though the practice is more than a millennium old, it has become popular in the West in only the last 20 years or so - and it has become very popular indeed because it's a practice that one can fit very well into an ordinary life, and because it works.

In simple and straightforward language, Bhante Gunaratana shares the Buddha's teachings on mindfulness and how we can use these principles to improve our daily lives, deepen our mindfulness, and move closer to our spiritual goals. Based on the classic Satipatthana Sutta, one of the most succinct yet rich explanations of meditation, Bhante's presentation is nonetheless thoroughly modern.

Each day we deal with the challenges of ordinary life: a series of mundane experiences that could be summarized by the title of this book, Work, Sex, Money. We all hope that these aspects of our life will be a source of fulfillment and pleasure, and they often are. Yet they are also always sources of problems for which we seek practical advice and solutions.

Thubten Chodron’s illuminating explication of Togmay Zangpo’s revered text, The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas, doesn’t just explain its profound meaning; in dozens of passages she lets her students and colleagues share first-person stories of the ways that its teachings have changed their lives. Some bear witness to dramatic transformations.

Do you practise meditation because you want to feel good? Or to help you relax and be "happy"? Then frankly, according to Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, you are far better off having a full-body massage than trying to practise the Dharma. Genuine spiritual practice, not least the Ngndro preliminaries, will not bring the kind of comfort and ease most worldly people crave. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Preparing to Die is for anyone interested in learning how to prepare for death from a Buddhist perspective, both spiritually and practically. It is also for those who want to learn how to help someone else who is dying, both during the time of illness and death as well as after death.

Anatta is the Buddhist teaching on the nonexistence of a permanent, independent self. It's a notoriously puzzling and elusive concept, usually leading to such questions as, "If I don't have a self, who's reading this sentence?" It's not that there's no self there, says Rodney Smith. It's just that the self that is reading this sentence is a configuration of elements that at one time did not exist and that at some point in the future will disperse.

Un enregistrement très convaincant. Nous savons que nous devons être bons envers nous-mêmes si nous voulons être heureux. Mais est-ce que notre cœur le sait ? Nous sommes à la fois le juge impitoyable et l'enfant perdu et apeuré qui ne veut plus se sentir jugé. Nous avons créé un cercle vicieux auquel nous pouvons mettre fin uniquement en sortant de nous-mêmes pour observer comment nous en sommes arrivés là. Pour transformer les pensées qui nous hantent.

An ancient and deeply revered practice, Buddhism is even more popular now than it has been in decades. The secret behind its steady rise is due in part to the plethora of benefits Buddhism reaps upon those who practice it and apply its teachings to their lives. Through mindfulness and meditation, Buddhism injects peace and clarity into the minds and lives of those who dedicate themselves to it. Those wonderful benefits can be a part of your life as well through the careful study of its various tenets.

Whether we call it the inner critic, superego, or just plain nag, most of us have a "judge within" who's constantly on our case. A comprehensive guide to understanding how the inner critic works, this book offers practical, positive suggestions for breaking free of it. Using straightforward language and examples from everyday life, Byron Brown shows: Where the inner judge came from. How it operates. Why it trips us up. Why we believe we need it. How to develop awareness of it. How to disengage from it.

Living and dying with bravery and honor is at the heart of Hagakure, a series of texts written by an 18th-century samurai, Yamamoto Tsunetomo. It is a window into the samurai mind, illuminating the concept of bushido (the Way of the Warrior), which dictated how samurai were expected to behave, conduct themselves, live, and die.

Over the course of twenty-five centuries, Buddhism spread from its place of origin in northern India to become a global tradition of remarkable breadth, depth, and richness. Donald S. Lopez Jr. draws on the latest scholarship to construct a detailed and innovative history of Buddhism—not just as a chronology through the centuries or as geographic movement, but as a dense matrix of interconnections.

The observations and insights of the Buddha are practical and eminently down to earth, dealing exclusively with awareness in the here and now. Buddhism Plain and Simple offers listeners these fundamental teachings, stripped of cultural trappings that have accumulated around Buddhism over the past 25 centuries.

Before it was a religion, a culture, or even a system of meditation, what was Buddhism? On Buddhism Without Beliefs, celebrated teacher, translator, and former Buddhist monk Stephen Batchelor takes us back to the first years after the Buddha's awakening to reveal the root insights of Buddhism hidden beneath centuries of history and interpretation.

In the classic best seller, Introduction to Tantra, Lama Yeshe offered a profound and wonderfully clear glimpse into the sophisticated practices of Tibetan Buddhist tantra. This present book, the last major teachings of this great lama, opens up the world of advanced practices for Highest Yoga Tantra initiates in much the same way his earlier work opened up the world of tantra in general. Lama's own realization of the transformative power of these practices comes through, inspiring his students to discover for themselves their own capacity for inexhaustible bliss.

The paradox of awareness is very profound and yet very simple. It can't be described because it has no objective qualities and no limitation. Sometimes it comes naturally to the surface when we are fully in the present moment and no longer lost in thought or mental projections. Pure consciousness is neither high nor low, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, neither good nor bad. No matter where we are, no matter what we are doing, we always have an immediate access to that inner stillness.

Stephanie Kaza's heartfelt meditations on the singular presence of trees have helped thousands of listeners feel a sense of spiritual connection to our ancient relatives. Through her attentive, loving encounters with trees, Kaza asks vital questions about what it means to reinhabit place, live simply, and speak from the truth of experience. More pertinent now than ever, her intimate exploration of the lives of individual trees demonstrates the possibility of personal and ecological sanity in our time.

In 2008, celebrating the long-awaited completion of the English-language translation of The Great Treatise, the Dalai Lama gave a historic six-day teaching at Lehigh University to explain the meaning of this classic text and to underscore its importance. It is the longest teaching that he has ever given to Westerners on just one text, and Westerners have never before had the opportunity to receive such a complete teaching that encompasses the totality of the Buddhist path from the Dalai Lama.