$16.95
Prepare to encounter your mind in a radically new way as Ken Wilber introduces Integral Mindfulness, a meditative approach based on Integral Theory and Practice. This leading-edge technique combines, for the first time in history, the ancient paths of meditation and mindfulness—or Waking Up—with modern research into psychological development and human evolution—Growing Up—resulting in a complete and powerfully effective method of personal transformation.
Integral Meditation focuses attention on the inner “maps” we use to navigate life—in relationships, at work and study, in play, in just about everything we do. Mindfulness is used to unearth these unconscious maps, then uproot them so that we can substitute happier and healthier perspectives. With experiential exercises, guided meditation instructions, and tools to identify the individual’s own greatest potential, this book points the way to realizing our Supreme Identity—and to finding the reason why each of us has come into being: to embody and express in the world our unique perspective of Spirit.
$16.95
Compassion, kindness, equanimity, and joy are not only the fruits of the awakened life but also the path to it: attitudes of mind that can be cultivated by anyone willing to set the intention for doing so. Christina Feldman shows how these ennobling qualities—known in Buddhism as the brahma viharas (sublime abodes) or the Four Immeasurables—are far more than simply the “feel-good” states they are sometimes mistaken for. If we pursue them sincerely as spiritual practice, they work together, complementing and enhancing each other, to lead us to the kind of awakening that we are compelled to share with others. Thus through the practice of the brahma viharas we can become participants in the healing and liberation of our world.
$24.95
This, the third volume of the Trilogy of Rest, introduces us to our most basic nature—the clear and pristine awareness that is the nature of the mind. The Padmakara Translation Group has provided us with a clear and fluid new translation of the final volume, Finding Rest in Illusion, along with its autocommentary, The Chariot of Excellence, which describes in detail the conduct of those who have stabilized their recognition of the nature of the mind and how to apply the Buddhist view when relating to ordinary appearances. This is an invaluable manual for any genuine student of Buddhism who wishes to truly find rest through the path of the Great Perfection.
$18.95
The ancient meditation techniques of Taoism encompass a wide range of practices—with an aim toward cultivating a healthy body as well as an enlightened mind. These selections from classic texts of Taoist meditation represent the entire range of techniques—from sitting meditation practices to internal alchemy. Most of the texts appear here in English for the first time.
Selections are taken from the following classics:
- Anthology on Cultivation of Realization: A document from 1739 (Ming Dynasty) that emphasizes development of the natural, social, and spiritual elements in human life.
- Treatise on Sitting Forgetting: A Tang Dynasty text that sets meditation practice in terms familiar to Confucians and Buddhists.
- Sayings of Taoist Master Danyang: Wisdom of the Taoist wizard and representative of the Complete Reality School.
- Secret Writings on the Mechanism of Nature: An anthology taken from one hundred sixty-three Taoist sources, including ancient classics and works on meditation and spiritual alchemy, along with admonitions and teachings of the great Taoist luminaries.
- Zhang Sanfeng's Taiji Alchemy Secrets: A treatise on the inner mediation practices that are the proper foundation of the martial art Taiji.
- Secret Records of Understanding the Way: A rare and remarkable collection of talks by an anonymous Taoist master of the later Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Traditional teachings with a sometimes strikingly modern bent.
$21.95
Mindful play is a great way for kids to develop their focusing skills while learning to regulate their emotions and respond to any situation calmly, with kindness and compassion. Here are fifty-five simple and accessible games that can bring mindfulness to your daily routine. These delightful games, developed and tested over many years of working with children and their caregivers, are designed for kids, but they can be just as fun and transformative for adults!
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$8.97$17.95
With all the attention on living sustainably, the one thing missing from the conversation is how to find a personal connection with green living that will sustain us on our green path. While practical approaches to an eco-responsible lifestyle offer important first steps, it is critical that we ground these actions in broader understanding so that we can effect real change in the world.
In this book, Stephanie Kaza describes what she calls the “green practice path.” She offers a simple, Buddhist-inspired philosophy for taking up environmental action in real, practical, and effective ways. Discover new ways to think more deeply about your impact on the natural world, engage in environmental change, and make green living a personal practice based in compassion and true conviction.
$8.95
Anger is a universal human emotion, and it can manifest in some pretty nasty ways. But it is also amazingly workable. In this guide to the practice of inner peace, Pema Chödrön shows us how to recognize anger in ourselves when it first begins to rise, how to sit with the discomfort it causes, and how to let it dissipate. By taking responsibility for the seeds of aggression in our own hearts and minds, we can help create a new culture of compassion for ourselves and for the world.
$15.95
In the late 1990s, shortly after arriving in the United States, it became clear to Dza Kilung Rinpoche that his Western students responded to traditional meditation instructions differently from his students back in Asia. The Westerners didn’t know how to relax—our pressured, fast-paced lifestyles carried over into meditation. The Relaxed Mind contains instructions for the seven-phase meditation practice Dza Kilung Rinpoche developed for students in the West. It’s adapted from traditional instructions to counteract the overwhelming distraction that is becoming a global culture these days, not only in the West. Experienced meditators may be surprised to find their practice deepening through letting go of tension. This is also an excellent meditation manual for any beginner.
$16.95
Wrestling with fear doesn’t have to be a negative experience. This book offers an approach to life that unlocks a new way of thinking and being in the world, one that leads directly through the center of the anxieties we seek to avoid.
Written in the style of an owner’s manual, a guide to being human, Burkett focuses on areas of pain and anxiety as they tend to manifest for modern people: feelings of unworthiness and issues surrounding sex, money, failure, and even death. Providing wisdom from Zen (channeled through his many experiences as a psychotherapist) and using language and metaphors from popular culture, he takes anxiety and teaches us to turn those fears into the building blocks of a fulfilling life.
$16.95
Compassion is the urge to understand and alleviate the suffering of another being. And if that being happens to be you, then the technique called self-compassion can be the greatest of blessings—for the compassion you learn to apply to yourself naturally extends to all the other people in your life. With the nine simple mindfulness practices she presents here, Radhule Weininger provides a step-by-step course in self-compassion. Using stories drawn from her own life and those of others she shows that, with the right intention and practice, we can all deepen our capacity to respond skillfully to our own suffering and thus to that of others and our world.
$16.95
The rewards of mindfulness practice are well proven: reduced stress, improved concentration, and an overall sense of well-being. But those benefits are just the beginning; it can also help us work more effectively with life’s challenges, expanding our appreciation and potential for creative engagement. This book provides all the basics to get you started, but also goes deeper to address the questions that naturally arise as your practice matures and further insight arises. A distillation of teachings on the subject by one of the great meditation masters of our time, it serves as an introduction to the practice as well as a guide to the ongoing mindful journey.
$26.95
Boundless Leadership provides a complete and systematic roadmap to finding meaning in your work, unleashing your full potential, and inspiring your team with resilience, innovation, compassion, and confidence. Contemplative neuropsychiatrist Joe Loizzo, MD, PhD, and executive advisor Elazar Aslan, MBA, PCC, reveal a new science-based vision of leadership that introduces disciplines of mind, heart, and body to help leaders cultivate clarity, compassion, and fearlessness for themselves and throughout their organization.
Boundless Leadership offers real-world applications to bring ease to leading oneself and others and provides examples from the authors’ experiences with clients, including CEOs of multi-billion-dollar businesses and hyper-growth start-ups, entrepreneurs, managers, and nonprofit leaders trying to balance the complex challenges of work and life in our interdependent age. Each section includes a range of transformational methods grounded in current neuroscience and contemplative practice, as well as practical applications to clarify intentions and decisions, deepen accountability and collaboration, and embody positive impact and purpose. Boundless Leadership also addresses the trend toward remote work and provides advice and guidance to remain productive and joyful when your work environment is in flux.Whether you’re a CEO, manager, team leader, consultant, coach, social entrepreneur, or community activist, this book offers the tools you need to clarify your vision, lead others with grace and impact, and ignite positive change in the world—giving you a much-needed advantage in today’s fast-paced digital age.
$16.95
Learn how to successfully negotiate conflicts and deepen our most intimate relationships in this practical and thoughtful guide by an experienced Buddhist teacher, psychotherapist, and couples counselor.
A committed relationship, as most people see it today, is a partnership of equals who share values and goals, a team united by love and dedicated to each other’s growth on every level. This contemporary model for coupledom requires real intention and work, and, more often than not, the traditional archetypes of relationships experienced by our parents and grandparents fail us or seem irrelevant. Utilizing the wisdom of her years of personal and professional practice, Young-Eisendrath dismantles our idealized projections about love, while revealing how mindfulness and communication can help us identify and honor the differences with our partners and strengthen our bonds. These practical and time-tested guidelines are rooted in sound understanding of modern psychology and offer concrete ideas and the necessary tools to reinforce and reinvigorate our deepest relationships.
$18.95
Work is such a crucial part of our life, and yet we often struggle with—and feel overwhelmed by—the numerous challenges it presents us. Whether it’s job insecurity, making peace with or leaving an unfulfilling job, or dealing with office conflicts, we often experience fear and a sense of groundlessness just at a time when we want to be our most creative and resilient. Drawing on Buddhist philosophy, Michael Carroll, a longtime human-resources executive, meditation teacher, and executive coach, explains how the practice of mindfulness—full awareness of our moment-to-moment experience—can help us become more confident and open to possibility in our work life. He offers a system of potent, inspiring principles that we can use as a practice for helping us work with our insecurities and awakening our natural bravery, resourcefulness, and resilience.
$14.95
In this book Thich Nhat Hanh, the renowned Zen monk, author, and meditation master, distills the essence of Buddhist thought and practice, emphasizing the power of mindfulness to transform our lives. “Mindfulness is not an evasion or an escape,” he explains. “It means being here, present, and totally alive. It is true freedom—and without this freedom, there is no happiness.”
Based on a retreat that Thich Nhat Hanh led for Westerners, this book offers a range of simple, effective practices for cultivating mindfulness, including awareness of breathing and walking, deep listening, and skillful speech. You Are Here also offers guidance on healing emotional pain and manifesting real love and compassion in our relationships with others.
$16.95
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 which at some point in the future will disperse. Even in its present existence, it’s more a temporary arrangement of components rather than something solid. Anatta is a truth the Buddha considered to be absolutely essential to his teaching. Smith shows that understanding this truth can change the way you relate to the world, and that the perspective of selflessness is critically important for anyone involved in spiritual practice. Seeing it can be the key to getting past the idea that spirituality has something to do with self-improvement, and to accessing the joy of deep insight into reality.
$26.95
Bringing in his experience as a Buddhist monk, scientist, and contemplative, Alan Wallace offers a rich synthesis of Eastern and Western mindfulness traditions, along with a comprehensive range of guided meditation practices interwoven throughout the text. The meditations are systematically presented, beginning with very basic instructions, which are then gradually built upon as one gains increasing familiarity with the practice.
This edition includes a new preface and never-before-published translations by B. Alan Wallace of three renowned Buddhist works on mindfulness by Asanga, Shantideva, and Dudjom Rinpoche.
$39.95
Spiritual practice, Pema Chödrön teaches, has nothing to do with self-improvement, since, as the course’s title claims, you’re already perfect right now. The limitless qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity are your deep-down, ultimate reality, and those are qualities that can’t be improved upon. If you’re not feeling particularly kind, compassionate, joyful, or equanimous at the moment, take heart: the Four Limitless Ones are there like seeds, waiting to be cultivated through practice—and, being limitless, they’re rich enough to be worked with for a lifetime. This intensive program of study and practice provides the tools you need to access these radiant states and to nurture their growth for sake of all beings, including yourself. Here’s some of what you’ll learn:
- How cultivating the Four Limitless Ones is the antidote to depression, irritation, and isolation
- Basic meditation instructions to get you started in the foundational practice
- A wealth of guided meditations for generating these radiant qualities to yourself, others, and the world
- Writing and reflection exercises to bring the Four Limitless Ones powerfully into real life
- A simple chant you can use to create love and good will around yourself
- Powerful on-the-spot practices you can use throughout the day, even when there’s “no time to practice”
Do the program at your own pace. It fits perfectly with any other kind of meditation you’re doing. And since no previous knowledge of Buddhism is required, it’s also ideal for those new to spiritual practice. After you’ve completed the material in Perfect Just as You Are, you’ll want to listen to it again periodically—any time you need a refresher course in compassion, loving-kindness, equanimity, and joy.
$24.95
Can a meditative practice assist and promote the healing relationship between psychotherapist and patient? The notable contributors to this practical book draw on a wide range of Eastern and Western disciplines—psychoanalysis, Gestalt, Aikido, and various Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist contemplative traditions—to show that it can. What they propose is a meeting between the Western psychotherapeutic approach—grounded in working with the personal problems and the need to carve out a strong awareness of self—and Eastern tradition, which emphasizes a larger kind of awareness and equanimity as a continuously available source of clarity and health for those who know how to find it. They show that joining psychotherapy with meditation can mutually awaken the hearts of both therapist and client, sparking them both to open more fully.
Jacob Needleman, Erich Fromm, Robin Skynner, Ram Dass, Karl Sperber, Roger Walsh, Chögyam Trungpa, and Thomas Hora are among the contributors.
$15.95
One of the simplest, easiest-to-understand guides to Zen meditation—with audio exercises to serve as meditation companions.
Through Zen meditation it is possible to find stillness of mind even amidst our everyday activities, whether we’re dealing with good times, tough times, or anything in-between. With easy-to-understand instructions, practical lessons, and short-but-sweet tidbits of useful information, beloved Zen master John Daido Loori shares the way of Zen meditation in terms that even those starting from the very beginning can understand. Including thoughtful guided audio instructions from Loori himself—available to download for on-the-go listening—and photographs demonstrating proper posture, readers will have all the tools they need to take that first step into Zen practice and meditation.
To access the downloadable audio, go to www.shambhala.com/findingthestillpoint.
$17.95
In frightening times, we wish the world could be otherwise. With a touch of imagination, it can be. Imagination helps us see what’s hidden, and it shape-shifts reality’s roiling, twisting waves. In this inspiring reframe of a classic Buddhist teaching, Zen teacher Norman Fischer writes that the paramitas, or “six perfections”—generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and understanding—can help us reconfigure the world we live in. Ranging from our everyday concerns about relationships, ethics, and consumption to our artistic inspirations and broadest human yearnings, Fischer depicts imaginative spiritual practice as a necessary resource for our troubled times.
$16.95
Discover the depths of your own fearless heart.
This keepsake journal from revered Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön shares thoughtful quotes and offers inviting spaces that await your reflections, insights, and intentions. Find support for challenging times, guidance for uncertainty, and reminders of daily joy. A perfect space for personal reflection and spiritual exploration.
$24.95
Being awake. Why is something that sounds so simple the primary goal of so many of the world's great wisdom traditions? In this workshop-in-a-book, Charles T. Tart shows why: the seeming simplicity of the awakened state belies its transformative effect on the lives of those who strive for it. His easy-to-use exercises put within everyone's reach the elusive art of "waking up" to life in the glorious present moment.
$18.95
Traditional Tibet held a unique spirituality, one with a depth and power far beyond anything most modern people have experienced. At the same time, its spirituality was often obscured under a heavy overlay of Tibetan cultural assumptions, beliefs, attitudes, and practices. Sometimes, many of us think that the cultural trappings somehow are the essence of Tibetan Buddhism. Then we end up trying to force ourselves into a rigid and alien cultural mold, leading to all kinds of emotional, psychological, and spiritual problems. According to Reginald Ray, the spirituality of Tibet in its most basic and integral form is quite real; but it is not about Tibet, Buddhism, or even religion. It is about how to discover, engage, and realize our deepest and most complete humanity.
Perhaps the most precious teaching Tibet has to offer us in the modern world is the practice of meditation. Ray presents the core and essence of this tradition through the somatic practice of Pure Awareness—a unique kind of meditation that is thoroughly grounded in the body and in ordinary experience. This fundamentally transformative practice offers the possibility of enlightenment in this present life and invites us into the immensely powerful journey that Tibetan tantric spirituality has to offer.
The book will include links to online audio recordings of the guided meditations.
$14.95
We live in difficult times. Life sometimes seems like a turbulent river threatening to drown us and destroy the world. Why, then, shouldn’t we cling to the certainty of the shore—to our familiar patterns and habits? Because, Pema Chödrön teaches, that kind of fear-based clinging keeps us from the infinitely more satisfying experience of being fully alive. The teachings she presents here—known as the “Three Commitments”—provide a wealth of wisdom for learning to step right into the river, to completely and fearlessly embrace the groundlessness of being human. When we do, we begin to see not only how much better it feels to live that way, but we find that we begin to naturally and effectively reach out to others in care and support.
$22.95
Here is an extraordinarily lucid and intelligent self-help book, inspired by the Abhidhamma, an ancient Buddhist teaching in training the mind and living a liberating, happiness-promoting way of life. Mirko Frýba has designed a complete workbook based on this training, with detailed exercise designed to help us feel at home in our bodies, protect well-being through mindfulness, and perceive reality with clarity and wisdom. These exercises show how to deal skillfully with painful events and negative emotions and also offer direct ways of promoting positive emotions such as cheerfulness, self-confidence, joy, and compassion. By relating these experiences to specific situations encountered in his work with friends, students, psychotherapy clients, and workshop participants, the author makes these traditional techniques applicable to familiar contemporary settings, whether in everyday life meditation practice, or psychotherapy.
$18.95
Through Contemplative Meditation we learn to investigate reality by looking carefully at our own mind and everyday life. We come to know ourselves very well—not only the negative habits we want to change, but our innate potential to find peace, happiness, and wisdom. In this practice we will discover that the secret to success lies in developing the right mental attitude, which is the wish to benefit others.
$16.95
We always have a choice in how we react to the circumstances of our lives. We can let them harden us and make us increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and allow our inherent human kindness to shine through. Here Pema Chödrön provides essential tools for dealing with the many difficulties that life throws our way, teaching us how to awaken our basic human goodness and connect deeply with others—to accept ourselves and everything around us complete with faults and imperfections. She shows the strength that comes from staying in touch with what’s happening in our lives right now and helps us unmask the ways in which our egos cause us to resist life as it is. If we go to the places that scare us, Pema suggests, we just might find the boundless life we’ve always dreamed of.
$18.95
Mindfulness, the quality of attention that combines full awareness with acceptance of each moment, just as it is, is gaining broad acceptance among mental health professionals as an adjunct to treatment. Because at the heart of addiction is the fear of painful emotional states, addicts compulsively seek drugs and alcohol to avoid or escape emotional pain. Mindfulness, on the other hand, helps us develop greater acceptance and ease with life’s challenges, as well as greater self-compassion.
Here, Dr. Lawrence Peltz, who has worked as an addiction psychiatrist for more than two decades, draws from his clinical experience and on the techniques of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) to explain the fundamental dynamics of addiction and the stages of the recovery process, and also gives us specific mindfulness exercises to support recovery.
$14.95
The awakened life is the essence and aim of the Buddhist teachings, according to Anam Thubten, and this book is a guide to cultivating the awakened mind and heart that allows this wonderful kind of life to happen. He illuminates the path to awakened living in a way that’s concise and completely accessible to anyone of any background—reflective of the diverse backgrounds of the students who attend his popular talks on which the book is based. “We all want to be happy,” says Anam Thubten. “This seems to be our strongest impulse. Primarily our happiness comes from our state of mind, though we can’t deny the fact that outside circumstances play a big role. When we learn to embrace each moment of our lives, we’re empowered to let go of our emotional patterns and false beliefs about ourselves, and we discover the compassion that’s been there all along.”
$29.95
There have been many fad diets over the years, but few have put us in touch with the real root of our cravings. There’s nothing bad about being hungry. We all need to eat. But often, through the many distractions of life, we develop unconscious habits that alienate us from the basic enjoyment of food—and leave us feeling empty, no matter how much we eat. Dr. Jan Bays here presents a new approach to food that puts us back in touch with our bodies and minds, liberating us from the things that falsely promise us fulfillment and re-teaching us the inherent joy of eating. Whether you are overweight, suffer from an eating disorder, or are just looking for a healthier way of life, Mindful Eating offers simple and remarkably effective tools that can make a real difference.
With numerous exercises and guided meditations, Bays demonstrates the essential benefits of mindfulness practice and teaches you to:
Tune in to your body’s natural wisdom about what, when, and how much to eat
Become attentive to the tastes, smells, thoughts, and feelings that arise during a meal
Identify your habits and patterns with food
Develop a more compassionate attitude toward your struggles with eating
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$11.97$21.95
The true nature of our minds is enlightened and peaceful, as the depth of the ocean is calm and clear. But when we mentally grasp and emotionally cling to our wants and worries with all our energy, we lose our own enlightened freedom and healing power, only to gain stress and exhaustion, suffering and overexcitement, like the turbulent waves rolling on the surface of the ocean.
Our minds possess the power to heal pain and stress, and to blossom into peace and joy, by loosening the clinging attitudes that Buddhists call "grasping at self." If we apply the mind's healing power, we can heal not only our mental and emotional afflictions, but physical problems also.
This book is an invitation to awaken the healing power of mind through inspiring images and sounds, mindful movements, positive perceptions, soothing feelings, trusting confidence, and the realization of openness. The healing principle on which these exercises are based is the universal nature and omnipresent power envisioned in Mahayana Buddhism. Yet for healing, we don't have to be believers in any particular faith. We can heal body and mind simply by being what we truly are, and by allowing our own natural healing qualities to manifest: a peaceful and open mind, a loving and positive attitude, and warm, joyful energy in a state of balance and harmony.
$24.95
What is enlightenment? Rodney Smith’s answer to that elusive question offers an explanation not only of the radical shift in perception that the word enlightenment connotes, but of the entire topography of the journey from beginning to end, of the multiple ways we undermine the very growth we seek, and of the awakened life that ultimately arises out of the new consciousness.
$16.95
Everybody has a Want Monster that sometimes makes us WANT just a little too much! A little too much ice cream, a little too much time playing video games, a little too much attention. If your Want Monster is getting too big, here’s some good advice for you!
$16.95
In most forms of meditation, the meditator is instructed to let go of thoughts as they arise. As a result, thinking is often taken, unnecessarily, to be something misguided or evil. This approach is misguided, says Jason Siff. In fact, if we allow thoughts to arise and become mindful of the thoughts themselves, we gain tranquility and insight just as in other methods without having to reject our natural mental processes. And by observing the thoughts themselves with mindfulness and curiosity, we can learn a good deal about ourselves in the process.
$24.95
In recent years, “mindfulness” has blasted into mainstream culture much as yoga did two decades ago, making “mindful yoga” an appealing trend. But how does mindful yoga evolve from a buzz-worthy concept to a lived experience? How do yoga asanas and pranayama support and express the practice of meditation? How do you explore the teachings of the Buddha through the vehicle of your own living, breathing, human body?
As we quickly learn, the practices are inherently entwined. Experienced yoga and meditation teacher Anne Cushman answers all these questions and more in Moving into Meditation, teaching us to deepen our asana practices with mindfulness meditation and enhance our meditation practice with asana. With compassion, humor, and deep intelligence, Moving into Meditation guides us through integrating mind, body, and spirit practices for a wide-awake life.
The book is presented in a systematic, week-by-week format for ease of use and accessibility, and because the author is also developing an online course for which the book will be a central text. The program progresses through the Buddha's four foundations of mindfulness as well as the koshas.
$34.95
One of the best ways to bring meditation off the cushion and into everyday life is to practice lojong (or mind training). For centuries, Tibetans have used fifty-nine powerful mind-training slogans as a way to transform life’s ordinary situations into opportunities for awakening. In this seven-CD program, Pema Chödrön presents her definitive audio teachings on lojong. She offers an overview of the practice and goes on to provide inspiring commentary on the slogans while paying special attention to how to apply them on the spot in our daily lives. The CDs include:
- Practical commentary to enhance our understanding of the lojong slogans
- Seven writing and reflection exercises to help us engage deeply with the slogans
- Meditation instructions to help us relax, let go, and uncover our uncaught-up mind
- On-the-spot methods to deepen our bodhichitta, our compassion for all beings
- Question-and-answer sessions that address some of the most common issues that arise in lojong practice
- Two guided meditations on tonglen—a compassion practice based on the understanding that the very thing that triggers suffering can become the foundation of happiness
$26.95
Every cow just wants to be happy. Every chicken just wants to be free. Every bear, dog, or mouse experiences sorrow and feels pain as intensely as any of us humans do. In a compelling appeal to reason and human kindness, Matthieu Ricard here takes the arguments from his best-sellers Altruism and Happiness to their logical conclusion: that compassion toward all beings, including our fellow animals, is a moral obligation and the direction toward which any enlightened society must aspire. He chronicles the appalling sufferings of the animals we eat, wear, and use for adornment or “entertainment,” and submits every traditional justification for their exploitation to scientific evidence and moral scrutiny. What arises is an unambiguous and powerful ethical imperative for treating all of the animals with whom we share this planet with respect and compassion.
$16.95
A manual for Mindful Focusing, a new integration of Eastern and Western techniques for accessing your inherent wisdom.
Ever come up against one of those moments when life requires a response—and you feel clueless? We all have. But there’s good news: you have all the wisdom you need to respond to any situation, even the “impossible” ones. It’s a matter of tuning in to your felt sense: that subtle physical sensation that lives somewhere between your conscious and subconscious mind and that can be accessed through Focusing, the well-known method developed by the psychologist Eugene Gendlin. David Rome’s technique of Mindful Focusing unites Gendlin’s method with Buddhist mindfulness practices to provide a wonderfully effective method for accessing your inherent answer to any question—and for responding honestly and creatively to the world around you.
$24.95
How can we live our lives when everything seems to fall apart—when we are continually overcome by fear, anxiety, and pain? The answer, Pema Chödrön suggests, might be just the opposite of what you expect. Here, in her most beloved and acclaimed work, Pema shows that moving toward painful situations and becoming intimate with them can open up our hearts in ways we never before imagined. Drawing from traditional Buddhist wisdom, she offers life-changing tools for transforming suffering and negative patterns into habitual ease and boundless joy.
$17.95
Anger. For all of us, it’s a familiar feeling—jaw clenching, face flushing, hands shaking. We feel it for rational and irrational reasons, on a personal and on a global level. If we know how to handle our anger skillfully, it is an effective tool for helping us recognize that a situation needs to change and for providing the energy to create that change. Yet more often anger is destructive—and in its grip we hurt ourselves and those around us.
In recent years scientists have discovered that mindfulness practice can reduce stress, improve mood, and enhance our sense of well-being. It also offers us a way of dealing with strong emotions, like anger. This anthology offers a Buddhist perspective on how we can better work with anger and ultimately transform it into compassion, with insight and practices from a variety of contributors, including Thich Nhat Hanh, Sharon Salzberg, Sylvia Boorstein, Carolyn Gimian, Tara Bennett-Goleman, Pat Enkyo O’Hara, Jules Shuzen Harris, Christina Feldman, Mark Epstein, Ezra Bayda, Judith Toy, Noah Levine, Judy Lief, Norman Fischer, Jack Kornfield, Stan Goldberg, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Dzigar Kongtrül, and many others.
$19.95
The Buddhist teachings have the power to transform our lives for the better, says Sharon Salzberg, and all we need to bring about this transformation can be found in the ordinary events of our everyday experiences. Salzberg distills more than twenty-five years of teaching and practicing meditation into a series of short essays, rich with anecdotes and personal revelations, that offer genuine aid and comfort for anyone on the spiritual path. Many chance moments, both small and profound, serve as the basis for Salzberg's teachings: hearing a market stall hawker calling "I have what you need!"; noting hotel guests' reactions to a midnight fire alarm; watching her teacher, Dipa Ma, bless a belligerent dog; seeing the Dalai Lama laughing uproariously at his own mistake. Each passing moment, Salzberg shows, can help us down the path toward "a seamlessness of connection and an unbounded heart."
$16.95
A vow is like a GPS system for your life. When taken on mindfully it can be a source of surprising wisdom and powerful energy, enabling you to accomplish things you never dreamed possible. It can have profound effects even beyond the original intention—and it can even live on after you’re gone. A vow can be as small as the aspiration to smile at someone at least once every day, or it can be as big as marriage; it can be as personal as deciding to be mindful whenever you pick up the phone, or it can be as universal as a commitment to save all sentient beings. But whatever its inspiration, when it’s done with conscious intention a vow becomes a conduit for the energy of your life.
In this guide to the vow-directed life, Jan Chozen Bays provides a wealth of practical exercises to use for formulating and implementing vows of your own and for using them to navigate your life with honesty and compassion.
$15.95
You try to be supportive through all the emotional ups and downs, but if you’re too supportive, they feel smothered. You want to give them the freedom necessary to grow, but not so much that they’re left vulnerable—and however you try to do it, you can count on being wrong. Parenting a teenager is a challenge, to be sure, but Eline Snel has some very good news for those facing that challenge: there’s a way to stay mindful, present, and, yes, positive throughout it all by developing a base of mindful awareness as your resource.
With her characteristic practical wisdom, Snel provides methods for developing that resource, along with strategies for forging a bond of courage, compassion, and trust with your teenager—and for making space for yourself within the process too. Mindfulness meditation helps us stay calm in tense moments and be less reactive with our children. It allows us to respond to them in ways that are most helpful and that promote dialogue rather than clashing. The practices that Snel teaches, developed in her clinical work and honed in her own experience as a parent, are supplemented with one audio download of guided meditations for parents and another one for teens. They will help you calm down during tense and heated moments and become a more focused and openhearted parent.
$18.95
In Seeking the Heart of Wisdom Goldstein and Kornfield present the central teachings and practices of insight meditation in a clear and personal language. The path of insight meditation is a journey of understanding our bodies, our minds, and our lives, of seeing clearly the true nature of experience. The authors guide the reader in developing the openness and compassion that are at the heart of this spiritual practice. For those already treading the path, as well as those just starting out, this book will be a welcome companion along the way. Among the topics covered are:
- The hindrances to meditation—ranging from doubt and fear to painful knees—and skillful means of overcoming them
- How compassion can arise in response to the suffering we see in our own lives and in the world
- How to integrate a life of responsible action and service with a meditative life based on nonattachment
$18.95
A lucid guide to seven essential elements that will help you discover your path to spiritual realization and wise elderhood.
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, lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.
Author David Chernikoff has spent decades pursuing spiritual study and practice with remarkable teachers, including Ram Dass, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Father Thomas Keating, and Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. In Life, Part Two, he distills lessons from across contemplative traditions to invite readers to embrace seven essential elements of conscious living. These are: embracing the mystery, choosing a vision, cultivating intuitive wisdom, committing to inner work, suffering effectively, serving from the heart, and celebrating the journey. These elements culminate in wise elderhood—a state celebrated by traditional and indigenous cultures around the world, yet sadly unacknowledged in contemporary Western society. For those of us who aspire to live fully and to love well as we age, Life, Part Two offers a guidebook for the exploration of our emotional and spiritual lives, enabling us not only to thrive but to contribute with ever greater clarity and purpose.
$14.95
If you want to meditate but have no idea where to begin, this book by best-selling author and Buddhist teacher Susan Piver will help you: it contains everything you need to know to start a meditation practice and, even more important, to continue one. It defines what meditation is (and what it is not); dispels the three most common misconceptions about it; advises ways around obstacles; addresses the most frequently asked questions; and shows how meditation can have positive impact on relationships, creativity, and difficult emotions. However, Piver presents meditation as something more than the self-help technique du jour—it is a path to love, joy, and courage. This book contains two self-paced programs to help you start here—now!
$18.95
Take the wisdom of yoga off the mat and explore 54 ways to reinvigorate your practice by connecting with the Yoga Sutras.
The Yoga Sutras offer so much to people on the yoga path—and to spiritual seekers in general—but many find that the philosophy is too dense to interpret and apply to modern life. Live Your Yoga offers a perfect way to understand and use the teachings on a regular basis.
The practice deck includes an introductory fold-out card explaining what the Yoga Sutras are and how to use the 54 cards that make up the deck. Each card focuses on a specific theme—balance, gratitude, acceptance, discipline, habit, and more—and offers one of three practice prompts: Explore, Connect, and Replenish. The Explore prompts offer philosophy from the Sutras and provide inspiration, contemplation, and self-study. The Connect prompts guide you to focus on your body and breath, and include tangible practices, including some asana and pranayama. Replenish prompts explore the last four limbs and provide mindfulness and meditation exercises. Pick a single card or put together a small practice, whatever you need at that moment. Whether you are new to yoga philosophy or in need of an accessible guide, the Live Your Yoga practice deck will guide you on your yoga journey.
The practice deck is illustrated with beautiful Yantras created by Chanti Tacoronte-Perez, a yogi, sacred artist, and author. East Indian Yantras traditionally hold the energy or pattern of divinity and for this deck, Chanti has translated an image she experienced in deep rest to support the spirits of connection, exploration, and replenishment.
Sale-50%
$9.48$18.95
When we think of work, we often think of drudgery, frustration, and stress. For too many of us, work is the last place in our lives we expect to experience satisfaction, fulfillment, or spiritual growth. In this unique book, Michael Carroll—a meditation teacher, executive coach, and corporate director—shares Buddhist wisdom on how to transform the common hassles and anxieties of the workplace into valuable opportunities for heightened wisdom and enhanced effectiveness. Carroll shows us how life on the job—no matter what kind of work we do—can become one of the most engaging and fulfilling areas of our lives.
At its heart, Awake at Work offers thirty-five principles that we can use throughout our day to revitalize our work as well as our understanding of ourselves and others. Carroll invites readers to contemplate these slogans and to use them on-the-spot, in the midst of work's chaos, to develop clarity, wisdom, and inspiration. Along the way, Carroll presents a variety of techniques and insights to help us acknowledge work, with all its complications, as "a valuable invitation to fully live our lives." In an engaging, accessible, and often humorous style, Awake at Work offers readers a path to rediscovering our natural sense of intelligence, confidence, and delight on the job.
$22.95
This breakthrough book presents a disarmingly simple idea: The way we pay attention in daily life can play a critical role in our health and well-being. According to Dr. Les Fehmi, a clinical psychologist and researcher, many of us have become stuck in “narrow-focus attention”: a tense, constricted, survival mode of attention that holds us in a state of chronic stress—and which lies at the root of common ailments including anxiety, depression, ADD, stress-related migraines, and more. To improve these conditions, Dr. Fehmi explains that we must learn to return to a relaxed, diffuse, and creative form of attention, which he calls “Open Focus.”
This highly readable and empowering book offers straightforward explanations and simple exercises on how to shift into a more calm, open style of attention that reduces stress, improves health, and enhances performance. The Open-Focus Brain features eight essential attention exercises for improving health, along with links to downloadable audio in which the author guides the reader through fundamental Open-Focus exercises that can be used on a regular basis to enhance our health and well-being.
Dr. Fehmi writes, “Everyone has the ability to heal their nervous systems, to dissolve their pain, to slow down and yet accomplish more, to experience the deeper side of life—in short, to change their lives for the better dramatically.” At last readers can learn the techniques that Dr. Fehmi has offered to thousands of clients—the same drug-free, safe, and effective techniques that have led to remarkable and long-lasting results.
The Open-Focus Brain offers readers a revolutionary, drug-free way to:
• alleviate depression, anxiety, and ADD
• reduce stress-related chronic pain
• optimize mental and physical performance
