Spirituality Buddhism

The Secret of the Golden Flower is an ancient Chinese text, passed on for centuries, in which Taoist mystics reveal the path to true enlightenment. The first written version was believed to have originated with Lü Dongbin, a legendary scholar, poet, and spiritual master. Lü Dongbin was the founder of the School of the Golden Elixir of Life during the Tang dynasty. In the text, symbols for light represented awareness, which is normally directed outward toward externals.

From much-admired meditation expert Sebene Selassie, You Belong is a call to action, exploring our tangled relationship with belonging, connection, and each other.

These three sutras are the most important texts for the Chan (Chinese) and Zen (Japanese) Buddhist traditions, though they are very different in character and provenance. The Diamond Sutra (Vajracheddikā Prajña Pārāmitā Sutra in Sanskrit) has the distinction of being 'the earliest complete survival of a dated (11 May 868) printed book’. It was found in the Dunhuang Caves in China in 1900. The title, Diamond Cutter, outlines its purpose, which is to cut through ignorance to attain to perfect wisdom or ultimate reality.

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.

It is almost impossible to understand Zen by studying it as you would other intellectual pursuits. The best way to understand Zen is, simply, to Zen. This is what author Eugen Herrigel allows us to do by sharing his own fascinating journey toward a comprehension of this illuminating philosophy. In Japan, an art such as archery is not practiced solely for utilitarian purposes such as learning to hit targets. Archery is also meant to train the mind and bring it into contact with the ultimate reality.

Après sa Divine Comédie, voyage sonore dans la Mythologie européenne, la romancière Amélie Nothomb nous accompagne, dans une deuxième saison très personnelle, à la rencontre du Japon de son enfance, avec ses mythes, ses rites et ses cultures. Dans ce documentaire audio de 10 épisodes, enrichi en son binaural, nous explorons les mythes et spiritualités japonais aux côtés d’Amélie Nothomb. Nous découvrons, dans ses yeux, un pays vecteur de réalisations personnelles.

Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness is a series of meditation practices on Emptiness, a particular aspect of the Buddha's teachings. The idea is that by beginning with one's first rather coarse commonsense understanding, one progresses through increasingly subtle and more refined stages until one arrives at complete and perfect understanding. Each stage in the process prepares the mind for the next in so far as each step is fully integrated into one's understanding through the meditation process.

Best-selling author Deepak Chopra brings the Buddha back to life in this gripping account of the young prince who abandoned his inheritance to discover his true calling. This iconic journey changed the world forever, and the truths revealed continue to influence every corner of the globe today.

Bushido. This one word contains a wealth of meaning. Honor and grace, strength and compassion, loyalty and vengeance. Bushido is the warrior code of the samurai, a standard of conduct and an unwritten guide for right behavior and attitude. It is the core principle of ethics in Japan, an ideal that extends into every aspect of life and character.

In 1973, Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller traveled high into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard. Matthiessen, a student of Z en Buddhism, was also on a spiritual quest to find the Lama of Shey at the ancient shrine on Crystal Mountain. As the climb proceeds, Matthiessen charts his inner path as well as his outer one.

Joan Halifax has enriched thousands of lives around the world through her work as a humanitarian, a social activist, and an anthropologist and as a Buddhist teacher. Over many decades, she has also collaborated with neuroscientists, clinicians, and psychologists to understand how contemplative practice can be a vehicle for social transformation. Through her unusual background, she developed an understanding of how our greatest challenges can become the most valuable source of our wisdom.

For much of his career, Dr. Mark Epstein kept his beliefs as a Buddhist separate from his work as a psychiatrist. But as he became more forthcoming with his patients about his personal spiritual leanings, he was surprised to find how many of them were eager to learn more. The divisions between the psychological, emotional, and the spiritual, he soon realized, were not as distinct as one might think.

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.

Through countless editions and across centuries, The Tibetan Book of the Dead has drawn people intrigued by the Tibetan Buddhist view of the end of life. In a world that often ignores death or hides it from view, Tibetan Buddhists acknowledge it as the last of a countless series of endings in this lifetime. And after each ending comes a new beginning. The Tibetan Book of the Dead for Beginners draws on this timeless wisdom to help listeners today live with more joy and approach the end with more ease.

In these delightful and playful talks, Osho introduces the mystery, the wonder and the emptiness that is Zen, not comparable to anything else and a completely different approach to life. The chapters alternate between elaborating original excerpts by the 14th Zen master, Ikkyu, taking us into the world of Zen – and responding to personal questions, which brings the world of Zen into our lives, connects with our issues and questions.

Teachings and meditations to "shift" into the freedom of awakening. It is possible to access the same sense of well-being, clarity, inner freedom, and loving connection realized by the world's meditation masters. We can do this by shifting our awareness in the midst of our daily lives. Shift into Freedom is an unabridged audiobook presentation of innovative teacher Loch Kelly's training manual for actively participating in the evolution of your own consciousness.

There is a basic human wisdom that can help solve the world’s problems. It doesn’t belong to any one culture or region or religious tradition—though it can be found in many of them throughout history. It’s what Chögyam Trungpa called the sacred path of the warrior.

In his classic Buddhism Without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor offered a profound, secular approach to the teachings of the Buddha that struck an emotional chord with Western audiences. Now, with the same brilliance and boldness of thought, he paints a groundbreaking portrait of the historical Buddha—told from the author's unique perspective as a former Buddhist monk and modern seeker.

Fifteen years after his number one New York Times best seller, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Deepak Chopra revisits "the forgotten miracle" – the body's infinite capacity for change and renewal. You cannot take advantage of this miracle, Chopra says, unless you are willing to completely reinvent your body, transforming it from a material object to a dynamic, flowing process. "Your physical body is a fiction," Chopra contends. Every cell is made up of two invisible ingredients: awareness and energy.

Using the Upanishadic vision, Osho contrasts the teachings of Buddha, J. Krishnamurti, and the Vedas, and explains how these different teachings have relevance to the way we live today.