Spirituality Buddhism

Common sense tells us that to lose weight, we must eat less and exercise more. But somehow we get stalled. We start on a weight-loss program with good intentions but cannot stay on track. Neither the countless fad diets, nor the annual spending of $50 billion on weight loss helps us feel better or lose weight. Too many of us are in a cycle of shame and guilt. We spend countless hours worrying about what we ate or if we exercised enough, blaming ourselves for actions that we can't undo.

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.

Comprising only 632 Chinese characters, the Heart Sutra is Buddhism in a nutshell. Despite its brevity, this powerful work covers more of the Buddha's teachings than any other scripture. Its influence is more profound and wide-reaching than any other text in Buddhism.

No matter how rich, well-connected, famous, intelligent, talented and compassionate a person may be, no one can avoid death. Yet how many of us believe death will happen to us? Or wonder what dying will be like? Or imagine what comes after death? Death is certain and inescapable, so wouldn’t it be sensible to at least inform ourselves about an event that we have no choice but to experience? In Living Is Dying, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse presents us with everything we need to face death calmly and confidently.

Real Love is a creative tool kit of mindfulness exercises and meditation techniques that help you to truly engage with your present experience and create deeper love relationships with yourself, your partner, friends and family, and with life itself. Sharon Salzberg, a leading expert in Lovingkindness meditation, encourages us to strip away layers of negative habits and obstacles, helping us to experience authentic love based on direct experience, rather than preconceptions.

We live in turbulent and uncertain times. Anger and hatred are dividing us instead of bringing us closer together. What's needed is not more of the same, but a deliberate shift to consciousness and love. Join Alex Mill, a former monk who trained in a Zen monastery for 14 years, as he guides you along his personal, true-life journey. He'll recount how he found Zen awareness practice and pursued it to discover freedom, and reveal the principles he learned so that you, too, can access the wisdom and tools necessary to bring the monastery's refuge into your own life, right where you are.

Mention creativity, and what comes to mind? For many of us, creativity is the province of someone with a singular gift toiling away in service to their art. From this perspective, creativity is a solitary endeavor - the struggle of the individual to express their distinctive vision to the world. But what if we looked at creativity through a wider lens, as a dynamic force that animates us and connects us with every being on the planet? From this perspective, creativity is not just a spark igniting the fire of inspiration.

In this recorded retreat, based on the program Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change held at Omega Institute, Pema Chödrön and her teaching assistant, Meg Wheatley, provide a wealth of wisdom for learning to step right into the river: to be completely, fearlessly present even in the hardest times, the most difficult situations. It's the secret of being fully alive.

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.

Exploring the relationship between Christianity and Zen, especially through his dialogue with the great Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki, the book makes an excellent introduction to a comparative study of these two traditions, as well as giving the listener a strong taste of the mature Merton. Never does one feel him losing his own faith; rather, one feels that faith getting deeply clarified and affirmed. Just as the body of "Zen" cannot be found by the scavengers, so too, Merton suggests, with the eternal truth of Christ.

Buddhism offers a profound yet practical path to enlightenment. In this loving and generous book, the American-born and Tibetan-trained Lama Surya Das offers at once a definitive and nonsectarian guide to the wisdom found in ancient Tibetan teachings and a tried and true path of spiritual transformation. The radical and compelling message of Buddhism tells us that each of us has the wisdom, awareness, love, and power of the Buddha within; yet most of us are too often like sleeping Buddhas.

Reiki master and best-selling author Diane Stein has been a dedicated hands-on healer since 1988. Stein believes strongly that this powerful healing art, once a closely guarded secret tradition, should be accessible and available to all. Since she began teaching in 1990, Stein has initiated thousands of students in all three levels of Reiki healing. Through these efforts she developed a comprehensive teaching method that encompasses the fundamentals of this ancient system.

Finding awareness in any kind of ordinary daily activity... The first trade book from a Southeast Asian Buddhist monk-teacher who is becoming prominent worldwide, particularly in the insight meditation community. Meditation is great - but it's not what Buddhist practice is all about. That's the message of this engaging and funny Burmese Buddhist monk, and it's a message that is finding a significant following among Westerners in the insight meditation tradition.

In Opening to Oneness, Zen teacher Nancy Baker offers a detailed path of practice for Zen students planning to take the precepts and for anyone, Buddhist or non-Buddhist, interested in deepening their personal study of ethical living.

Each of us carries a song inside us, the song that makes us human. Zen Guitar provides the key to unlocking this song - a series of life lessons presented through the metaphor of music. Philip Sudo offers his own experiences with music to enable us to rediscover the harmony in each of our lives and open ourselves to Zen awareness uniquely suited to the Western mind. Through 58 lessons that provide focus and a guide, the listener is led through to Zen awareness, with quotes from sources ranging from Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix to Miles Davis.

One of Thich Nhat Hanh’s most beloved books, The Sun My Heart contains the journey, on the path of everyday practice, from mindfulness to insight. Using the objects and events of everyday life in his hermitage in Plum Village—the gradual settling of the pulp in a glass of apple juice or the wind blowing into the room and scattering papers about—Thich Nhat Hanh draws from Buddhist psychology, epistemology, and the world of contemporary literature and science to guide the reader along the path of clarity and understanding.

Do you see the meditativeness of the trees surrounding you? Such stillness! Just as you are listening to me, they are listening to me, not even a leaf moving. The birds are singing.

As a Tibetan lama and leader of Shambhala (an international community of 165 meditation centers), Sakyong Mipham has found physical activity to be essential for spiritual well-being. He's been trained in horsemanship and martial arts but has a special love for running. Here, he incorporates his spiritual practice with running, presenting basic meditation instruction and fundamental principles he has developed.

In this renowned translation of Buddhism’s most widely read scripture, freshly updated for a new generation of listeners, Gil Fronsdal provides extensive explanatory notes and easy-to-understand insight for practice. Whether a practicing Buddhist of any tradition or simply a listener of the world’s literary classics, all will be enriched by this centuries-old wisdom.

The Heart Sutra is Buddhism in a nutshell. It has had the most profound and wide-reaching influence of any text in Buddhism. This short text covers more of the Buddha’s teachings than any other scripture, and it does so without being superficial or hurried. Although the original author is unknown, he was clearly someone with a deep realization of the Dharma. For this new English translation, Red Pine has utilized various Sanskrit and Chinese versions, refining the teachings of dozens of ancient teachers together with his own commentary to offer a profound word-for-word explication.