And it inspired two close friends to get together in Dharamsala for a talk about something very important to them. The friends were His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The subject was joy. Both winners of the Nobel Prize, both great spiritual masters and moral leaders of our time, they are also known for being among the most infectiously happy people on the planet.From the beginning the book was envisioned as a three-layer birthday cake: their own stories and teachings about joy, the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness, and the daily practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. Both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu have been tested by great personal and national adversity, and here they share their personal stories of struggle and renewal. Now that they are both in their eighties, they especially want to spread the core message that to have joy yourself, you must bring joy to others.Most of all, during that landmark week in Dharamsala, they demonstrated by their own exuberance, compassion, and humor how joy can be transformed from a fleeting emotion into an enduring way of life.

    Today, people of all stripes are seeking out Stoicism’s unique blend of practicality and wisdom as they look for answers to the great questions of daily life.Where should they start? Epictetus? Marcus Aurelius? Seneca? Which edition? Which translator? Presented in a page-per-day format, this daily resource combines all new translations done by Stephen Hanselman of the greatest passages from the great Stoics (including several lesser known philosophers like Zeno, Cleanthes and Musonius Rufus) with helpful commentary.Building on the organizational structure in Ryan Holiday’s cult classic The Obstacle is the Way, this guide also features twelve monthly themes (and helpful glossary) for clarifying perception, improving action, and unlocking the power of will. Aimed at the high-octane, action-oriented doers of our wired world, this book brings new daily rituals and new perspectives to produce balanced action, insight, effectiveness, and serenity.

    Collected here for the first time, these stories span the author’s life. There are stories from Thich Nhat Hanh’s childhood and the traditions of rural Vietnam. There are stories from his years as a teenaged novice, as a young teacher and writer in war torn Vietnam, and of his travels around the world to teach mindfulness, make pilgrimages to sacred sites, and influence world leaders. The tradition of Zen teaching stories goes back at least to the time of the Buddha. Like the Buddha, Thich Nhat Hanh uses story–telling to engage people’s interest so he can share important teachings, insights, and life lessons.From the Hardcover edition.

    Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking. Pointing to his drink, he says, 'You can make philosophy out of this cocktail!'From this moment of inspiration, Sartre will create his own extraordinary philosophy of real, experienced life–of love and desire, of freedom and being, of cafés and waiters, of friendships and revolutionary fervour. It is a philosophy that will enthral Paris and sweep through the world, leaving its mark on post-war liberation movements, from the student uprisings of 1968 to civil rights pioneers.At the Existentialist Café tells the story of modern existentialism as one of passionate encounters between people, minds and ideas. From the ‘king and queen of existentialism'–Sartre and de Beauvoir–to their wider circle of friends and adversaries including Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Iris Murdoch, this book is an enjoyable and original journey through a captivating intellectual movement. Weaving biography and thought, Sarah Bakewell takes us to the heart of a philosophy about life that also changed lives, and that tackled the biggest questions of all: what we are and how we are to live.

    Join him on an existential, spiritual and rational journey that articulates powerful arguments for the existence of God, the Qur'an, the Prophethood of Muhammad and why we must know, love and worship God. He addresses academic and popular objections while showing how contemporary atheism is based on false assumptions about reality, which leads to incoherent answers to life's important questions.Does hope, happiness and human value make sense without the Divine? Do we have an ultimate purpose? Can we have consciousness and rational minds without God? Did the universe come from nothing? Does evil and suffering negate Divine mercy? Has scientific progress led to the denial of God? Are revelation and prophethood myths? Is God worthy of our worship? If you want to know how the Islamic intellectual and spiritual tradition answers these questions then this is the book for you.Hamza Andreas Tzortzis's new book presents a much needed comprehensive account of Islamic theism that draws upon Western and Islamic thought.

    In fact, yoga is a sophisticated system of self-empowerment that is capable of harnessing and activating inner energies in such a way that your body and mind function at their optimal capacity. It is a means to create inner situations exactly the way you want them, turning you into the architect of your own joy.             A yogi lives life in this expansive state, and in this transformative book Sadhguru tells the story of his own awakening, from a boy with an unusual affinity for the natural world to a young daredevil who crossed the Indian continent on his motorcycle. He relates the moment of his enlightenment on a mountaintop in southern India, where time stood still and he emerged radically changed. Today, as the founder of Isha, an organization devoted to humanitarian causes, he lights the path for millions. The term guru, he notes, means “dispeller of darkness, someone who opens the door for you. . . . As a guru, I have no doctrine to teach, no philosophy to impart, no belief to propagate. And that is because the only solution for all the ills that plague humanity is self-transformation. Self-transformation means that nothing of the old remains. It is a dimensional shift in the way you perceive and experience life.” The wisdom distilled in this accessible, profound, and engaging book offers readers time-tested tools that are fresh, alive, and radiantly new. Inner Engineering presents a revolutionary way of thinking about our agency and our humanity and the opportunity to achieve nothing less than a life of joy. Praise for Sadhguru and Inner Engineering “Contrarian and consistent, ancient and contemporary, Inner Engineering is a loving invitation to live our best lives and a profound reassurance of why and how we can.”—Sir Ken Robinson, author of The Element, Finding Your Element, and Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative “I am inspired by Sadhguru’s capacity for joy, his exuberance for life, and the depth and breadth of his curiosity and knowledge. His book is filled with moments of wonder, awe, and intellectual challenge. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in self-transformation.”—Mark Hyman, M.D., director, Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, and New York Times bestselling author “Inner Engineering is a fascinating read of Sadhguru’s insights and his teachings. If you are ready, it is a tool to help awaken your own inner intelligence, the ultimate and supreme genius that mirrors the wisdom of the cosmos.”—Deepak ChopraFrom the Hardcover edition.

    Initiating and describing a theory and method of reading the metaphors and materiality of "the wake," "the ship," "the hold," and "the weather," Sharpe shows how the sign of the slave ship marks and haunts contemporary Black life in the diaspora and how the specter of the hold produces conditions of containment, regulation, and punishment, but also something in excess of them. In the weather, Sharpe situates anti-Blackness and white supremacy as the total climate that produces premature Black death as normative. Formulating the wake and "wake work" as sites of artistic production, resistance, consciousness, and possibility for living in diaspora, In the Wake offers a way forward.

    The Seeker learns how to make better decisions to help his children avoid doing the dumb things he has done. For instance, he learns fromBuffett and Munger the best way to prevent trouble is to avoid it altogether by learning what works and what does not. This is not a book for those who like complexities or advanced math. Rather it’s for those who love efficiency, simplicity and common sense or judgment - hallmarks of Buffett & Munger.

    It is a concise summary of the teachings of Epictetus, as transcribed and later summarized by his student Flavius Arrian. The Handbook is a guide to the good life. It answers the question, “How can we be good and live free and happy, no matter what else is happening around us?” Ancient Stoics lived in a time of turmoil under difficult conditions. So, the solutions they found to living free was tested under very stringent conditions. For example, the author of this Handbook was a lame slave who made himself free and happy later in life by following the principles set out in this book.

    The inextricable embedment of religion in Muslim culture has forced a new generation of non-believing Muslims to face the heavy costs of abandoning their parents’ religion: disowned by their families, marginalized from their communities, imprisoned, or even sentenced to death by their governments.Struggling to reconcile the Muslim society he was living in as a scientist and physician and the religion he was being raised in, Ali A. Rizvi eventually loses his faith. Discovering that he is not alone in his beliefs, he moves to North America and promises to use his new freedom of speech to represent the voices that are usually quashed before reaching the mainstream media―the Atheist Muslim.In The Atheist Muslim, we follow Rizvi as he finds himself caught between two narrative voices he cannot relate to: extreme Islam and anti-Muslim bigotry in a post-9/11 world. The Atheist Muslim recounts the journey that allows Rizvi to criticize Islam―as one should be able to criticize any set of ideas―without demonizing his entire people. Emotionally and intellectually compelling, his personal story outlines the challenges of modern Islam and the factors that could help lead it toward a substantive, progressive reformation.

     Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void? Does human purpose and meaning fit into a scientific worldview?In short chapters filled with intriguing historical anecdotes, personal asides, and rigorous exposition, readers learn the difference between how the world works at the quantum level, the cosmic level, and the human level--and then how each connects to the other.  Carroll's presentation of the principles that have guided the scientific revolution from Darwin and Einstein to the origins of life, consciousness, and the universe is dazzlingly unique.Carroll shows how an avalanche of discoveries in the past few hundred years has changed our world and what really matters to us. Our lives are dwarfed like never before by the immensity of space and time, but they are redeemed by our capacity to comprehend it and give it meaning.The Big Picture is an unprecedented scientific worldview, a tour de force that will sit on shelves alongside the works of Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Daniel Dennett, and E. O. Wilson for years to come.

    Our error is to suppose that we are born knowing how to love and that managing a relationship might, therefore be intuitive and easy. This book starts from a different premise: that love is a skill to be learnt, rather than just an emotion to be felt. It calmly and charmingly takes us around the key issues of relationships, from arguments to sex, forgiveness to communication, making sure that success in love need never again be just a matter of luck.

    In fact, the most common enemy lies within: our ego. Early in our careers, it impedes learning and the cultivation of talent. With success, it can blind us to our faults and sow future problems. In failure, it magnifies each blow and makes recovery more difficult. At every stage, ego holds us back.The Ego is the Enemy draws on a vast array of stories and examples, from literature to philosophy to history. We meet fascinating figures like Howard Hughes, Katharine Graham, Bill Belichick, and Eleanor Roosevelt, all of whom reached the highest levels of power and success by conquering their own egos. Their strategies and tactics can be ours as well.But why should we bother fighting ego in an era that glorifies social media, reality TV, and other forms of shameless self-promotion?  Armed with the lessons in this book, as Holiday writes, “you will be less invested in the story you tell about your own specialness, and as a result, you will be liberated to accomplish the world-changing work you’ve set out to achieve.”

    This small book will help you to do just that, it begins with a few quotes on Neville’s core teaching and then beyond that to extracts from Neville’s lecture - Order your Conversations Alright, describing the creative power of Inner Talking and concludes with techniques for practical application of Neville’s teaching. I have also added at the end of the book as a bonus, Neville Goddard’s 1955 Lecture, Mental Diets in its entirety. If you learn these techniques of Neville’s then your life will change as you will be changing your inner state. In order for them to work you must apply them, knowing them will do nothing; the power is in the persistent application and practice of these principles. If you apply them you will master your inner game and achieve your every desire. Throughout the book you will find my insights and further explanations on Neville’s teachings and suggestions on actively putting it to use, in the hope that it gives you a deeper understanding of the methods and principles. “A man’s mental conversations attracts his life. As long as there is no change in his inner talking, the personal history of the man remains the same” To attempt to change the World before we change our inner talking, is to struggle against the very nature of things. Man can go round and round in the same circle of disappointments and misfortunes, not seeing them as caused by his own negative inner talking but as caused by others. This may seem far-fetched but it is a matter which lends itself to research and development.” – Neville Goddard

    In this simple yet important book, Noah Rasheta takes profound Buddhist concepts and makes them easy to understand for anyone trying to become a better whatever-they-already-are.

    Its ultimate destination is a plausible, living validation of transcendence. Each of its three parts is like a turn of a spiral, exploring recurring ideas through the prisms of religious myth, truth and belief, respectively. With each turn, the book seeks to convey a more nuanced and complete understanding of the many facets of transcendence. Part I puts forward the controversial notion that many religious myths are actually true; and not just allegorically so. Part II argues that our own inner storytelling plays a surprising role in creating the seeming concreteness of things and the tangibility of history. Part III suggests, in the form of a myth, how deeply ingrained belief systems create the world we live in. The three themes, myth, truth and belief, flow into and interpenetrate each other throughout the book.

    In Awakening from the Daydream, discover how these ancient symbols are still relevant to our modern life.In Awakening from the Daydream, meditation teacher David Nichtern reimagines the ancient Buddhist allegory of the Wheel of Life. Famously painted at the entryway to Buddhist monasteries, the Wheel of Life encapsulates the entirety of the human situation. In the image of the Wheel we find a teaching about how to make sense of life and how to find peace within an uncertain world. Nichtern writes with clarity and humor, speaking to our contemporary society and its concerns and providing simple practical steps for building a mindful, compassionate, and liberating approach to living.

    You proceeded to accomplish truly complicated things: you learned to talk and walk and write. Language is complex and daunting and you did it. You already come equipped to be good at many things. The ability to pick them up is part of your original composition. Trust that.

    It is foundational to our democracy, our way of life - our very conception of what it is to be human. But are we free in the way that we think we are?In Creating Freedom, Raoul Martinez compellingly dismantles the sacred myth of freedom, showing that our belief that our institutions are free, even our sense of ourselves as agents of free will, is all based on false understanding. From the lottery of our birth, to the coercive influence of our media, to the self-reinforcing, consent-manufacturing realities of power and money, this far-reaching manifesto fiercely demonstrates just how differently we would act if we accepted how the world really is.It shows that freedom is not something we are given; it is not even something we can easily take. But with empathy, imagination, and determination - it is something we can create.

    He outlines how democracy has begun to embrace its dark side---what he calls its “nocturnal body”---which is based on the desires, fears, affects, relations, and violence that drove colonialism. This shift has hollowed out democracy, thereby eroding the very values, rights, and freedoms liberal democracy routinely celebrates. As a result, war has become the sacrament of our times in a conception of sovereignty that operates by annihilating all those considered enemies of the state. Despite his dire diagnosis, Mbembe draws on post-Foucauldian debates on biopolitics, war, and race as well as Fanon's notion of care as a shared vulnerability to explore how new conceptions of the human that transcend humanism might come to pass. These new conceptions would allow us to encounter the Other not as a thing to exclude but as a person with whom to build a more just world.

    Believing the Hebrew Bible to be the ultimate blueprint for Western morality, Rabbi Sacks embarks upon an ethical exploration of the weekly Torah portion, uncovering its message of truth and justice, dignity and compassion, forgiveness and love. "

    The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives man enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly. In general, time can be best used in the study of philosophy, according to Seneca. This essay has been carefully adapted into a contemporary form to allow for easy reading.

    

    He collects key passages and offers incisive commentary, making Confessions accessible to any reader who is both intellectually curious and spiritually hungry.The Confessions is a dramatic personal narrative of a soul choosing between eternal life and death, an exploration of the timeless questions great minds have been asking for millennia, and a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God. I Burned for Your Peace is not a scholarly work but an unpacking of the riches found in Augustine's text. It is existential, personal, and devotional, as well as warm, witty, and thought-provoking. With Kreeft to guide them, readers of the Confessions can overhear and understand the intimate conversation between a towering intellect and the God whose peace he at last humbly accepts.

    Rather than simply a critique of classical political economy, William Roberts argues that Capital was primarily a careful engagement with the motives and aims of the workers' movement. Understood in this light, Capital emerges as a profound work of political theory. Placing Marx against the background of nineteenth-century socialism, Roberts shows how Capital was ingeniously modeled on Dante's Inferno, and how Marx, playing the role of Virgil for the proletariat, introduced partisans of workers' emancipation to the secret depths of the modern -social Hell.- In this manner, Marx revised republican ideas of freedom in response to the rise of capitalism.Combining research on Marx's interlocutors, textual scholarship, and forays into recent debates, Roberts traces the continuities linking Marx's theory of capitalism to the tradition of republican political thought. He immerses the reader in socialist debates about the nature of commerce, the experience of labor, the power of bosses and managers, and the possibilities of political organization. Roberts rescues those debates from the past, and shows how they speak to ever-renewed concerns about political life in today's world.

    Our very worst decisions and interactions are almost invariably the result of a loss of calm - and a descent into anxiety and agitation. Surprisingly, but very fortunately, our power to remain calm can be rehearsed and improved. We don't have to remain where we are now: our responses to everyday challenges can dramatically alter. We can educate ourselves in the art of remaining calm not through slow breathing or special teas but through thinking. This is a book that patiently unpacks the causes of our greatest stresses and gives us a succession of highly persuasive, beautiful and sometimes dryly comic arguments with which to defend ourselves against panic and fury.

    Haraway offers provocative new ways to reconfigure our relations to the earth and all its inhabitants. She eschews referring to our current epoch as the Anthropocene, preferring to conceptualize it as what she calls the Chthulucene, as it more aptly and fully describes our epoch as one in which the human and nonhuman are inextricably linked in tentacular practices. The Chthulucene, Haraway explains, requires sym-poiesis, or making-with, rather than auto-poiesis, or self-making. Learning to stay with the trouble of living and dying together on a damaged earth will prove more conducive to the kind of thinking that would provide the means to building more livable futures. Theoretically and methodologically driven by the signifier SF—string figures, science fact, science fiction, speculative feminism, speculative fabulation, so far—Staying with the Trouble further cements Haraway's reputation as one of the most daring and original thinkers of our time.

     Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the Meditations as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. These books have been carefully adapted into a contemporary form to allow for easy reading.

    Within each of these stories we can find a simmering spirit of anarcho-nihilism, a tendency that challenges us to translate our feelings of hopelessness into wild and joyous forms of attack.Because even if we don't stand a chance, we refuse to be led to the slaughter like sheep."

    But that's much more easily said than done. What does being happy actually mean? And how do you even know when you feel it?Across the millennia, philosophers have thought long and hard about happiness, and come up with all sorts of different definitions and ideas for how we might live a happier life. Here, Derren explores the history of happiness from classical times until today, when the self-help industry has attempted to claim happiness as its own. His aim is to reclaim happiness for us all, and enable us to appreciate the really good things in life for what they are.Fascinating, entertaining and revelatory, this is a book for anyone who has ever wondered if there must be more to life...

    The teachings were lost but have been rediscovered in recent times and form the basis of modern cognitive therapy. In his new book, Unshakable Freedom, Dr. Chuck Chakrapani outlines the Stoic secrets for achieving total freedom, no matter who you are and what obstacles you face in life. Using modern examples, Chuck explores how anyone can achieve personal freedom by practicing a few mind-training techniques Here’s what others have to say about the book: Choose this book Chuck Chakrapani reveals for modern eyes what the ancient Stoics knew: True freedom comes from choosing wisely. Here’s an aligned piece of advice – choose this book. Robert Cialdini PhD, Author Influence and Pre-suasion Fast, interesting, and it works Chuck Chakrapani brings Stoic philosophy to the world of today, the world in which we live, love, compete, win, lose, but never escape. Our world. The early Stoics and those who succeeded them have much to teach, but it takes a thoughtful writer to give us this wisdom in the way WE NEED TO LEARN. Chuck is one of those writers. Read this book … it’s fast, interesting, but most of all it WORKS. Dr. Howard Moskowitz, Chief Science Officer, Mind Genomics Advisors A timely and readable reminder We live in a time when happiness and autonomy are commonly equated with higher levels of and options for consumption. This little book is a timely and readable reminder that the path to enjoyment and independence lies elsewhere. Thomas Dunk PhD, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Brock University [This book] can change your life for good Unshakable Freedom is a wonderful guide to those who want real freedom and peace in a complex and challenging world. It also vividly portrays many of the leaders and prominent people who have found success by following these principles. It really can change your life for good. Ashref Hashim, ,President, The Blackstone Group For greater productivity, prosperity and inner peace In Unshakable Freedom, Chuck identifies that the only thing stopping us from being happy is ourselves. The stoic tenets outlined, if followed, will lead to greater productivity, prosperity, and inner peace for the reader. Thanks to Chuck for the inspiration! Dr. Kara Mitchelmore, , CEO, Marketing Research & Intelligence Association Immediately practical Chuck Chakrapani has written this wonderful book of timeless, immensely practical messages to help us generate powerful real-world impact and remind us how to stay free and appreciative. Unshakable Freedom provides an immediately practical lesson to gain freedom and personal power. Sabine Steinbrecher, CEO, The Learning Library Designed to improve quality of life Unshakable Freedom is about finding peace of mind. Stoic philosophy is a tool to address daily travails - big and small. The author has proposed techniques designed to lead to freedom, happiness, and a better quality of life. I recommend that you go through the book slowly, absorb, and practice. Naresh Malhotra, CEO Global, Novatrek

    The subsequent “Companion Species Manifesto,” which further questions the human–nonhuman disjunction, is no less urgently needed in our time of environmental crisis and profound polarization.Manifestly Haraway brings together these momentous manifestos to expose the continuity and ramifying force of Haraway’s thought, whose significance emerges with engaging immediacy in a sustained conversation between the author and her long-term friend and colleague Cary Wolfe. Reading cyborgs and companion species through and with each other, Haraway and Wolfe join in a wide-ranging exchange on the history and meaning of the manifestos in the context of biopolitics, feminism, Marxism, human–nonhuman relationships, making kin, literary tropes, material semiotics, the negative way of knowing, secular Catholicism, and more.The conversation ends by revealing the early stages of Haraway’s “Chthulucene Manifesto,” in tension with the teleologies of the doleful Anthropocene and the exterminationist Capitalocene. Deeply dedicated to a diverse and robust earthly flourishing, Manifestly Haraway promises to reignite needed discussion in and out of the academy about biologies, technologies, histories, and still possible futures.

    But each day, you can also find comfort and understanding in this daily companion. With one brief entry for every day of the calendar year, this little book by beloved grief counselor Dr. Alan Wolfelt offers small, one-day-at-a-time doses of guidance and healing. Each entry includes an inspiring or soothing quote followed by a short discussion of the day’s theme. This compassionate gem of a book will accompany you.

    Twenty-five centuries later, humans have transformed everything about our world—except our brains, which remain the same powerful yet flawed instruments possessed by our ancestors. What if the solution we seek to the psychological problems of life in the digital age—distraction, anxiety, addiction, loss of deep meaning—had already been worked out by the Buddha in ancient India? Appealing to readers of Eastern wisdom and Jon Kabat-Zinn, as well as to fans of bestsellers by Oliver Sacks and Malcolm Gladwell, acclaimed science writer and practicing Buddhist James Kingsland reveals how scientists are now unlocking the remarkable secrets of Siddhartha’s brain.Moving effortlessly between science and scripture, Kingsland charts Siddhartha’s spiritual journey and explains how new research by leading neuroscientists and clinical psychologists—many of whom are interviewed in these pages—suggests that mindfulness practice reconfigures our brains to make us sharper, smarter, healthier, and happier, and that it can help treat stress, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, hypertension, and substance abuse. There have even been hints that meditation can enhance immune function, slow cellular aging, and keep dementia at bay. Featuring six guided meditations, Siddhartha’s Brain is a practical and inspiring odyssey of mind and spirit.“Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think.”—Siddhartha

    Scruton explores the conflict between the Christian-inspired Enlightenment and Islam, and attempts to find a remedy for the void at the heart of our civilisation. Why do we capitulate before everyone more ignorant than ourselves? Why do we turn immediately on all those who wish to defend our rooted values against whatever invading force has appeared over the horizon? These hard-hitting essays from a profound intellect threaten the bedrock of conventional opinion.

    There is no better way to study the big questions in philosophy than to compare how the world's greatest minds have analyzed these questions, defined the terms, and then reasoned out potential solutions. Once you've compared the arguments, the final step is always deciding for yourself whether you find an explanation convincing.This course gives you the tools to follow and create logical arguments while exploring famous philosophers' viewpoints on these important questions. Although progress has been made toward answers, brilliant thinkers have continued to wrestle with many big questions that inspire thoughtful people everywhere. These questions include: What is knowledge? Does God exist? Do humans have free will? What is right and wrong? How should society be organized?Given the complexity of these big questions, it should be no surprise that many controversies are far from settled. In fact, by the end of these 36 lectures, you may be even less sure of the right answers to some of the questions than you were at the beginning. But being a philosopher means constantly testing your views - giving a reasoned defense if you believe you are right and modifying your ideas when you realize you are wrong. You'll discover that great thinkers before you have offered convincing answers to hard questions, philosophers after them have made equally persuasive objections, and then still others have refined the debate even further - causing the issues to come into sharper and sharper focus.Join Plato, St. Anselm, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Mill, Smith, Marx, Rawls, and many others in an exploration of fundamental questions. Get ready to think big!

    In The Courage To Be Happy, Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga again distil their wisdom into simple yet profound advice to show us how we, too, can use twentieth-century psychological theory to find true happiness.

    Capitalism dominates, Todd McGowan argues, because it mimics the structure of our desire while hiding the trauma that the system inflicts upon it. People from all backgrounds enjoy what capitalism provides, but at the same time are told more and better is yet to come. Capitalism traps us through an incomplete satisfaction that compels us after the new, the better, and the more.Capitalism's parasitic relationship to our desires gives it the illusion of corresponding to our natural impulses, which is how capitalism's defenders characterize it. By understanding this psychic strategy, McGowan hopes to divest us of our addiction to capitalist enrichment and help us rediscover enjoyment as we actually experienced it. By locating it in the present, McGowan frees us from our attachment to a better future and the belief that capitalism is an essential outgrowth of human nature. From this perspective, our economic, social, and political worlds open up to real political change. Eloquent and enlivened by examples from film, television, consumer culture, and everyday life, Capitalism and Desire brings a new, psychoanalytically grounded approach to political and social theory.

    Following on the success of Quadrivium and Sciencia, Trivium gathers six Wooden Books titles together into a beautiful six-color package that presents ancient wisdom in an accessible way. Trivium includes the books Euphonics, Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric,, Poetic Meter and Form, and Ethics.

    But the truth is, they're not nearly skeptical enough.While they champion the importance of a critical stance toward religion, they often fail to take that same stance toward their own beliefs. This double standard results in grandiose claims about the certainty of unbelief. However, their confidence in the rational strength of their own position is logically inconsistent at best and intellectually dishonest at worst. Turning atheists' skepticism around on their own naturalist worldview, philosopher Mitch Stokes critically examines two things that such skeptics hold dear—science and morality—revealing deep inconsistencies among atheists' most cherished beliefs, inconsistencies that threaten to undo atheism itself.

    Rorty was skeptical of systems claiming to have answers, seeing scientific and aesthetic schools as vocabularies rather than as indispensable paths to truth. But his work displays a profound awareness of philosophical tradition and an urgent concern for how we create a society. As Michael Berube writes in his introduction to this new volume, Rorty looked upon philosophy as "a creative enterprise of dreaming up new and more humane ways to live."Drawn from Rorty's acclaimed 2004 Page-Barbour lectures, Philosophy as Poetry distills many of the central ideas in his work. Rorty begins by addressing poetry and philosophy, which are often seen as contradictory pursuits. He offers a view of philosophy as a poem, beginning with the ancient Greeks and rewritten by succeeding generations of philosophers seeking to improve it. He goes on to examine analytic philosophy and the rejection by some philosophers, notably Wittgenstein, of the notion of philosophical problems that have solutions. The book concludes with an invigorating suspension of intellectual borders as Rorty focuses on the romantic tradition and relates it to philosophic thought.This book makes an ideal starting place for anyone looking for an introduction to Rorty's thought and his contribution to our sense of an American pragmatism, as well as an understanding of his influence and the controversy that attended his work.Page-Barbour Lectures

    Vast and underappreciated complexities of nonhuman life are explored in detail—from the cultures of pigs and prairie dogs, to the creative use of tools by elephants and fish, to the acumen of caterpillars and fungi. The paralysis of the scientific establishment on moral and ethical issues is confronted and a radical new framework for assessing the intelligence and sentience of nonhuman life is put forth. Jensen attacks mainstream environmental journalism, which too often limits discussions to how ecological changes affect humans or the economy—with little or no regard for nonhuman life. With his signature compassionate logic, he argues that when we separate ourselves from the rest of nature, we in fact orient ourselves against nature, taking an unjust and, in the long run, impossible position.Jensen expresses profound disdain for the human industrial complex and its ecological excesses, contending that it is based on the systematic exploitation of the earth. Page by page, Jensen, who has been called the philosopher-poet of the environmental movement, demonstrates his deep appreciation of the natural world in all its intimacy, and sounds an urgent call for its liberation from human domination.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    No recent study has examined the meaning of Wagner's masterpiece with the attention to detail and intellectual power that Roger Scruton brings to it in this inspiring account. The Ring of Truth is an exploration of the drama, music, symbolism and philosophy of the Ring from a writer whose knowledge and understanding of the Western musical tradition are the equal of his capacities as a philosopher.Scruton shows how, through musical connections and brilliant dramatic strokes, Wagner is able to express truths about the human condition which few other creative artists have been able to convey so convincingly. For Wagner, writes Scruton, the task of art is to 'show us freedom in its immediate, contingent, human form, reminding us of what it means to us. Even if we live in a world from which gods and heroes have disappeared we can, by imagining them, dramatize the deep truths of our condition and renew our faith in what we are.'Love, death, sacrifice and the liberation that we win through sacrifice - these are the great themes of the Ring, as they are of this book. Scruton's passionate and moving interpretation allows us to understand more fully than ever how Wagner conveys his ideas about who we are, and why the Ring continues to be such a hypnotically absorbing work.

    If you study Seneca, you'll be in good company. He was popular with the educated elite of the Greco-Roman Empire, but Thomas Jefferson also had Seneca on his bedside table. Thought leaders in Silicon Valley tout the benefits of Stoicism, and NFL management, coaches, and players alike - from teams such as the Patriots and Seahawks - have embraced it because the principles make them better competitors. Stoicism is a no-nonsense philosophical system designed to produce dramatic real-world effects. Think of it as an ideal operating system for thriving in high-stress environments. This is your guide. Length: 10 hrs 9 mins

    The manual presents a comprehensive overview of the practice of insight meditation, including the foundational aspects of ethical self-discipline, understanding the philosophical framework for the practice, and developing basic concentration and mindfulness. It culminates with an in-depth exploration of the various types of insight and spiritual fruits that the practice yields. Authored by the master who brought insight meditation to the West and whose students include Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Sharon Salzberg, Manual of Insight is a veritable Bible for any practitioner of vipassana.

    This is a brand new version, completely re-written, with a new translation of the Tao Te Ching, and new illustrations.This funny and inspiring book of spiritual lessons will help you take it easy and abide in the face of any gutterballs that are thrown your way.Each verse is followed by the original verse from the Tao Te Ching to help show the similarity between Dudeism and Taoism.Dudeism is an authentic religion with nearly 400,000 ordained "Dudeist Priests." It is inspired mainly by Taoism and the Coen Brothers' 1998 film The Big Lebowski.Please visit Dudeism at dudeism.com to find out more.

    To create a more sustainable, equitable, and peaceful world, we must reimagine education and prepare a generation to be solutionaries—young people with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to create a better future. This book describes how we can (and must) transform education and teaching; create such a generation; and build such a future.

    Stunningly so, the economist and historian Deirdre McCloskey argues in the concluding volume of her trilogy celebrating the oft-derided virtues of the bourgeoisie. The poorest of humanity, McCloskey shows, will soon be joining the comparative riches of Japan and Sweden and Botswana.   Why? Most economists—from Adam Smith and Karl Marx to Thomas Piketty—say the Great Enrichment since 1800 came from accumulated capital. McCloskey disagrees, fiercely. “Our riches,” she argues, “were made not by piling brick on brick, bank balance on bank balance, but by piling idea on idea.” Capital was necessary, but so was the presence of oxygen. It was ideas, not matter, that drove “trade-tested betterment.”  Nor were institutions the drivers. The World Bank orthodoxy of “add institutions and stir” doesn’t work, and didn’t. McCloskey builds a powerful case for the initiating role of ideas—ideas for electric motors and free elections, of course, but more deeply the bizarre and liberal ideas of equal liberty and dignity for ordinary folk. Liberalism arose from theological and political revolutions in northwest Europe, yielding a unique respect for betterment and its practitioners, and upending ancient hierarchies. Commoners were encouraged to have a go, and the bourgeoisie took up the Bourgeois Deal, and we were all enriched.   Few economists or historians write like McCloskey—her ability to invest the facts of economic history with the urgency of a novel, or of a leading case at law, is unmatched. She summarizes modern economics and modern economic history with verve and lucidity, yet sees through to the really big scientific conclusion. Not matter, but ideas. Big books don’t come any more ambitious, or captivating, than Bourgeois Equality.

    Here, for the first time, Girard weaves his life story and that of the mimetic theory with his own faith reflections and interpretation of Scripture. These interviews are a great introduction for the person new to Girard's writings and will delight Girardian scholars and aficionados alike.

    The rich are getting richer by rigging the system in their favor, leaving the rest of us to struggle just to keep our heads above water. To save the American Dream, we’re told that we need to fight inequality through tax hikes, wealth redistribution schemes, and a far higher minimum wage.But what if that narrative is wrong? What if the real threat to the American Dream isn’t rising income inequality—but an all-out war on success?In Equal is Unfair, a timely and thought-provoking work, Don Watkins and Yaron Brook reveal that almost everything we’ve been taught about inequality is wrong. You’ll discover:• why successful CEOs make so much money—and deserve to• how the minimum wage hurts the very people it claims to help• why middle-class stagnation is a myth• how the little-known history of Sweden reveals the dangers of forced equality• the disturbing philosophy behind Obama’s economic agenda.The critics of inequality are right about one thing: the American Dream is under attack. But instead of fighting to make America a place where anyone can achieve success, they are fighting to tear down those who already have. The real key to making America a freer, fairer, more prosperous nation is to protect and celebrate the pursuit of success—not pull down the high fliers in the name of equality.

    In a wide-ranging discussion, he considers how normative and evaluative judgments are to be understood, how desire and practical reasoning are to be characterized, what it is to have adequate self-knowledge, and what part narrative plays in our understanding of human lives. He asks, further, what it would be to understand the modern condition from a neo-Aristotelian or Thomistic perspective, and argues that Thomistic Aristotelianism, informed by Marx's insights, provides us with resources for constructing a contemporary politics and ethics which both enable and require us to act against modernity from within modernity. This rich and important book builds on and advances MacIntyre's thinking in ethics and moral philosophy, and will be of great interest to readers in both fields.

    Wilson helped usher in the cultural revolution of the 1960s with his landmark work, The Outsider, published in 1956. The Outsider was an intelligent, meticulous, and unprecedented study of nonconformity in all facets of life. Wilson, finally, became a prolific and unparalleled historian of the occult, providing a generation of readers with a responsible and scholarly entry point to a world of mysteries. Now, acclaimed historian Gary Lachman, a friend of Wilson and a scholar of his work, provides an extraordinary and delightful biography that delves into the life, thought, and evolution of one of the greatest intellectual rebels and underrated visionaries of the twentieth century.

    Terence McKenna was an American ethnobotanist, psychonaut, lecturer, author, and was an advocate for the responsible use of psychedelic plants.

    Among the most prominent members of what became the Frankfurt School were the philosophers Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse. Not only would they change the way we think, but also the subjects we deem worthy of intellectual investigation. Their lives, like their ideas, profoundly, sometimes tragically, reflected and shaped the shattering events of the twentieth century.Grand Hotel Abyss combines biography, philosophy, and storytelling to reveal how the Frankfurt thinkers gathered in hopes of understanding the politics of culture during the rise of fascism. Some of them, forced to escape the horrors of Nazi Germany, later found exile in the United States. Benjamin, with his last great work—the incomplete Arcades Project—in his suitcase, was arrested in Spain and committed suicide when threatened with deportation to Nazi-occupied France. On the other side of the Atlantic, Adorno failed in his bid to become a Hollywood screenwriter, denounced jazz, and even met Charlie Chaplin in Malibu.After the war, there was a resurgence of interest in the School. From the relative comfort of sun-drenched California, Herbert Marcuse wrote the classic One Dimensional Man, which influenced the 1960s counterculture and thinkers such as Angela Davis; while in a tragic coda, Adorno died from a heart attack following confrontations with student radicals in Berlin.By taking popular culture seriously as an object of study—whether it was film, music, ideas, or consumerism—the Frankfurt School elaborated upon the nature and crisis of our mass-produced, mechanised society. Grand Hotel Abyss shows how much these ideas still tell us about our age of social media and runaway consumption.

     This is something you can understand conceptually, like watching a documentary about Antarctica, or experientially, like moving to Antarctica. There’s also a related phenomenon where you fall asleep watching the documentary and wake up in the frozen wasteland. That’s gotta be weird, but the truth is that you’re asleep in a barren wasteland dreaming that you’re not, so that’s where waking up gets you. _________________________________ Comments about Jed McKenna's Enlightenment Trilogy. “Jed McKenna is an American original.” -Lama Surya Das “Absolutely marvelous, splendid, perfect books!” -Shri Acharya “These books have profoundly changed my life.” -C. Jensen “These three books are precious gifts to humanity.” -E. De Vries “Thank you for the books. I’ve been waiting all my life for them.” -C. Vankeith “I can think of no other author I’d recommend more highly.” -M.R. Fleming "I say an eternal thank you for the Trilogy. The books continue to challenge my mind and life. I ordered my 4th complete set. Nothing compares to this writing." -J.H. "If you are ready, step into Jed's world. It is intelligent and powerful." -J. Katz Visit Wisefool Press to learn more about Jed McKenna's Enlightenment Trilogy and Dreamstate Trilogy. _________________________________

    In contrast to stimulus-driven pleasure, contentment comes from living a life of meaning that aligns with one's values. The author identifies the common traps people fall into looking for happiness that actually create stress, worries, and fears, and offers authentic mindfulness-based solutions to counteract them.The increasing popularity of secular mindfulness in the United States mainstream has unfortunately produced a variety of teachings that water down and misunderstand this important philosophy and approach to living. Mindfulness is often reduced to concentration exercises and a simplistic definition of being aware of the present moment. In nearly all secular presentations of mindfulness, it is taken out of the rich context of the Three Higher Trainings (ethics, concentration, and wisdom) of Buddhism in which it was originally taught. The unique feature of this book is that it maintains the substance of the entire teaching as a program that is accessible to people of all spiritual traditions or no spiritual tradition.John Bruna is a counselor, mindfulness and spiritual teacher, and Certified Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counselor (CASAC) in California. In 2005, he was ordained as a Buddhist monk in the Tibetan tradition through the Gaden Shartse Monastery in India. In 2012, he became a Certified Cultivating Emotional Balance Mindfulness Teacher via the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. Currently, John is the director of the Way of Compassion Foundation and cofounder of the Mindful Life Program.

    Yet there is a little-known treasure hidden within the familiar passages of Lao Tzu’s work: step-by-step practical guidance for the spiritual journey. With Practicing the Tao Te Ching, renowned teacher Solala Towler reveals a new facet to this spiritual classic, offering accessible instructions paired with each of the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching. "Tao is a way of deep reflection and learning from nature, considered the highest teacher," writes Towler. "It teaches us to follow the energy flows within the heavens, the earth, and our own bodies." With lucid instruction and deep insight, he guides you through meditations, movement and breathing practices, subtle energy exercises, and inner reflections—all to help you to embody Taoist wisdom in every aspect of your life.

    The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy. What does the advance of science entail for our understanding of ourselves and for our ideas of God? How should a government deal with religious diversity - and what is government actually for? Their questions remain our questions, and it is tempting to think these philosophers speak our language and live in our world; but to understand them properly, we must step back into their shoes. Gottlieb puts readers in the minds of these frequently misinterpreted figures, elucidating the history of their times while engagingly explaining their arguments and assessing their legacy. Gottlieb creates a sweeping account of what they amounted to, and why we are still in their debt.

    While we’re predisposed to look on death with fear and sadness, it’s only by confronting and exploring death head-on that we can actually embrace the important role it plays in our lives. Death, it turns out, is a powerful teacher, one that can help us think responsibly and deeply about the meaning and value of life, connect with the beliefs and traditions of cultures and faiths different from our own, and gain the wisdom and guidance to live a richer, more fulfilling life while we have it.As religion scholar and award-winning Professor Mark Berkson of Hamline University says, “Reflecting on death and dying is an essential part of the examined life.” Take a wide-ranging look at this undeniably confounding and fascinating subject. Bringing together theology, philosophy, biology, anthropology, literature, psychology, sociology, and other fields, these 24 lectures are a brilliant compendium of how human beings have struggled to come to terms with mortality. You’ll encounter everything from ancient burial practices, traditional views of the afterlife, and the five stages of grief to the question of killing during wartime, the phenomenon of near-death experiences, and even 21st-century theories about transcending death itself. Prepare for a remarkable learning experience that brings you face-to-face with the most important topic mortals like us can consider.

    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. For the traditions to attract modern men and women, Wilber asserts, they must incorporate the extraordinary number of scientific truths learned about human nature in just the past hundred years--for example, about the mind and brain, emotions, and the growth of consciousness--that the ancients were simply unaware of and thus were unable to include in their meditative systems. Taking Buddhism as an example, Wilber demonstrates how his comprehensive Integral Approach--which is already being applied to several world religions by some of their adherents--can avert a -cultural disaster of unparalleled proportions- the utter neglect of the glorious upper reaches of human potential by the materialistic postmodern worldview. Moreover, he shows how we can apply this approach to our own spiritual practice. This, his most sweeping work since Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, is a thrilling call for wholeness, inclusiveness, and unity in the religions of tomorrow.

    Nonetheless, they did deduce from God's existence our need to live lives of virtue, honor, tranquility, and self-control--and they developed effective techniques to help us achieve this. Musonius Rufus the teacher, Epictetus the slave, Seneca the adviser to emperors, and Marcus Aurelius, the emperor himself, produced a practical technology we can use to integrate Christian ethics into our own daily practice. As Kevin Vost so wonderfully illustrates in his new book, The Porch and the Cross, the Stoics can help us learn--and remember--what is up to us, and what is up to God alone. In medieval times, Christian monks copied the Stoics' handbooks, and scholastic theologians mined their works for gems of natural moral wisdom. In the 1960s, cognitive psychotherapists turned to the Stoics to discover methods to conquer depression and anxiety. And there is still today much that Christians can learn from these "teachers on the porch" of antiquity."Kevin Vost has done his readers a tremendous service once again! The Porch and the Cross is suffused with wisdom that is relevant, timely, and brilliantly articulated. Read and be inspired."--KEVIN LOWRY, author of Faith at Work"The complementarity of reason and faith is beautifully evidenced in this gem of a book. The Porch and the Cross offers a fascinating and insightful glimpse into the love of wisdom and the wisdom of the cross!"--FR. DONALD CALLOWAY, MIC, author of No Turning Back"Just as did St. Thomas Aquinas in the past, Kevin Vost does a superb job of showing us how human reason, in the form of Stoic philosophy, supports Christian revelation. This excellent reminder is providential in our day, where so many people desperately need to reconnect with the Western intellectual tradition."--SCOTT M. SULLIVAN, President and CEO, Classical Theist Productions"The Porch and the Cross takes the reader back to the Stoic thinkers as a complement to natural law and Christian faith."--KENNETH J. HOWELL, Theologian in Residence, The Coming Home Network (from the Foreword)"Kevin Vost, in his uniquely personable writing style, does a remarkable job bringing to life the instructions of men who lived nearly 2000 years ago!"--JARED ZIMMERER, author of Man Up! (from the Preface)Kevin Vost holds a Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.) degree from the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago. He has taught psychology and gerontology at Aquinas College in Nashville, the University of Illinois at Springfield, MacMurray College, and Lincoln Land Community College. He has served as a research review committee member for American Mensa, a society promoting the scientific study of human intelligence, and as an advisory board member for the International Association of Resistance Trainers, an organization that certifies personal fitness trainers.

     Here's A Preview Of What Machiavelli Mindset Contains... An Introduction to Machiavelli Seeing the World through Machiavelli’s Eyes Getting Over The Guilt Moving Above And Beyond Conventional Thinking Machiavelli's Thoughts On Generosity Compassion Vs. Cruelty (Is It Better To Be Loved Or Feared?) What Machiavelli Says About Honesty How To Achieve Success The Machiavellian Way The Qualities Of A Great Leader How to Avoid Attracting Hatred and Other Lessons from the Prince And Much, Much More! Download Your Copy Now And Get Ahead Today!

    Looking for answers to today’s wrenching challenges, William Martin turns to the Tao Te Ching and finds that while Taoism is known for its quiet, enigmatic wisdom, the Tao can also have the cleansing force of a rushing river.Through his interpretation of this ancient Chinese text, Martin elucidates revolutionary messages condemning power-seeking and greed. He emphasizes that humans have a “natural virtue” that can help them heal the planet; shows how Taoism’s simplicity can be subversive and its flexibility a potent force; and reassures that “when injustice is the rule, justice always lies in wait.”Provocative and stirring, Martin’s Tao flows within and through those who ride the waves of anger and frustration and gently guides them to true freedom.“We have learned the secret of transformation: Injustice feeds our determination. Hate increases our love. Wounds bring forth our healing, and fear uncovers our courage and serenity.”— from The Activist’s Tao Te Ching

    It provides English-language readers easier access than ever before to the widest range of work by one of the greatest writers in world history. Goethe's work as playwright, poet, novelist, and autobiographer is fully represented. In addition to the works for which he is most famous, including "Faust Part I "and the lyric poems, the volume features important literary works that are rarely published in English--including the dramas "Egmont," "Iphigenia in Tauris," and" Torquato Tasso" and the bildungsroman "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship," a foundational work in the history of the novel. The volume also offers a selection of Goethe's essays on the arts, philosophy, and science, which give access to the thought of a polymath unrivalled in the modern world. Primarily drawn from Princeton's authoritative twelve-volume Goethe edition, the translations are highly readable and reliable modern versions by scholars of Goethe. The volume also features an extensive introduction to Goethe's life and works by volume editor Matthew Bell.Includes: Selected poemsFour complete dramas: "Faust Part I, Egmont, Iphigenia in Tauris," " "and" Torquato Tasso"The complete novel" Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship"A selection from the travel journal" Italian Journey"Selected essays on art and literatureSelected essays on philosophy and scienceAn extensive introduction to Goethe's life and worksA chronology of Goethe's life and timesA note on the texts and translations

    Based on extensive experimental data comparing great apes and human children, Michael Tomasello reconstructs how early humans gradually became an ultra-cooperative and, eventually, a moral species.There were two key evolutionary steps, each founded on a new way that individuals could act together as a plural agent “we”. The first step occurred as ecological challenges forced early humans to forage together collaboratively or die. To coordinate these collaborative activities, humans evolved cognitive skills of joint intentionality, ensuring that both partners knew together the normative standards governing each role. To reduce risk, individuals could make an explicit joint commitment that “we” forage together and share the spoils together as equally deserving partners, based on shared senses of trust, respect, and responsibility. The second step occurred as human populations grew and the division of labor became more complex. Distinct cultural groups emerged that demanded from members loyalty, conformity, and cultural identity. In becoming members of a new cultural “we”, modern humans evolved cognitive skills of collective intentionality, resulting in culturally created and objectified norms of right and wrong that everyone in the group saw as legitimate morals for anyone who would be one of “us”.As a result of this two-stage process, contemporary humans possess both a second-personal morality for face-to-face engagement with individuals and a group-minded “objective” morality that obliges them to the moral community as a whole.

    The Holy Bible - Chinese Union Version (CUV) is the predominant translation of the Bible into Chinese used by Chinese Protestants, first published in 1919. The text is now in the public domain. 聖經和合本，是今日華語基督新教教會最普遍使用的《聖經》譯本，問世一百年以來，一直是華人教會的權威譯本，是眾多信徒心愛的聖經。在1919年正式出版時，官話《聖經》譯本名為《官話和合譯本》，從此就成了現今大多數華語教會採用的和合本《聖經》。 The Holy Bible - King James Version (KJV) is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England that began in 1604 and was completed in 1611. It is also known as the Authorized Version (AV) or King James Bible (KJB). The King James Version has been called "the most influential version of the most influential book in the world, in what is now its most influential language". This translation and its subsequent distribution was instrumental in opening the door to the spread of the truth. It is an excellent resource for bible study and spiritual fellowship. 為了幫助人們能更好的研讀聖經，本書將中文聖經和合本和英文聖經KJV版本經節平行排列，以彼此參照。 Optimized for Mobile: this book is optimized for reading on Kindle, iPhone, iPad, Android Phones and other digital devices. It contains enhanced typesetting features and a comprehensive and smart Book Navigation system.

    Giving up everything he's ever known, he sells his business, purges every possession that won't fit into a single backpack, and sets off into the world.Equal parts social philosophy and travel adventure, First Train Out of Denver takes the reader on an around the world quest for meaning. Along the way, Leo accepts a challenge from another former Army Ranger to see how far they can travel together in three weeks with nothing but a backpack and one hundred dollars to raise awareness and funds for a veteran charity. By any means necessary, the two traverse two continents by stowing away on coal trains, talking their way ono boats, hitchhiking, and walking a combined eight thousand miles in twenty-one days.The journey continues through Eastern Europe, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and beyond.First Train Out of Denver has already been hailed as one of the great non-fiction travel essays of our time.

    Join David Hinton on an exploration of the entire nature of reality--an ambitious project for such a compact book, and even more amazing when you see that this cosmic journey happens all within the exploration of a single Chinese landscape painting. The painting calledPeaceful-Distance Pavilionby Shih-t'ao (1642-1707) is, like other paintings in that genre, mostly space: one tiny figure, accompanied by an attendant, looks out over a vast landscape of mountains and clouds. But start looking into that space and, with the right guidance, what you end up seeing is profound. David Hinton is the perfect guide. He uses his knowledge of Chinese philosophy, poetry, art, language, and writing system to illuminate this painting's message, which is ultimately the story of the glorious dance between nothing and everything, between emptiness and existence. It's an enthralling journey that can change the way you look at the world, a journey for which David is a wise and eloquent guide."

    Recorded within a week of 9/11 at the Omega Institute in New York, these moving sessions bring you Eckhart’s guidance for responding in the face of tragedy, staying rooted in presence when the unexpected happens, and discovering the gifts hidden in apparent calamity.The Master Key: Discovering Your "Formless" IdentityWhat leads to the incomprehensible events that continue to dominate the news? Eckhart teaches that the majority of the population remains trapped in mental conditioning. We are identified completely with the egoic or "form" identity that includes our thoughts, emotions, and interpretations along with cultural influences. Over the course of nine CDs, you will immerse yourself in Eckhart’s practical teachings for "returning to sanity in the face of catastrophe." How? By discovering your formless identity—consciousness itself—allowing an intelligence far greater than the mind to operate through you in the world."The urgency for a radical change in consciousness seems to grow every day," explains Eckhart. Here is an invitation to initiate this crucial change in your own life, and become yourself a source of harmony and healing for all.

    The Weird and the Eerie are closely related but distinct modes, each possessing its own distinct properties. Both have often been associated with Horror, yet this emphasis overlooks the aching fascination that such texts can exercise. The Weird and the Eerie both fundamentally concern the outside and the unknown, which are not intrinsically horrifying, even if they are always unsettling. Perhaps a proper understanding of the human condition requires examination of liminal concepts such as the weird and the eerie. These two modes will be analysed with reference to the work of authors such as H.P. Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, M.R. James, Christopher Priest, Joan Lindsay, Nigel Kneale, Daphne Du Maurier, Alan Garner and Margaret Atwood, and films by Stanley Kubrick, Jonathan Glazer and Christoper Nolan.

    Brook A. Ziporyn puts Tiantai into dialogue with modern philosophical concerns to draw out its implications for ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. Ziporyn explains Tiantai's unlikely roots, its positions of extreme affirmation and rejection, its religious skepticism and embrace of religious myth, and its view of human consciousness. Ziporyn reveals the profound insights of Tiantai Buddhism while stimulating philosophical reflection on its unexpected effects.

    More than any rituals or doctrines, it is this experience that anchors religious faith, yet it has been largely ignored in the scientific literature on religion.Starting with a vivid narrative account of the life-threatening hike that triggered his own mystical experience, biologist John Wathey takes the reader on a scientific journey to find the sources of religious feeling and the illusion of God's presence. His book delves into the biological origins of this compelling feeling, attributing it to innate neural circuitry that evolved to promote the mother-child bond. Dr. Wathey, a veteran neuroscientist, argues that evolution has programmed the infant brain to expect the presence of a loving being who responds to the child's needs. As the infant grows into adulthood, this innate feeling is eventually transferred to the realm of religion, where it is reactivated through the symbols, imagery, and rituals of worship. The author interprets our various conceptions of God in biological terms as illusory supernormal stimuli that fill an emotional and cognitive vacuum left over from infancy. These insights shed new light on some of the most vexing puzzles of religion, like the popular belief in a god who is judgmental and punishing, yet also unconditionally loving; the extraordinary tenacity of faith; the greater religiosity of women relative to men; religious obsessions with sex; the mysterious compulsion to pray; the seemingly irrepressible feminine attributes of God, even in traditionally patriarchal religions; and the strange allure of cults. Finally, Dr. Wathey considers the hypothesis that religion evolved to foster reproductive success, arguing that, in an age of potentially ruinous overpopulation, magical thinking has become a luxury we can no longer afford, one that distracts us from urgent threats to our planet.Deeply researched yet elegantly written in a jargon-free and accessible style, this book presents a compelling interpretation of the evolutionary origins of spirituality and religion.From the Hardcover edition.

    Every. Single. Day. With surprising simplicity, Bring Your Life Back To Life opens up how you choose a fully alive life in every moment. As the internationally recognized writer & artist behind StoryPeople writes: I’d hit the point where I wasn’t willing to settle for a life that worked. What called to me was a life that played & danced & soared. But if I wanted that, I was going to have to choose it. Walk toward it in every moment. I couldn’t settle any more for a life where I’m not all in, in every moment. This is the gentle, clear & powerful guide that comes out of that choice. If you’re ready for that kind of life yourself, here’s a good place to start. It’s a perfect companion to carry along with as you choose your own path toward joy…

    Even as seas rise against the shores, another great tide is beginning to rise – a tide of outrage against the pillage of the planet, a tide of commitment to justice and human rights, a swelling affirmation of moral responsibility to the future and to Earth’s fullness of life.Philosopher and nature essayist Kathleen Dean Moore takes on the essential questions: Why is it wrong to wreck the world? What is our obligation to the future? What is the transformative power of moral resolve? How can clear thinking stand against the lies and illogic that batter the chances for positive change? What are useful answers to the recurring questions of a storm-threatened time – What can anyone do? Is there any hope? And always this: What stories and ideas will lift people who deeply care, inspiring them to move forward with clarity and moral courage?

    An unforgiving and unflinching condemnation of the Empire of Nothing and strategies to escape it- as well as snapshots of what that world looks like from the perspective of someone who is really living it.

    This is Alan Watts' speech on the elements of Western civilization we take for granted, it's buddhist interpretation and possibilities for the redemption of the West.

    Driven by strategies of negation and suspicion, such rhetoric tends to drown out softer-spoken reparative efforts, which forego forceful argument in favor of ruminations on pleasure, love, sentiment, reform, care, and accessibility.Just Vibrations: The Purpose of Sounding Good calls for a time-out in our serious games of critical exchange. Charting the divergent paths of paranoid and reparative affects through illness narratives, academic work, queer life, noise pollution, sonic torture, and other touchy subjects, William Cheng exposes a host of stubborn norms in our daily orientations toward scholarship, self, and sound. How we choose to think about the perpetration and tolerance of critical and acoustic offenses may ultimately lead us down avenues of ethical ruin—or, if we choose, repair. With recourse to experimental rhetoric, interdisciplinary discretion, and the playful wisdoms of childhood, Cheng contends that reparative attitudes toward music and musicology can serve as barometers of better worlds.

    To read Loren Eiseley (1907-1977) is to renew a sense of wonder at the miracles and paradoxes of evolution and the ever-changing diversity of life. At the height of a distinguished career as a "bone-hunter" and paleontologist, Eiseley turned from fieldwork and scientific publication to the personal essay in six remarkable books that are masterpieces of prose style. Weaving together anecdote, philosophical reflection, and keen observation with the soul and skill of a poet, Eiseley offers a brilliant, companionable introduction to the sciences, paving the way for writers like Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Now for the first time, the Library of America presents his landmark essay collections in a definitive two-volume set. Beginning with the surprise million-copy seller The Immense Journey (1957), Eiseley produced an astonishing succession of books that won acclaim both as science and as art. Here, for the first time in a single collector's edition, are all of Eiseley's beloved, thought-provoking, sometimes darkly lyrical essay collections, from The Immense Journey to the posthumous The Star Thrower (1978). Eiseley's subjects are wide-ranging, curious, and meticulously realized: the role of flowering plants in evolution; a disturbing insect, seen in childhood; the questions raised by a new fossil; a forgotten episode in the history of science. Beginning with close observation and vivid detail, Eiseley is fearless and imaginative in pursuit of the cosmological dimensions of the phenomena he describes.

    Pessimism was essentially the theory that life is not worth living. This theory was introduced into German philosophy by Schopenhauer, whose philosophy became very fashionable in the 1860s. Frederick C. Beiser examines the intense and long controversy that arose from Schopenhauer's pessimism, which changed the agenda of philosophy in Germany away from the logic of the sciences and toward an examination of the value of life. He examines the major defenders of pessimism (Philipp Mainlander, Eduard von Hartmann and Julius Bahnsen) and its chief critics, especially Eugen Duhring and the neo-Kantians. The pessimism dispute of the second half of the century has been largely ignored in secondary literature and this book is a first attempt since the 1880s to re-examine it and to analyze the important philosophical issues raised by it. The dispute concerned the most fundamental philosophical issue of them all: whether life is worth living.

    Join us on a journey through how we understand the Universe, from its most basic particles and forces, to planets, stars and galaxies, and back through cosmic history to the birth of the cosmos. Conflicting notions about our place in the Universe are defined, defended and critiqued from scientific, philosophical and religious viewpoints. The authors' engaging and witty style addresses what fine-tuning might mean for the future of physics and the search for the ultimate laws of nature. Tackling difficult questions and providing thought-provoking answers, this volumes challenges us to consider our place in the cosmos, regardless of our initial convictions.

    Learn how Gnostic dualism invaded the church, killed the party and taught you the world was evil. Religious mindsets of dualism have blinded us to the God-given joys and pleasures of this world. We have often separated our spirituality from earthiness. But did Jesus really condemn all enjoyment of this world? Is God the creator or the enemy of this world's delights? In this scandalous upcoming book, John Crowder exposes the encroachment of Gnosticism over 2,000 years of church history ... the idea that the natural, material world is somehow evil and at odds with our spirituality. He makes the case that God is pro-party, and that Biblical guidelines of morality are issued to preserve and enhance our joy - never to diminish it. Hitting the most controversial, real-life topics imaginable - money, sex, alcohol and more - Crowder exposes unbiblical religious parameters that have worked against us. Legalisms that, instead of curbing sin, have actually caused it to increase! In the Incarnation, Jesus Christ baptized the material world - erasing every notion of separation between the natural and the divine life. Experience a life of wholeness, gratitude and recover your appetite for scriptures as you see the Bible through the lens of a happy God!

    Nones are the fastest growing religious demographic in the United States. A pastor and self-proclaimed former none, Heath possesses an excellent understanding of church growth and the lack thereof, and frequently draws upon that experience when look for ways to welcome people to church. In Glorify: Reclaiming the Heart of Progressive Christianity, Heath shares the experiences, insights, lessons, and challenges that shaped them on their journey of faith. The book is sometimes practical, sometimes spiritual, and always glorifying the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which Heath asserts is the true way to change the world.

    We are self-knowing centers in a law that has no volition other than to obey our impulses. We are ignorant of this and consequently bring upon ourselves, through a direct act of law, all the experiences that we suffer. Should we completely change our mode of thinking, we would completely change our environment.

    The Prince of This World traces the story of one of the most influential attempts to square this circle: the offloading of responsibility for evil onto one of God's rebellious creatures. In this striking reexamination, the devil's story is bitterly ironic, full of tragic reversals. He emerges as a theological symbol who helped oppressed communities cope with the trauma of unjust persecution, torture, and death at the hands of political authorities and eventually becomes a vehicle to justify oppression at the hands of Christian rulers. And he evolves alongside the biblical God, who at first presents himself as the liberator of the oppressed but ends up a cruel ruler who delights in the infliction of suffering on his friends and enemies alike. In other words, this is the story of how God becomes the devil—a devil who remains with us in our ostensibly secular age.

    "Eckhart on Emerson" - Eckhart reads and comments on passages from the collected essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson"Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius - discover the contemplations of the Roman emperor with an extraordinary understanding of our shared human joys and sorrows"The Wisdom of Epictetus" - Eckhart explores the teachings of the former slave and Stoic philosopher who pointed to the contents of our thoughts as the source of suffering"The Imitation of Christ" - the path to spiritual awakening, as revealed by the 14th-century mystic Thomas à Kempis"On Contentment: An Essay by Plutarch" - a timeless teaching on unblocking the obstacles to the inner peace that is everyone's birthright

    But we need some encouragement to focus our gaze. This is a book to guide us to the best of life’s small pleasures: everything from the distinctive delight of holding a child’s hand to the enjoyment of disagreeing with someone to the joy of the evening sky; an intriguing, evocative mix of small pleasures that will heighten our senses and return us to the world with new-found excitement and enthusiasm.

    How can our future be protected in such challenging anduncertain conditions? How can we possibly improve the chances that the human family will not only live, but live well, into the 21st century and beyond?This book locates a key to that future in the distant past: specifically, in the philosophical traditions of virtue ethics developed by classical thinkers from Aristotle and Confucius to the Buddha. Each developed a way of seeking the good life that equips human beings with the moral andintellectual character to flourish even in the most unpredictable, complex and unstable situations--precisely where we find ourselves today.Through an examination of the many risks and opportunities presented by rapidly changing technosocial conditions, Vallor makes the case that if we are to have any real hope of securing a future worth wanting, then we will need more than just better technologies. We will also need better humans.Technology and the Virtues develops a practical framework for seeking that goal by means of the deliberate cultivation of technomoral virtues: specific skills and strengths of character, adapted to the unique challenges of 21st century life, that offer the human family our best chance of learning tolive wisely and well with emerging technologies.

    . This mystic yogi is a great visionary with a master of spirituality. As a perfect blend of sophistication and convenience, he converted yoga from its hermetic disciplines from an obsolete past to a vitally relevant contemporary form. As an international figure of yoga and meditation, here in this book ‘Jaggi Vasudev Quotes’, we have his profound wisdom flown as his words...

    The church had become weak, flabby and inconsequential. Being a Christian was more a cultural heritage than a spiritual reality. His mission--reintroduce the Christian faith to Christians. How could he break through to people who were members of the church and thought they were Christians already? Like an Old Testament prophet, Kierkegaard used a variety of pointed and dramatic ways to shake people from their slumber. He incisively diagnosed the spiritual ailments of his age and offered a fresh take on classic Christian teaching. Mark Tietjen thinks that Kierkegaard's critique of his contemporaries strikes close to home today. We also need to listen to one of the most insightful yet complex Christian thinkers of any era. Through an examination of core Christian doctrines--the person of Jesus Christ, human nature, Christian witness and love--Tietjen helps us hear Kierkegaard's missionary message to a church that often fails to follow Christ with purity of heart.

    Now a world-famous theoretical physicist with hundreds of scientific articles and several books of popular science to his credit, he felt it was time to connect with nature in less theoretical ways. After seeing a fly-fishing class on the Dartmouth College green, he decided to learn to fly-fish, a hobby, he says, that teaches humility. In The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected, Gleiser travels the world to scientific conferences, fishing wherever he goes. At each stop, he ponders how in the myriad ways physics informs the act of fishing; how, in its turn, fishing serves as a lens into nature’s inner workings; and how science engages with questions of meaning and spirituality, inspiring a sense of mystery and awe of the not yet known. Personal and engaging, The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected is a scientist’s tribute to nature, an affirmation of humanity’s deep connection with and debt to Earth, and an exploration of the meaning of existence, from atom to trout to cosmos.

    Perhaps science fiction can help. In Discognition, Steven Shaviro looks at science fiction novels and stories that explore the extreme possibilities of human and alien sentience.

    Watts explains how to "get out of your own way" and relax into the nature of reality. Alan Watts was a comparative religion scholar, who spoke and wrote on topics of spirituality with a focus on Eastern systems of philosophy (especially Zen Buddhism and Taoism). Watts is credited as helping to spread Eastern philosophy throughout the West, beginning in the 1930's.

    Siri Hustvedt is a notable novelist, art scholar, and a philosopher of science. In this memorable and immensely enjoyable volume, Hustvedt rises above the exhausted debate over the two cultures, to demonstrate not just the possibility but also the advantages of combining the approaches of the arts, humanities, and sciences to illuminate a key aspect of the human condition: the mind-body problem.” —Antonio Damasio, bestselling author of Descartes’ Error and Self Comes to Mind “Siri Hustvedt proves her membership in the highest rank of neuroscientists and philosophers who probe the nature of thought and the workings of consciousness. A novelist and a student of psychoanalysis and neuroscience, Hustvedt can ask questions others cannot ask about imagination, identity, epistemology, gendered power, and mortality. Her authoritative knowledge and her courage to challenge the status quo guide the reader to fresh epiphanies about what counts as human nature. The work is, in the end, a work of freedom.” —Rita Charon, Columbia University “The Delusions of Certainty is the best book on the mind-body problem I have ever read. Perhaps only a great novelist and essayist can address what neuroscientists and philosophers fail to question. Siri Hustvedt takes the reader on an inspiring journey into highly relevant and often unanswered questions about what it means to be human.” —Vittorio Gallese, University of Parma Prizewinning novelist, feminist, and scholar Siri Hustvedt turns her brilliant and critical eye toward the metaphysical issues of neuropsychology in this lauded, standalone volume. Originally published in her “canonical” (Publishers Weekly) and “absorbing” (Kirkus Reviews) collection A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women, The Delusions of Certainty exposes how the age-old, unresolved mind-body problem has shaped—and often distorted and confused—contemporary thought in neuroscience, psychiatry, genetics, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary psychology.

    In this pulse pounding issue Glenn Ganges travels back in time and learns about mountains and rivers at the speed of "Deep Time." Glenn and his wife Wendy also spend some time trying to work together, go to the airport and go to a funeral. Every page is a jam packed jewel of cartooning power. Arguably, the comic book highlight of the year.

    While he is remembered for his masterpiece My Past and Thoughts and as the father of Russian socialism, his contributions to the history of ideas defy easy categorization because they are so numerous. Aileen Kelly presents the first fully rounded study of the farsighted genius whom Isaiah Berlin called "the forerunner of much twentieth-century thought."In an era dominated by ideologies of human progress, Herzen resisted them because they conflicted with his sense of reality, a sense honed by his unusually comprehensive understanding of history, philosophy, and the natural sciences. Following his unconventional decision to study science at university, he came to recognize the implications of early evolutionary theory, not just for the natural world but for human history. In this respect, he was a Darwinian even before Darwin.Socialism for Russia, as Herzen conceived it, was not an ideology--least of all Marxian "scientific socialism"--but a concrete means of grappling with unique historical circumstances, a way for Russians to combine the best of Western achievements with the possibilities of their own cultural milieu in order to move forward. In the same year that Marx declared communism to be the "solution to the riddle of history," Herzen denied that any such solution could exist. History, like nature, was contingent--an improvisation both constrained and encouraged by chance.

     “On Duties” represents the pinnacle of Western moral philosophy. Not only is it an unmatched practical guide to conduct, it also serves as a profoundly ennobling vision of man. Acknowledged as a moral authority for many centuries, it was the second book (after the Gutenberg Bible) to be printed following the invention of the printing press. This new English translation by Quintus Curtius brings Cicero into the 21st century, while at the same time preserving the majesty and elegance of the original. Lucid, precise, and accessible for the modern reader, this complete and unabridged translation was designed specifically to meet the needs of the modern reader. It contains the following special features that are found nowhere else: 1. An innovative topical organizational scheme that permits easy location of subjects and terms 2. Detailed textual notes for unfamiliar terms and historical references 3. Detailed commentaries on the text 4. Complete subject and name index 5. Additional explanatory essays Quintus Curtius is an attorney, writer, and former Marine officer. He can be found at qcurtius.com.

    He exposes the illusion that we must strive to reach enlightenment, uncovering how our yearning for future accomplishments, attachment to the past, and reliance on authority outside the self are social constructs that distract us from the reality of the now. The author explains how our original enlightened nature has been obscured by social, cultural, religious, and egotistical conditioning of the mind caught in time. Building on knowledge from spiritual traditions including Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism, Gregory expresses the timeless and ever-present nature of enlightenment. He illustrates how rigid practices and initiations can become a form of spiritual postponement, continually putting off our enlightenment because we feel we are doing something good and noble. To chase enlightenment through spiritual practice is to assume it is a quality bound to time. The author helps us see that we are already what we are seeking--once we understand that existing in this world is itself a miracle beyond words, then the magic and beauty of our world will unfold. In the same way we remember someone’s name without thinking about it, we also remember that we are enlightened when we stop searching for the experience. Emerging from the Middle Way of the Buddha, Lao-tzu’s Way of the Tao, Yoga, the Great Work of Gnosticism, the Hermetic Art of Alchemy, and quantum physics, Gregory presents a way to the state of consciousness--enlightenment, nirvana, or samadhi--in which eternity and time are one. He shows us how to counteract the negative impact of social and cultural conditioning on our psyche through meditation and reframing our understanding of time. The author explains how meditation in its truest form takes our awareness of nowness from theory to practice. Guiding us away from a time-bound understanding of enlightenment, Gregory shows us how to find ourselves in the stillness of now where the peace you are is the peace you give to the world.

    However, unlike religion, it is far more firmly embedded in the everyday workings of our society and indeed we have got to the point where we can no longer envisage any real progress without it. Unfortunately there are profound problems with all aspects of scientific theory and methods. For example: could it be that the idea of universal laws underpinning reality is a falsehood and, as a result, we need more and more scientists, and more and more computing power, to produce greater and greater elaborations of our theories to make them fit inconvenient experimental data? Indeed, we're being forced to break science down into smaller and smaller sub-specialities, each with ever more divergent theories applicable only to one speciality and not applicable to others. Rather than an underlying unity we are finding only disparity and greater complexity. What’s worse, scientists are routinely having to resort to completely untestable concepts, such as many more spatial dimensions and infinite universes, to ‘explain’ our reality. Throughout the history of science, reputable figures in science and philosophy have been casting doubt on some of the central assumptions of science and its various disciplines. These objections and criticisms have been ignored and then often forgotten in the face of the apparent overwhelming successes of science, but many of them are still perfectly valid. Often these criticisms are buried deep within academic texts. The aim of this book is, for the first time, to summarise these profound concerns across all the fields of science in a way that is accessible to the general reader who does not have a background in science. It also attempts to provide a warning of the risks that, perhaps even at extinction level for mankind, science runs by not acknowledging the often hollow foundations on which it is built.

    Therefore, on our way to success, many of us become disoriented, discouraged, reactive, and torn. As soon as we encounter unwanted situations, we have no idea what to do. Well, this book is different. Originally published in 2014, The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday is one of the greatest self-help and personal development books written in our time period. It is a book of ruthless pragmatism. It aims to help you accomplish your goals by teaching you how to turn any kind of obstacle into an advantage and steal good fortune from misfortune. The book draws its inspiration from stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy of enduring adversity and pain with resilience and persistence. The stoics focus exclusively on the things they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every obstacle they face into an opportunity to get tougher, stronger, better. And after reading this summary, you will be able to do the same. You will be able to overcome any kind of obstacle on your path to success. You will be cool under pressure, immune to insults and abuse. You will benefit from misfortune. You will see opportunity in tragedy. You will be able to act with persistence and energy. You will assume responsibility for yourself — teaching yourself, improving yourself, and pursuing your rightful calling and place in the world. This summary seeks to highlight key ideas and capture important lessons found in the original book. Unessential information has been removed to save the reader time. If you’ve already read the original, this summary will serve as a reminder of main ideas and key concepts. If you haven’t, don’t worry, here you will find every bit of practical information without having to use so much time to read the original book. Take action and get this Kindle book right now!

    What happens, then, when we follow God's will to the best of our abilities and heartbreak strikes? Do we mean it when we implore "Have Thine own way, Lord" or does that only apply in times of blessings or small, manageable hurts?John Feinberg knows that conundrum intimately. In 1987 his beloved wife was diagnosed with an incurable, genetically transmitted disease. They were immediately challenged in their faith and their approach to God's goodness in the face of the evil of suffering. More, they discovered just how little their Christian community understood about how to support people in crisis.When There Are No Easy Answers considers the problem of grief from every angle, just as the Feinbergs walked through it in their journey. It confronts the question of justice, examines the nature of God, and argues for the reality of grace. Feinberg explores the biblical reasons against the use of traditional clichés and platitudes, especially by those in ministry, and lays out alternatives that can actually comfort and encourage the person who is struggling or grieving.