The American Zen teacher John Daido Loori shows us that Zen practice should include not only meditation, the study of Zen literature and liturgy, and moral and ethical action, but should also manifest in work, artistic, and everyday activities. The Eight Gates are:    1.  Zazen, a type of meditation described as "sitting Zen"    2.  Face-to-face meetings between teacher and student    3.  Academic study of the sutras related to Zen training, other schools of Buddhism, Buddhist history, psychology, and philosophy    4.  Zen rites and rituals and their meaning    5.  The moral and ethical requirements set in the Buddhist Precepts    6.  Art practice as an extension of Zen practice    7.  Body practice as an extension of Zen practice    8.  Work as an active function of zazenBeautifully illustrated with Loori's own photographs, this edition also includes a new introduction and an updated reading list.

    Twenty-seven years ago, his son, Matthieu Ricard, gave up a promising career as a scientist to study Tibetan Buddhism -- not as a detached observer but by immersing himself in its practice under the guidance of its greatest living masters.Meeting in an inn overlooking Katmandu, these two profoundly thoughtful men explored the questions that have occupied humankind throughout its history. Does life have meaning? What is consciousness? Is man free? What is the value of scientific and material progress? Why is there suffering, war, and hatred? Their conversation is not merely abstract: they ask each other questions about ethics, rights, and responsibilities, about knowledge and belief, and they discuss frankly the differences in the way each has tried to make sense of his life.Utterly absorbing, inspiring, and accessible, this remarkable dialogue engages East with West, ideas with life, and science with the humanities, providing wisdom on how to enrich the way we live our lives.

    Van de Wetering gives them his own distinctive touch of humor, down to earth reality, and tough spirituality in the context of meeting and adventures with personalities "collaged from bits and pieces of teachers and fellow students who kindly came my way."In this third book of the trilogy, van de Wetering is at his accessible, honest, funny, and genuinely spiritual best.

    Do the right thing, of course-- but better yet, find your inner light and doing the right thing becomes as natural as breathing. THE ZEN COMMANDMENTS offers ten powerful nudges toward that light.Drawing on sources from Zen stories and the Bible to jazz and rock 'n' roll, from American movies to Tibetan meditative techniques, Dean Sluyter steers clear of dogma and emphasizes what works-- a sort of spiritual street smarts. He shows that the state of boundless freedom and happiness isn't something distant or exotic, but is right here, while you're stuck in traffic or taking out the trash. And revisiting the Ten Commandments, he shows how on a deeper level they offer some surprising enlightenment wisdom of their own.“The book is extremely well written and joyously entertaining.”—Publishers Weekly “With sparkling clarity and wit, Sluyter's ten suggestions lay out the practical essentials of the path. My suggestion is: listen to this guy.”—Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within “Dean Sluyter clearly presents simple but profound ways to live one's life consciously and skillfully. He teaches that the source of universal truth not only rests in the heart of every one of us, but is the essence of what ultimately brings us true happiness and freedom. This is a wonderful book with rich wisdom and deep insight.”—Rabbi David Cooper, author of God Is a Verb “No matter what your religion (or lack of it), this book shows how to live the kind of life people ache for. It turns out to be pretty simple.”—Jane Cavolina, co-author of Growing Up Catholic

    The Tao of Teaching is written in the same style as the Tao Te Ching, and gives examples from the classrooms of three present-day teachers whom the author feels embody Taoist wisdom and "student-centered" educational methods. The Tao of Teaching is a labor of love, containing many important insights by a talented and respected professional whose emphasis is on the students' contribution in a learning environment, whatever the context.

    Yet as we start to become more poised, more present, fully receptive of all this moment has to offer, we start to experience it vividly and listening to it can draw us ever--deeper into the mysteries of now.Always skillful and good humored, Ajahn Sumedho's teachings defy boundaries. Anyone--from laypeople looking to deepen their grasp of the Buddha's message, to lifetime Buddhist monastics--will appreciate the author's sparkling insights into to such key Buddhist themes as awareness, consciousness, identity, relief from suffering, and mindfulness of the body. The Sound of Silence represents the best of Ajahn Sumedho's masterful work to help us all see each life with a new and sustaining clarity.

    Author B. Alan Wallace has nearly thirty years' practice in attention-enhancing meditation, including a retreat he performed under the guidance of the Dalai Lama. An active participant in the much-publicized dialogues between Buddhists and scientists, Alan is uniquely qualified to speak intelligently to both camps, and The Attention Revolution is the definitive presentation of his knowledge.Beginning by pointing out the ill effects that follow from our inability to focus, Wallace moves on to explore a systematic path of meditation to deepen our capacity for deep concentration. The result is an exciting, rewarding "expedition of the mind," tracing everything from the confusion at the bottom of the trail to the extraordinary clarity and power that come with making it to the top. Along the way, the author also provides interludes and complementary practices for cultivating love, compassion, and clarity in our waking and dreaming lives.Attention is the key that makes personal change possible, and the good news is that it can be trained. This book shows how.

    Drawing from contemporary research on meditation and mindfulness and his experience as a Buddhist teacher and practitioner, Nichtern describes in fresh and deeply resonant terms the basic existential experience that gives rise to spiritual seeking—and also to its potentially dangerous counterpart, spiritual materialism. He reveals how our individual quests for self-awareness ripple forward into relationships, communities, and society at large. And he explains exactly how, by turning our awareness to what's happening around us and inside us, we become able to enhance our sense of connection with others and, at the same time, change for the better our individual and collective patterns of greed, apathy, and inattention.In this wise and witty invitation to Buddhist meditation, Nichtern shows how, in order to create a truly compassionate and enlightened society, we must start with ourselves. And this means beginning by working with our own minds—in whatever state we find them in.

    The mind is designed to often delude us, he argued, about ourselves and about the world. And it is designed to make happiness hard to sustain. But if we know our minds are rigged for anxiety, depression, anger, and greed, what do we do? Wright locates the answer in Buddhism, which figured out thousands of years ago what scientists are only discovering now. Buddhism holds that human suffering is a result of not seeing the world clearly—and proposes that seeing the world more clearly, through meditation, will make us better, happier people. In Why Buddhism is True, Wright leads readers on a journey through psychology, philosophy, and a great many silent retreats to show how and why meditation can serve as the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age. At once excitingly ambitious and wittily accessible, this is the first book to combine evolutionary psychology with cutting-edge neuroscience to defend the radical claims at the heart of Buddhist philosophy. With bracing honesty and fierce wisdom, it will persuade you not just that Buddhism is true—which is to say, a way out of our delusion—but that it can ultimately save us from ourselves, as individuals and as a species.

    The 11 discourses in this volume provide a broad overview of the teachings of Buddha to help meditators understand what to do and why, so they work in the proper way and achieve the proper results.

    Starting from simple and easily accessible understandings of emptiness, Burbea presents a unique conception of the path along which he escorts the practitioner gradually, through the careful structure of the work, into ever more mystical levels of insight. Through its precise instructions, illuminating exercises and discussions that address the subtleties of both practice and understanding, Seeing That Frees opens up for the committed meditator all the profundity of the Buddha’s radical teachings on emptiness. This is a book that will take time to digest and will serve as a lifelong companion on the path, leading the reader, as it does, progressively deeper into the territory of liberation. From the Foreword by Joseph Goldstein:"Rob Burbea, in this remarkable book, proves to be a wonderfully skilled guide in exploring the understanding of emptiness as the key insight in transforming our lives... It is rare to find a book that explores so deeply the philosophical underpinnings of awakening at the same time as offering the practical means to realize it."

    Buddhism is all about training the mind, and boot camp is an ideal training method for this generation's short attention span. The chapters in this small book can be read in any order, and are simple and easy to understand. Each story, inspirational quote, and teaching offers mindfulness-enhancing techniques that anyone can relate to. You don't need to be a Buddhist to find the Buddha's teachings motivational. As the Dalai Lama says, "Don't try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are."So whether it's Mother Teresa's acts of charity, Gandhi's perseverance, or your aunt Betty's calm demeanor, as long as you're motivated to be better today than you were yesterday, it doesn't matter who inspires you. Regardless of religion, geographical region, race, ethnicity, color, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, flexibility, or vulnerability, if you do good you feel good, and if you do bad you feel bad.Buddhism isn't just about meditating. It's about rolling up your sleeves to relieve some of the suffering in the world. If you are ready to be a soldier of peace in the army of love, welcome to Buddhist Boot Camp!

    This collection--among the oldest records of the historical Buddha's original teachings, given in India two and a half thousand years ago--consists of thirty-four longer-length suttas, or discourses, distinguished as such from the middle-length and shorter suttas of the other collections.These suttas reveal the gentleness, compassion, power, and penetrating wisdom of the Buddha. Included are teachings on mindfulness (Mahasatipatthana Sutta); on morality, concentration, and wisdom (Subha Sutta); on dependent origination (Mahanidrana Sutta); on the roots and causes of wrong views (Brahmajala Sutta); and a long description of the Buddha's last days and passing away (Mahaparinibbana Sutta); along with a wealth of practical advice and insight for all those travelling along the spiritual path.Venerable Sumedho Thera writes in his foreword: "[These suttas] are not meant to be 'sacred scriptures' that tell us what to believe. One should read them, listen to them, think about them, contemplate them, and investigate the present reality, the present experience, with them. Then, and only then, can one insightfully know the truth beyond words."Introduced with a vivid account of the Buddha's life and times and a short survey of his teachings, The Long Discourses of the Buddha brings us closer in every way to the wise and compassionate presence of Gotama Buddha and his path of truth.

    Because with spiritual awakening, you find that the strongly held beliefs and perceptions you've taken to be 'you' and 'your world' vanish into the unmanifest nature of all that is. The End of Your World presents a landmark six-CD course on the reality of enlightenment and the total re-wiring of your being that accompanies it what Adyashanti calls our journey into the infinite, our true nature as pure consciousness itself.

    By turns humorous and moving, this beautifully written memoir demystifies Zen training, casting its profound insights in simple, lucid language, and takes the reader on a journey of their own, into the hidden treasures of life that contemplative practice can reveal to any of us.