The Wisdom of Insecurity underlines the importance of our search for stability in an age where human life seems particularly vulnerable and uncertain. Watts argues our insecurity is the consequence of trying to be secure and that, ironically, salvation and sanity lie in the recognition that we have no way of saving ourselves.

    Whether you are seeking an effective tool for reducing stress, improving your relationships, achieving more success in your career, or for revealing the ultimate truth of life within yourself, "Deep Meditation" can be a vital resource for cultivating your personal freedom and enlightenment. Yogani is the author of two landmark books on the world's most effective spiritual practices: "Advanced Yoga Practices - Easy Lessons for Ecstatic Living," a comprehensive user-friendly textbook, and "The Secrets of Wilder," a powerful spiritual novel. The AYP Enlightenment Series makes these profound practices available for the first time in a series of concise instruction books. "Deep Meditation" is the first in the series.

    Beginning with the simplest breathing and sitting techniques, and based on three key skills—concentration, mindfulness, and lovingkindness—it’s a practice anyone can do and that can transform our lives by bringing us greater resiliency, creativity, peace, clarity, and balance. This updated 10th anniversary edition includes exercises, journal prompts, and ten guided meditations available for download online and through scannable QR codes.

    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.

    In his widely praised book, award-winning psychologist Jonathan Haidt examines the world’s philosophical wisdom through the lens of psychological science, showing how a deeper understanding of enduring maxims-like Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, or What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger-can enrich and even transform our lives.

    And they have a natural affinity for Buddhism. This is a book for them-by one of them. Lodro Rinzler speaks the language of Generation O, as his compatriots are known, and he's a respected Buddhist teacher in his own right. His book is a complete introduction to Buddhism, without the cultural trappings, in language that anyone can understand but that will be especially appreciated by young people today under thirty. It's entertaining, chatty, and often funny, but also very serious. It's for anyone who wants to use the Buddha's teachings to awaken like he did.

    Kristin Neff comes a step-by-step guide explaining how to be more self-compassionate and achieve your dreams in lifeThe relentless pursuit of high self-esteem has become a virtual religion—and a tyrannical one at that. Our ultracompetitive culture tells us we need to be constantly above average to feel good about ourselves, but there is always someone more attractive, successful, or intelligent than we are. And even when we do manage to grab hold of high self-esteem for a brief moment, we can't seem to keep it. Our sense of self-worth goes up and down like a ping-pong ball, rising and falling in lockstep with our latest success or failure.Fortunately, there is an alternative to self-esteem that many experts believe is a better and more effective path to happiness: self-compassion. The research of Dr. Kristin Neff and other leading psychologists indicates that people who are compassionate toward their failings and imperfections experience greater well-being than those who repeatedly judge themselves. The feelings of security and self-worth provided by self-compassion are also highly stable, kicking in precisely when self-esteem falls down. This book powerfully demonstrates why it's so important to be self-compassionate and give yourself the same caring support you'd give to a good friend.This groundbreaking work will show you how to let go of debilitating self-criticism and finally learn to be kind to yourself. Using solid empirical research, personal stories, practical exercises, and humor, Dr. Neff—the world's foremost expert on self-compassion—explains how to heal destructive emotional patterns so that you can be healthier, happier, and more effective. Engaging, highly readable, and eminently accessible, this book has the power to change your life.

    Ellen J. Langer and her team of researchers at Harvard introduced a unique concept of mindfulness, adapted to contemporary life in the West. Langer's theory has been applied to a wide number of fields, including health, business, aging, social justice, and learning. There is now a new psychological assessment based on her work (called the Langer Mindfulness Scale). In her introduction to this 25th anniversary edition, Dr. Langer (now known as "the Mother of Mindfulness") outlines some of these exciting applications and suggests those still to come.

    The result is a groundbreaking approach to not simply mental health, but life in general, which shows readers how personal awareness and attunement can actually stimulate emotional circuits in the brain, leading to a host of physiological benefits, including greater well-being, resilience, emotional balance, and improved cardiac and immune function. For clinicians and laypeople alike, Siegel’s illuminating discussions of the power of the focused mind provide a wealth of ideas that can transform our lives and deepen our connections with others, and with ourselves.

    (The somewhat confusing title is from a line in Zorba the Greek in which the title character refers to the ups and downs of family life as "the full catastrophe.") But this book is also a terrific introduction for anyone who has considered meditating but was afraid it would be too difficult or would include religious practices they found foreign. Kabat-Zinn focuses on "mindfulness," a concept that involves living in the moment, paying attention, and simply "being" rather than "doing." While you can practice anything "mindfully," from taking a walk to cleaning your house, Kabat-Zinn presents several meditation techniques that focus the attention most clearly, whether it's on a simple phrase, your breathing, or various parts of your body. The book goes into detail about how hospital patients have either improved their health or simply come to feel better despite their illness by using these techniques, but these meditations can help anyone deal with stress and gain a calmer outlook on life. "When we use the word healing to describe the experiences of people in the stress clinic, what we mean above all is that they are undergoing a profound transformation of view," Kabat-Zinn writes. "Out of this shift in perspective comes an ability to act with greater balance and inner security in the world." --Ben Kallenreissue 2005

    His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., nominating Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.In this much-anticipated follow-up to his bestselling classic, Peace Is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh—one of the most revered spiritual leaders in the world today—offers an insightful guide to living a fuller life. In this deeply insightful meditation, the world-renowned Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master, poet, scholar, and peace activist illuminates how each of us can incorporate the practice of mindfulness into our every waking moment. In the tradition of The Art of Happiness and Living Buddha, Living Christ, Thich Nhat Hanh’s Peace Is Every Breath opens a pathway to greater spiritual fulfillment through its patient examination of how we live our lives.

    Research psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky's pioneering concept of the 40% solution shows you how Drawing on her own groundbreaking research with thousands of men and women, research psychologist and University of California professor of psychology Sonja Lyubomirsky has pioneered a detailed yet easy-to-follow plan to increase happiness in our day-to-day lives-in the short term and over the long term. The How of Happiness is a different kind of happiness book, one that offers a comprehensive guide to understanding what happiness is, and isn't, and what can be done to bring us all closer to the happy life we envision for ourselves. Using more than a dozen uniquely formulated happiness-increasing strategies, The How of Happiness offers a new and potentially life- changing way to understand our innate potential for joy and happiness as well as our ability to sustain it in our lives. Beginning with a short diagnostic quiz that helps readers to first quantify and then to understand what she describes as their "happiness set point," Lyubomirsky reveals that this set point determines just 50 percent of happiness while a mere 10 percent can be attributed to differences in life circumstances or situations. This leaves a startling, and startlingly underdeveloped, 40 percent of our capacity for happiness within our power to change. Lyubomirsky's "happiness strategies" introduce readers to the concept of intentional activities, mindful actions that they can use to achieve a happier life. These include exercises in practicing optimism when imagining the future, instruction in how best to savor life's pleasures in the here and now, and a thoroughgoing explanation of the importance of staying active to being happy. Helping readers find the right fit between the goals they set and the activities she suggests, Lyubomirsky also helps readers understand the many obstacles to happiness as well as how to harness individual strengths to overcome them. Always emphasizing how much of our happiness is within our control, Lyubomirsky addresses the "scientific how" of her happiness research, demystifying the many myths that unnecessarily complicate its pursuit. Unlike those of many self-help books, all her recommendations are supported by scientific research. The How of Happiness is both a powerful contribution to the field of positive psychology and a gift to all those who have questioned their own well- being and sought to take their happiness into their own hands.

    Frances E. Jensen, a mother, teacher, researcher, and internationally known expert in neurology, introduces us to the mystery and magic of the teen brain. One of the first books to focus exclusively on the neurological development of adolescents, The Teenage Brain presents new findings, dispels widespread myths, and provides practical suggestions for negotiating this difficult and dynamic life stage for both adults and adolescents.Interweaving easy-to-follow scientific data with anecdotes drawn from her experiences as a parent, clinician, and public speaker, Dr. Jensen explores adolescent brain functioning and development, including learning and memory, and investigates the impact of influences such as drugs, multitasking, sleep, and stress. The Teenage Brain reveals how: Adolescents may not be as resilient to the effects of drugs as we previously thought. Occasional use of marijuana has been shown to cause lingering memory problems, and long-term use can affect later adulthood I.Q. Multi-tasking causes divided attention and can reduce learning ability. Emotionally stressful situations in adolescence can have permanent effects on mental health, and may lead to higher risk for certain neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression.Rigorous yet accessible, warm yet direct, The Teenage Brain sheds new light on young adults, and provides practical suggestions for how parents, schools, and even the legal system can better help them during this crucial period.

    Central to many spiritual and philosophical traditions and known in English as "meditation," these practices are considered a major means for enhanced awareness and self-mastery. In recent decades, modern science has dramatically confirmed what advanced meditators have long claimed—that meditation, correctly practiced, offers deep and lasting benefits for mental functioning and emotional health, as well as for physical health and well-being.