Book picks similar to
The Way Things Are: Conversations with Huston Smith on the Spiritual Life by Huston Smith
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How Things Exist: Teachings on Emptiness
Thubten Zopa - 2008
This book begins with a general talk on universal responsibility and compassion that is followed by four chapters detailing the Prasangika Madhyamaka view of emptiness, or ultimate reality, as taught in the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, and how to meditate on it, according to the author's personal experience.
Waking Up in Time: Finding Inner Peace in Times of Accelerating Change
Peter Russell - 1998
Which forces will prevail in this race to Omega? How will we cope with the awesome dangers and opportunities we must face? In this thoroughly rewritten, newly illustrated edition of his classic work 'The White Hole In Time', Russell shows how this unprecedented acceleration of our daily lives has come about, and how to find inner tranquility during these turbulent times. Here is an extraordinary and innovative vision of humanity, one that integrates science and technology with humanity's eternal quest for harmony and inner peace.
An Invitation to Freedom: Immediate Awakening for Everyone
Mooji - 2011
These simple yet profound instructions, questions, and contemplations will lead you directly into the heart of truth and absolute freedom. This could be the greatest discovery you make in your life. Also available as an audiobook read by Mooji.
Living in the Light of Death: On the Art of Being Truly Alive
Larry Rosenberg - 2000
These tough realities are not given much attention by many people until midlife, when they become harder to avoid. Using a Buddhist text known as the Five Subjects for Frequent Recollection, Larry Rosenberg shows how intimacy with the realities of aging can actually be used as a means to liberation. When we become intimate with these inevitable aspects of life, he writes, we also become intimate with ourselves, with others, with the world—indeed with all things.
The Fourth Watch: Receiving Divine Help When Your Prayers Seem Unanswered
S. Michael Wilcox - 2004
In this talk on CD, Michael Wilcox compares this with our won experiences in challenging times. When our trials go on indefinitely, we should not assume that God does not hear our prayers, or that He does not care, or that we are unworthy. Perhaps we have not yet reached the "fourth watch." This comforting message increases our faith and patience, offers profound hope and solace, and explains how the Lord often works with us.Talk on 1 compact disc. Approx. running time: 74 min. About the Author S. Michael Wilcox received his Ph.D. at the University of Colorado and is an institute instructor at the University of Utah. He has also taught institute classes in Alberta, Canada, and Arizona, and has guided tours to the Holy Land and LDS Church history sites. He received the Orton Literary Award in 1996 for his book House of Glory. In addition he has published several other books and talks, including Don't Leap With the Sheep and Who Shall be Able to Stand?: Finding Personal Meaning in the Book of Revelation. He and his wife, Laura, have five children and live in Draper, Utah.
Buddhism for Mothers of Schoolchildren: Finding Calm in the Chaos of the School Years
Sarah Napthali - 2009
With children at school, life is both easier and harder and there are very different challenges on the horizon—mothers are often thinking of going back to work, or juggling work–life balance issues. They are questioning what they want out of life, how they want to interact with the world, and creating new definitions for themselves. Children are more demanding too, asking questions, testing boundaries, and beginning to define themselves as separate from their parents. Sarah Napthali explores the distinct issues arising from this phase of motherhood and how Buddhism can play a role in providing answers and direction, in her usual warm, wise, inclusive, and accessible style.
Son of Man: The Mystical Path to Christ
Andrew Harvey - 1998
. . a powerful expression of faith in the transforming power of Christ's love.--Publishers Weekly (starred review)Son of Man is Andrew Harvey's most basic statement on Christ, and it has already become a treasured work to readers interested in Christian mysticism. For the first time in any of his books, Harvey provides spiritual exercises--centuries-old rites previously available only to a few--that allow the reader direct experience with the mystical Christ. Son of Man also includes an easily accessible section of classic readings and meditations on the nature of Christ, making it the comprehensive experience in the Christ of the new millennium.
Visualfestation
Peter Adams - 2011
Unlike other books on the law of attraction, the Author has successfully used the VisualFestation System to manifest miracles in his own life, and he shares them with you in VisualFestation. When you are finished with this book, you will have all the tools you need to create miracles in your life through practicing the VisualFestation System.
Kabbalah on Love
Yehuda Berg - 2005
Buried by layers of ego, fear, shame, doubt, low self-esteem, and other limitations, love can only be activated by sharing and serving unconditionally. Only then will the layers fall away and the essence of love reveal itself. Berg makes the distinction between love and need — which is a selfish product of ego — and reminds readers that only after connecting with the love within, and learning to love themselves, can they truly love someone else. This charming book, published just in time for Valentine’s Day, is also a thoughtful gift for any day of the year.
Journey to Mindfulness: The Autobiography of Bhante G.
Henepola Gunaratana - 1998
Ordained at twelve, he would eventually become the first Buddhist chaplain at an American university, the founder of a retreat center and monastery, and a bestselling author. Here, Bhante G. lays bare the often-surprising ups and downs of his seventy-five years, from his boyhood in Sri Lanka to his decades of sharing the insights of the Buddha, telling his story with the "plain-English" approach for which he is so renowned.
At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey
Claude Anshin Thomas - 2004
Thomas went to Vietnam at the age of eighteen, where he served as a crew chief on assault helicopters. By the end of his tour, he had been awarded numerous medals, including the Purple Heart. He had also killed many people, witnessed horrifying cruelty, and narrowly escaped death on a number of occasions. When Thomas returned home he found that he continued to live in a state of war. He was overwhelmed by feelings of guilt, fear, anger, and despair, all of which were intensified by the rejection he experienced as a Vietnam veteran. For years, Thomas struggled with post-traumatic stress, drug and alcohol addiction, isolation, and even homelessness. A turning point came when he attended a meditation retreat for Vietnam veterans led by the renowned Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Here he encountered the Buddhist teachings on meditation and mindfulness, which helped him to stop running from his past and instead confront the pain of his war experiences directly and compassionately. Thomas was eventually ordained as a Zen monk and teacher, and he began making pilgrimages to promote peace and nonviolence in war-scarred places around the world including Bosnia, Auschwitz, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and the Middle East. At Hell's Gate is Thomas's dramatic coming-of-age story and a spiritual travelogue from the horrors of combat to discovering a spiritual approach to healing violence and ending war from the inside out. In simple and direct language, Thomas shares timeless teachings on healing emotional suffering and offers us practical guidance in using mindfulness and compassion to transform our lives.
An Extraordinary Absence: Liberation in the Midst of a Very Ordinary Life
Jeff Foster - 2009
Using everyday language and drawing on both personal experience and age-old wisdom, Foster shares the possibility that all the seeking and longing of the mind can come to an absolute end with the falling away of the sense of being a separate individual, and a plunge into unconditional love. And in that plunge—which is totally beyond anything you have ever imagined—this so-called ordinary life reveals its great Secret. Written with stunning clarity and aliveness, this book is a love letter to the exhausted spiritual seeker who is simply longing to come Home.
Rogue Messiahs: Tales of Self-Proclaimed Saviors
Colin Wilson - 2000
Their appetites for destruction and depravity have led to broken lives and worse-mass suicide and even mass murder. Why does this occur again and again?In Rogue Messiahs, Colin Wilson compellingly recounts the stories and outrageous claims, acts, and abuses of 25 self-proclaimed messiahs who have arisen in the last 300 years. He uncovers the probable factors that turn earnest religious leaders, mystics, or well-intentioned cult leaders into violent, abusive, murderous, and paranoid rogue messiahs.This gallery of spiritual fakers includes many familiar names and faces: David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidians; Shoko Asahara, founder of the Aum Supreme Truth cult; Rev. Jim Jones; founder of the infamous Jonestown; Jeffrey Don Lundgren, Mormon con man and murderer; Ervil LeBaron and family, deranged cultist, prophets, and murderers; Rock Theriault, late twentieth-century French Canadian self-proclaimed messiah. Further, Wilson includes a study of others who achieved spiritual insight instead of destruction, and demonstrates that mayhem and benevolence are often two sides of the same coin.These would-be messiahs, in Wilson's analysis, are all driven by a childish dream of absolute power. Almost always, they cross the line from inspiration to paranoia, and from the teaching to killing-genuine aspiration mixed with self-deception, says Wilson. This is an incisive review of the motives and madness of cult leaders, spiritual con men, and would-be saviors.
A Heart Blown Open: The Life and Practice of Zen Master Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi
Keith Martin-Smith - 2012
Experience the successes and failures that led him to found an entirely new form of Buddhism called Mondo Zen. Starting from an abusive and alcoholic home in Wisconsin, Kelly becomes a major force in the counterculture of the 1960s and one of its biggest manufacturers of LSD. He ends up on the run for five years before serving time in a federal prison, and then goes on to spend six years in a Zen monastery. In his fiftieth year, he becomes a recognized Zen master in his own right, but the real journey is just about to begin. Extraordinary in their playfulness, depravity, and liberating insight, Jun Po’s life events swirl together to underscore and illuminate the environment from which one of the most controversial masters of the American Zen scene has emerged. A Heart Blown Open constitutes a powerful synthesis of Eastern contemplative wisdom and Western psychological insight and is as entertaining as it is inspirational.Winner of the 2013 Silver Award for Excellence from Nautilus Book Awards.
God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter
Stephen R. Prothero - 2010
For good and for evil, religion is the single greatest influence in the world. We accept as self-evident that competing economic systems (capitalist or communist) or clashing political parties (Republican or Democratic) propose very different solutions to our planet's problems. So why do we pretend that the world's religious traditions are different paths to the same God? We blur the sharp distinctions between religions at our own peril, argues religion scholar Stephen Prothero, and it is time to replace naÏve hopes of interreligious unity with deeper knowledge of religious differences. In Religious Literacy, Prothero demonstrated how little Americans know about their own religious traditions and why the world's religions should be taught in public schools. Now, in God Is Not One, Prothero provides readers with this much-needed content about each of the eight great religions. To claim that all religions are the same is to misunderstand that each attempts to solve a different human problem. For example: –Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission –Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation –Confucianism: the problem is chaos / the solution is social order –Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is awakening –Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is to return to God Prothero reveals each of these traditions on its own terms to create an indispensable guide for anyone who wants to better understand the big questions human beings have asked for millennia—and the disparate paths we are taking to answer them today. A bold polemical response to a generation of misguided scholarship, God Is Not One creates a new context for understanding religion in the twenty-first century and disproves the assumptions most of us make about the way the world's religions work.