We are taught that the ideal is a strong, individuated self, constructed and reinforced over a lifetime. But Buddhist psychiatrist Mark Epstein has found a different way. Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart shows us that happiness doesn't come from any kind of acquisitiveness, be it material or psychological. Happiness comes from letting go. Weaving together the accumulated wisdom of his two worlds--Buddhism and Western psychotherapy--Epstein shows how "the happiness that we seek depends on our ability to balance the ego's need to do with our inherent capacity to be." He encourages us to relax the ever-vigilant mind in order to experience the freedom that comes only from relinquishing control. Drawing on events in his own life and stories from his patients, Going to Pieces  Without Falling Apart teaches us that only by letting go can we start on the path to a more peaceful and spiritually satisfying life.About The Author: Mark Epstein, M.D., is a psychiatrist in private practice and the author of Thoughts Without a Thinker . He is a contributing editor to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and clinical assistant professor of psychology at New York University. He lives in New York City.

    And then, this fleeting moment was gone. What if you could recapture that remarkable opening, and make it a consistent way of living in the world?Course objectives:Practice using your inner body as an anchor to the "Now"—realizing the gift of full attention, and cultivating moments of pure awareness through the simple act of noticing.• Discuss the authentic grace, original innocence, the liberation of laughter, and nature as a bridge to the divine—available to us all.• Define "awakening", discover how to dissolve your pain-body with the light of consciousness and why creativity and healing can come only from presence.• Explain why "the teacher" is always within you and how to enter the "Now" through the portal called "allow."• Describe how to find peace that underlies loss.• Summarize how to catch your reactive thoughts before they catch you, and how to expand the space between your thoughts for a deeper experience of the "Now."Throughout Europe and North America, a man named Eckhart Tolle has emerged as a teacher with the unique ability to draw us into the awakened state he calls presence. With Realizing the Power of Now: An In-Depth Retreat with Eckhart Tolle, you have an unparalleled opportunity to immerse yourself in the timeless dimension—a place within us that always is and ever will be beyond the turmoil of life, a world of calm beyond words, of joy that has no opposite.Return to Presence Again and AgainA walk in nature. A personal crisis. A moment of laughter. These can all serve as portals that take us to the depth and wonder of the Now. But how do we access these portals so that we dwell in presence more and more often? With Tolle's guidance, you will discover many simple ways to leave behind the chaos and suffering of the mind-made world, and enter this state of serenity and grace.On Realizing the Power of Now, Eckhart will show you how to go beyond the endless stream of thoughts, and simply allow whatever is happening to occur; how to use sense perceptions and your inner body to find a peace that exists independent of conditions; and how to see past the "little me" and my story, and find your home in the living Now.An Extended Retreat with Eckhart TolleSince the spiritual transformation that changed his life more than 20 years ago, Eckhart Tolle has replaced the park bench where he gave his first lessons with a chair and microphone, and now helps countless men and women from all walks of life to perceive what it really means to be alive.Recorded at a momentous five-day retreat led by Eckhart Tolle, here is a special invitation to transcend the finite world of fluctuating thoughts, ambitions, and fears, and touch your true essence: that which has no form, no time, and no name. Spoken simply, with his hallmark warmth, humor, and compassion, here is Eckhart's full presentation of a beautiful way to live that arises through Realizing the Power of Now.Realizing the Power of Now highlights:Using your inner body as an anchor to the Now• The gift of full attention• Cultivating moments of pure awareness• The power in the simple act of noticing• Authentic grace and the original innocence we all possess• The liberation of laughter• How to expand the space between your thoughts for a deeper experience of the Now• Nature as a bridge to the divine• Why the teacher is always within you• Reactive thoughts how to catch them before they catch you• Definition of awakening• Entering the Now through the portal called "allow"• Why creativity and healing can come only from presence• Dissolving your pain-body with the light of consciousness• How to find the peace that underlies loss• Separating your life situation from your life• More than seven hours of personal guidance with the author of The Power of Now

    A wonderfully engaging guide, full of humor, memorable insights, and love.

    But how does it work? And why? The principles behind this ancient practice have long eluded some of the best minds in modern science. Until now.In this groundbreaking work, world-renowned Buddhist teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche invites us to join him in unlocking the secrets behind the practice of meditation. Working with neuroscientists at the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, Yongey Mingyur provides clear insights into modern research indicating that systematic training in meditation can enhance activity in areas of the brain associated with happiness and compassion. He has also worked with physicists across the country to develop a fresh, scientifically based interpretation of the Buddhist understanding of the nature of reality.With an infectious joy and insatiable curiosity, Yongey Mingyur weaves together the principles of Tibetan Buddhism, neuroscience, and quantum physics in a way that will forever change the way we understand the human experience. Using the basic meditation practices he provides, we can discover paths through everyday problems, transforming obstacles into opportunities to recognize the unlimited potential of our own minds.With a foreword by bestselling author Daniel Goleman, The Joy of Living is a stunning breakthrough, an illuminating vision of the science of Buddhism and a handbook for transforming our minds, bodies, and lives.From the Hardcover edition.

    He joins the healing of the land to the process of purifying the human spirit and proposes a way of life and a way of farming in which such healing can take place.

    In its power to touch the heart, to awaken consciousness, [The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying] is an inestimable gift.”—San Francisco Chronicle A newly revised and updated edition of the internationally bestselling spiritual classic, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, written by Sogyal Rinpoche, is the ultimate introduction to Tibetan Buddhist wisdom. An enlightening, inspiring, and comforting manual for life and death that the New York Times calls, “The Tibetan equivalent of [Dante’s] The Divine Comedy,” this is the essential work that moved Huston Smith, author of The World’s Religions, to proclaim, “I have encountered no book on the interplay of life and death that is more comprehensive, practical, and wise.”

    Using high-speed photography, Dr. Masaru Emoto discovered that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward them. He found that water from clear springs and water that has been exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns. In contrast, polluted water, or water exposed to negative thoughts, forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors. The implications of this research create a new awareness of how we can positively impact the earth and our personal health.

    It speaks both to those coming to meditation for the first time and to longtime practitioners, anyone who cares deeply about reclaiming the richness of his or her moments.

    These essays, first published in 1990, stand as the mature centerpiece of Snyder’s work and thought, and this profound collection is widely accepted as one of the central texts on wilderness and the interaction of nature and culture. As the Library Journal affirmed, “This is an important book for anyone interested in the ethical interrelationships of things, places, and people, and it is a book that is not just read but taken in.”

    Noted spiritual and environmental thinkers Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown contend that this crippling response to world crisis is a psychological defense mechanism that has been endemic since the years of the Cold War arms race, when we had to adapt within a single generation to the horrific possibility of nuclear holocaust.Since its publication in 1983, Joanna Macy's book, Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age has sold nearly 30,000 copies and has been the primary resource for groups of men and women confronting the challenging realities of our time without succumbing to paralysis or panic. Coming Back to Life provides a much needed update and expansion of this pioneering work. At the interface between spiritual breakthrough and social action, Coming Back to Life is eloquent and compelling as well as being an inspiring and practical guide. The first third of the book discusses with extraordinary insight the angst of our era, and the pain, fear, guilt and inaction it has engendered; it then points forward to the way out of apathy, tio "the work that reconnects". The rest of the book offers both personal counsel and easy-to-use methods for working with groups in a number of ways to profoundly affect peoples' outlook and ability to act in the world.Table of ContentsForeword by Mathew Fox1. To Choose Life2. The Greatest Danger: Apatheia, The Deadening of Mind & Heart3. The Basic Miracle: Our True Nature & Power4. The Work that Reconnects5. Guiding Group Work6. Affirmation: Coming from Gratitude7. Despair Work: Owning & Honoring Our Pain for the World8. The Shift: Seeing with New Eyes9. Deep Time: Drawing on Past & Future Generations10. The Council of All Beings: Rejoining the Natural World11. Going Forth12. Meditations for Coming Back to LifeJoanna Macy has developed an international following over the course of 40 years as a speaker and workshop leader on Buddhist philosophy and the deep ecology movement

    Now Abram returns with a startling exploration of our human entanglement with the rest of nature.As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land. For too long we’ve inured ourselves to the wild intelligence of our muscled flesh, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. This book subverts that distance, drawing readers ever deeper into their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the body and the breathing Earth.The shapeshifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in Abram’s investigation. He shows that from the awakened perspective of the human animal, awareness (or mind) is not an exclusive possession of our species but a lucid quality of the biosphere itself—a quality in which we, along with the oaks and the spiders, steadily participate.With the audacity of its vision and the luminosity of its prose, Becoming Animal sets a new benchmark for the human appraisal of our place in the whole.

    'Nothing Special' offers the rare and delightful experience of learning in the authentic Buddhist tradition with a wonderfully contemporary Western master.

    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.

    He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined?

    Mixing Christian spirituality, Buddhist parables, Hindu breathing exercises, and psychological insight, de Mello's words of hope come together in Awareness in a grand synthesis.In short chapters for reading in quiet moments at home or at the office, he cajoles and challenges: We must leave this go-go-go world of illusion and become aware. And this only happens, he insists, by becoming alive to the needs and potential of others, whether at home or in the workplace.Here, then, is a masterful book of the spirit, challenging us to wake up in every aspect of our lives.