Using step by step instructions, the author illustrates how to be fully present in the moment without clinging to joy or resisting sorrow. This opens the door to a kind of wellness that goes beyond circumstances. Actively engaging life as it is in this fashion holds the potential for awakening to a peace and well-being that are not dependent on whether a particular experience is joyful or sorrowful. This is a practical book, containing dozens of exercises and practices, all of which are illustrated with easy-to-relate to personal stories from the author’s experience.

    There’s just one problem: You can’t get comfortable (let alone still), and your head is full of way too many thoughts.The problem is not with meditation, or you, though—the issue may be with your approach.When properly understood and practiced, meditation should feel easy, calming, and comfortable. In Bliss More, maverick instructor Light Watkins provides the tools for making it E.A.S.Y. (Embrace, Accept, Surrender, Yield), dispels the biggest myths and misunderstandings, and shares real-world tips and straight talk for hacking into this ancient practice. The result: a happier and healthier you, inside and out. Watkins also shares candid testimonials from people whose lives have been enriched through his method, and extensive resources for transforming a daily chore into an enjoyable activity. Even the biggest skeptic will look forward to sitting for meditation every day.Whether you’re a novice or experienced practitioner, Bliss More will shed light on the path to a clearer mind, better sleep, and more bliss in everyday life.

    All that’s required is that we learn to let go of our expectation that life should go according the agenda we have in mind. Zen teacher Ezra Bayda provides the teachings and practices we need to learn to let go into true happiness—the kind that goes far deeper than the kind that’s about getting what we think we want. Most of our unhappiness, he explains, is the result of seeking satisfaction in things external to us: new jobs, better relationships, luxury vacations. By liberating ourselves from expectations about these outward things and looking inward instead, we can find a deeper and unshakable kind of satisfaction that not only makes things a lot more pleasant for us, but that generates in us generosity and compassion toward others.  Beyond Happiness includes simple meditation and mindfulness practices you can use to access true happiness, including basic sitting meditation, gratitude practice, loving-kindness practice, and the Three Questions practice, in which we ask ourselves: Am I happy now? What blocks happiness? and Can I surrender to what is?

    In "Zen and the Art of Happiness", you will learn how to think and feel so that what you think and feel creates happiness and vibrancy in your life rather than gloominess or depression.

    This revolutionary book brings together many teaching stories that were hidden for centuries, unknown until this volume. These stories are extraordinary expressions of freedom and fearlessness, relevant for men and women of any time or place. In these pages we meet nuns, laywomen practicing with their families, famous teachers honored by emperors, and old women selling tea on the side of the road.Each story is accompanied by a reflection by a contemporary woman teacher—personal responses that help bring the old stories alive for readers today—and concluded by a final meditation for the reader, a question from the editors meant to spark further rumination and inquiry. These are the voices of the women ancestors of every contemporary Buddhist.

    It's known as the Diamond Sutra because its teachings are said to be like diamonds that cut away all dualistic thought, releasing one from the attachment to objects & bringing one to the further shore of enlightenment. The format of this important sutra is presented as a conversation between the Buddha & one of his disciples. The Sutra of Hui-neng, also known as the Platform Sutra, contains the autobiography of a pivotal figure in Zen history & some of the most profound passages of Zen literature. Hui-neng was the 6th patriarch of Zen in China, but is often regarded as the true father of the Zen tradition. He was a poor, illiterate woodcutter who is said to have attained enlightenment upon hearing a recitation of the Diamond Sutra. Together, these two scriptures present the central teaching of the Zen Buddhist tradition & are essential reading for all students of Buddhism.

    But the very existence of consciousness raises profound questions: Why would any collection of matter in the universe be conscious? How are we able to think about this? And why should we?In this wonderfully accessible book, Annaka Harris guides us through the evolving definitions, philosophies, and scientific findings that probe our limited understanding of consciousness. Where does it reside, and what gives rise to it? Could it be an illusion, or a universal property of all matter? As we try to understand consciousness, we must grapple with how to define it and, in the age of artificial intelligence, who or what might possess it. Conscious offers lively and challenging arguments that alter our ideas about consciousness—allowing us to think freely about it for ourselves, if indeed we can.

    

    You’ll discover what you can do to put an end to the habitual thoughts and emotions that limit your consciousness. By tapping into traditions of meditation and mindfulness, author and spiritual teacher Michael A. Singer shows how the development of consciousness can enable us all to dwell in the present moment and let go of painful thoughts and memories that keep us from achieving happiness and self-realization.Copublished with the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) The Untethered Soul begins by walking you through your relationship with your thoughts and emotions, helping you uncover the source and fluctuations of your inner energy. It then delves into what you can do to free yourself from the habitual thoughts, emotions, and energy patterns that limit your consciousness. Finally, with perfect clarity, this book opens the door to a life lived in the freedom of your innermost being.

    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.

    If we want to liberate ourselves from the fight once and for all, we must reverse our approach and nurture our demons.In Feeding Your Demons, Allione adapts the revolutionary wisdom of Tibet’s greatest female spiritual master for the first time, providing a powerful method for coping with the inner enemies that undermine your best intentions. Based on an extraordinarily simple yet effective five-step practice, Feeding Your Demons outlines a strategy for transforming negative emotions, relationships, fears, illness, and self-defeating patterns. By recognizing your demons, giving them form, and then feeding them, you can free yourself from the battle. And the paradigm shift from fighting to feeding demons can apply not only to your personal challenges but also to the challenges of the world at large. Enriched with detailed examples to show how others have transformed their demons, Feeding Your Demons will give you remarkable new insight into the forces that threaten to defeat you, along with the tools to achieve inner peace.

    Reflecting on his own journey from Esquire magazine editor-in-chief to Buddhist meditation teacher, Moffitt provides a fresh perspective on the Buddha's ancient wisdom, showing how to move from suffering to new awareness and unanticipated joy. In this deeply spiritual book that is sure to become a Buddhist classic, Moffitt explores the twelve insights that underlie the Buddha's core teaching--the Four Noble Truths--and uses these often neglected ideas to guide readers to a more meaningful relationship to suffering. Moffitt write: "These twelve insights teach you to dance with both the joy and pain, finding peace in a balanced mind and calm spirit. As the most specific, practical life instructions I have ever encountered, they serve as an invaluable tool for anyone who seeks a life filled with meaning and well-being." Practicing these twelve insights, as Moffitt suggests, will help readers experience life's difficulties without being filled with stress and anguish, and they will enhance their moments of happiness. With engaging writing and a strong message of self-empowerment, Dancing with Life offers a prescriptive path for finding joy and peace that will appeal to meditation students and readers of "Dharma Wisdom," Moffitt's column in Yoga Journal, as well as anyone searching for a more authentic life.

    The Perennial Philosophy includes selections from Meister Eckhart, Rumi, and Lao Tzu, as well as the Bhagavad Gita, Tibetan Book of the Dead, Diamond Sutra, and Upanishads, among many others.

    There’s never been a greater need to slow down, tune out and give ourselves permission to be still. In The Art of Stillness—a TED Books release—Iyer investigate the lives of people who have made a life seeking stillness: from Matthieu Ricard, a Frenchman with a PhD in molecular biology who left a promising scientific career to become a Tibetan monk, to revered singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, who traded the pleasures of the senses for several years of living the near-silent life of meditation as a Zen monk. Iyer also draws on his own experiences as a travel writer to explore why advances in technology are making us more likely to retreat. He reflects that this is perhaps the reason why many people—even those with no religious commitment—seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or seeking silent retreats. These aren't New Age fads so much as ways to rediscover the wisdom of an earlier age. Growing trends like observing an “Internet Sabbath”—turning off online connections from Friday night to Monday morning—highlight how increasingly desperate many of us are to unplug and bring stillness into our lives. The Art of Stillness paints a picture of why so many—from Marcel Proust to Mahatma Gandhi to Emily Dickinson—have found richness in stillness. Ultimately, Iyer shows that, in this age of constant movement and connectedness, perhaps staying in one place is a more exciting prospect, and a greater necessity than ever before. In 2013, Pico Iyer gave a blockbuster TED Talk. This lyrical and inspiring book expands on a new idea, offering a way forward for all those feeling affected by the frenetic pace of our modern world.

    Their ethos is known as bushido, the Way of the Warrior-Knight. Here, premier translator Thomas Cleary presents a rich collection of writings on bushido by warriors, scholars, political advisors, and educators from the fifteenth century through the nineteenth century that provide a comprehensive, historically rich view of samurai life and philosophy. Training the Samurai Mind gives an insider's view of the samurai world: the moral and psychological development of the warrior, the ethical standards they were meant to uphold, their training in both martial arts and strategy, and the enormous role that the traditions of Shintoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism had in influencing samurai ideals. The writings deal with a broad range of subjects—from military strategy and political science, to personal discipline and character development. Cleary introduces each piece, putting it into historical context, and presents biographical information about the authors. This is an essential read for anyone interested in military history and samurai history, and for martial artists who want to understand strategy.