In the tradition of unsolved historical mysteries like David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon and Douglas Preston's The Lost City of the Monkey God, Brian Muraresku’s 10-year investigation takes the reader through Greece, Germany, Spain, France and Italy, offering unprecedented access to the hidden archives of the Louvre and the Vatican along the way.In The Immortality Key, Muraresku explores a little-known connection between the best-kept secret in Ancient Greece and Christianity. This is the real story of the most famous human being who ever lived (Jesus) and the biggest religion the world has ever known. Today, 2.4 billion people are Christian. That's one third of the planet. But do any of them really know how it all started?Before Jerusalem, before Rome, before Mecca—there was Eleusis: the spiritual capital of the ancient world. It promised immortality to Plato and the rest of Athens's greatest minds with a very simple formula: drink this potion, see God. Shrouded in secrecy for millennia, the Ancient Greek sacrament was buried when the newly Christianized Roman Empire obliterated Eleusis in the fourth century AD.Renegade scholars in the 1970s claimed the Greek potion was psychedelic, just like the original Christian Eucharist that replaced it. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The rapidly growing field of archaeological chemistry has proven the ancient use of visionary drugs. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psycho-pharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. No one has ever found hard, scientific evidence of drugs connected to Eleusis, let alone early Christianity. Until now.Armed with key documents never before translated into English, convincing analysis, and a captivating spirit of quest, Muraresku mines science, classical literature, biblical scholarship and art to deliver the hidden key to eternal life, bringing us to what clinical psychologist William Richards calls "the edge of an awesomely vast frontier."Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the New York Times bestselling author of America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization.

    Macy's autobiography reads like a novel as she relates her multi-faceted life experiences and reflects on how her marriage and family life enriched her service to the world.Macy's formative years with an abusive father and oppressed mother set her on an irrevocable path of self-definition and independence. A short-lived stint with the CIA exposed Macy first hand to the Cold War's darkest threats: the construction of the hydrogen bomb and the building of the Berlin Wall. With three children in tow, Macy and her husband traveled with the Peace Corps to Africa, India, and Tibet, where her encounter with the Dalai Lama and Buddhism led to Macy's life-long embrace of the religion and a deep commitment to the peace and environmental movements.In Widening Circles, the unique synthesis of spiritualism and activism that define Macy's contribution to the world are illuminated by the life-events and experiences that have paved her uncommon path.

    In fact, emptiness points to something quite different than “nothingness” or “vacancy.” And by developing a richer understanding of this complex topic, we can experience freedom as we live consciously in the world. Guy Armstrong has been a leading figure and beloved teacher of insight meditation for decades. In this book, he makes difficult Buddhist topics easy to understand, weaving together Theravada and Mahayana teachings on emptiness to show how we can liberate our minds and manifest compassion in our lives.

    Street Zen follows Dorsey from his days as a female impersonator to the LSD experiences that set him on the spiritual path. In 1989, after 20 years of Zen practice, he became abbot of San Francisco's Hartford Street Zen Center, where he founded a hospice for AIDS patients. Street Zen draws on interviews David Schneider conducted with Dorsey before his death in 1990 and parallels their nearly 20-year friendship.

    Each of the eighty-one teachings presented by Taoist scholar and poet Brian Walker are rich with wisdom, mystery, and startling enlightenment.

    Neither the boy nor his family has been seen since. His devotees believe him to be the eleventh incarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second most important incarnation in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy.In The Search for the Pachen Lama, Isabel Hilton tells the enthralling inside story of how this boy became the innocent prize in a battle between the Chinese regime and the Dalai Lama. Starting with the death of the last Panchen Lama, she describes the intrigue surrounding the race to choose Tibet's future religious leader, a decision of enormous importance in the politically charged climate of Tibet. Traveling from the Dalai Lama's headquarters in India to all-but-inaccessible monasteries and villages in the Himalayas, Hilton probes beneath the surface of a society living grudgingly under Chinese rule. Throughout, she balances her taut narrative against the fascinating history of Tibet's high lamas, illuminating the unique role religion has played in shaping Tibetan culture and Tibet's uneasy relationship with China.Combining history, travel, and politics, The Search for the Panchen Lama offers an extraordinarily gripping and original window on to a fascinating land.

    The newcomer seeking to understand the sometimes contradictory spiritual texts can find it daunting. A Buddhist and professor at Oxford University now unravels these varied religious threads and creates a wonderfully clear and compact look at Buddhist history. From the ancient Indian context to Buddhism in countries beyond, from the Mahayana sutras to Tantra, it presents an account of the religion's development up through the 19 the century, its doctrines and its schools. But the study also covers the context in which Buddhism developed, the external events that had an impact on the religion. Using the most recent scholarship available, it reflects on the Buddha and his teachings, the paths to awakening, the development in the Sangha, the Tripitaka and the Abhidharma, the end of Buddhism in India, and the practice of Buddhism all throughout Asia. A truly enlightening guide.

    Through its structure and symbolism, as well as through its concisely stated principles, it conveys a vast range of Buddhist teachings. This one-volume edition contains Thomas Cleary's definitive translation of all thirty-nine books of the sutra, along with an introduction, a glossary, and Cleary's translation of Li Tongxuan's seventh-century guide to the final book, the Gandavyuha, "Entry into the Realm of Reality."

    The Feeling Buddha is a lucid account of how the Buddha's path of wisdom and loving kindness grew out of the challenges he encountered in life. Brazier explains the concepts of enlightenment, nirvana and the four Noble Truths, free from mystification. Buddha emerges as a very human figure whose success lay not in his perfection, but in how he positively utilized the energy which was generated through his suffering. This rare guide illustrates how Buddha's philosophy of the "middle way" can lead to a balanced, harmonious, and serene existence in the 21st century.

    Designed to provide just such a framework, In the Buddha's Words is an anthology of the Buddha's works that has been specifically compiled by a celebrated scholar and translator. For easy reference, the book is arrayed in ten thematic sections ranging from "The Human Condition" to "Mastering the Mind" to "The Planes of Realization." Each section comes with introductions, notes, and essays to help beginners and experts alike draw greater meaning from the Buddha's words. The book also features a general introduction by the author that fully lays out how and why he has arranged the Buddha's teachings in this volume. This thoughtful compilation is a valuable resource for both teachers and those who want to read the Buddha on their own.

    In Heart of the Revolution, he offers a set of reflections, tools, and teachings to help readers unlock their own sense of empathy and compassion. Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within, declares Levins to be "in the fore among Young Buddhas of America, a rebel with both a good cause and the noble heart and spiritual awareness to prove it,” saying, “I highly recommend this book to those who want to join us on this joyful path of mindfulness and awakening."

    This literature, Asian as well as Western, weaves together the strands of different traditions to create a novel hybrid that brings Buddhism into alignment with many of the ideologies and sensibilities of the post-Enlightenment West.In this book, David McMahan charts the development of this "Buddhist modernism." McMahan examines and analyzes a wide range of popular and scholarly writings produced by Buddhists around the globe. He focuses on ideological and imaginative encounters between Buddhism and modernity, for example in the realms of science, mythology, literature, art, psychology, and religious pluralism. He shows how certain themes cut across cultural and geographical contexts, and how this form of Buddhism has been created by multiple agents in a variety of times and places. His position is critical but empathetic: while he presents Buddhist modernism as a construction of numerous parties with varying interests, he does not reduce it to a mistake, a misrepresentation, or fabrication. Rather, he presents it as a complex historical process constituted by a variety of responses -- sometimes trivial, often profound -- to some of the most important concerns of the modern era.

    In Buddhism, many seekers find their true path to peace and happiness, regardless of hardship. This lavishly illustrated gift book includes: The story of Prince Siddhartha and Buddhism's spread throughout Asia; Basic beliefs of Buddhism, emphasizing the Tibetan, Zen, and Theravadan traditions; Inspiring quotes from teachers such as the Dalai Lama; Practical instruction on how to meditate and what to expect when visiting a Buddhist center. Readers new to Buddhism as well as experienced practitioners will appreciate this accessible guidebook for living in harmony with ourselves, our communities, and our world.

    Through explorations of the three pillars of Zen--teaching, practice, and enlightenment--Roshi Philip Kapleau presents a comprehensive overview of the history and discipline of Zen Buddhism.  An established classic, this 35th anniversary edition features new illustrations and photographs, as well as a new afterword by Sensei Bodhin Kjolhede, who has succeeded Philip Kapleau as spiritual director of the Rochester Zen Center, one of the oldest and most influential Zen centers in the United States.

    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.