Jan Chozen Bays, MD—physician and Zen teacher—has developed a series of simple practices to help us cultivate mindfulness as we go about our ordinary, daily lives. Exercises include: taking three deep breaths before answering the phone, noticing and adjusting your posture throughout the day, eating mindfully, and leaving no trace of yourself after using the kitchen or bathroom. Each exercise is presented with tips on how to remind yourself and a short life lesson connected with it.

    His body twitched, and then lay still.The Lama nodded again to the acolyte, who touched flame to the third stick of incense. "Spirit now released from the suffering body," said the Lama, "pay attention before setting out on your journey; pay attention for I shall detail to you the steps you must take, and the path you must follow..."The fourth stick of incense was lit, and the smoke trailed upwards, as if it had been drawn in blue-gray chalk, straight as a pillar in the almost airless room...

    . . In clear, practical and easy to follow lessons - one a day for 100 days - renowned Buddhist monk Shunmyo Masuno draws on centuries of wisdom to show you how to apply the essence of Zen to modern life.You will learn how to exhale deeply to eliminate negative emotions, to arrange your house simply to clear your thinking, to line up your shoes at night to bring order to your mind, to plant a single flower and watch it grow, to worry less about what you cannot control, and so much more . . .You will even make time to think about nothing at all.Simplify your life with the art of Zen, and learn how to feel more relaxed, fulfilled, and with a renewed sense of peace.

    True religion is the highest Way, the absolute Way: zazen."Here, Deshimaru, the author of True Zen, offers practical suggestions for developing unitary mind-body consciousness through the principles of zazen (translated literally as "seated meditation"). Advice is given on posture, breathing, and concentration, and concepts such as karma and satori are clearly explained.

    Looking at ourselves and at the natural world around us, we realise that everything is in constant change and flux - like waves on the ocean, they are all part of one thing that is made up of everything. Even after the wave has crashed upon the shore, the ocean is still there, the wave is still there - it has merely changed its form. The aim of this text is to show how Zen teachings and Druidry can combine to create a peaceful life path that is completely and utterly dedicated to the here and now, to the earth and her rhythms, and to the flow that is life itself.

    Anne Gehman gave her first spirit readings to her teddy bears at age five. Raised in the Mennonite tradition, she left home at age 14 to finish her schooling. A life-changing near-death experience led Anne to develop her natural gifts, including an uncanny ability to predict future events. She has gained international attention for her help in solving crimes, locating oil and missing persons, healing illnesses, and connecting family members with their loved ones in spirit. She has worked with top government agencies and officials, police departments, judges, and corporate CEOs. While remarkable for her spiritual gifts and experiences, Anne’s life is all the more fascinating due to an unusual twist: she is married to Wayne Knoll, Ph.D., a former Jesuit priest. A brilliant student devoted to his faith, Wayne also left home at 14 to join a Roman Catholic seminary. Even while pursuing his life’s dream as a professor of literature at Georgetown University, Wayne felt an emptiness that only a woman could fill. After more than a decade of religious training, he made the wrenching decision to leave the priesthood, not knowing if he would find the love he sought. The Priest and the Medium shares the remarkable story of two soul mates on parallel paths with divergent beliefs, yet united in their love for God and each other.

    My Bright Abyss, composed in the difficult years since and completed in the wake of a bone marrow transplant, is a moving meditation on what a viable contemporary faith—responsive not only to modern thought and science but also to religious tradition—might look like.Joyful, sorrowful, and beautifully written, My Bright Abyss is destined to become a spiritual classic, useful not only to believers but to anyone whose experience of life and art seems at times to overbrim its boundaries. How do we answer this “burn of being”? Wiman asks. What might it mean for our lives—and for our deaths—if we acknowledge the “insistent, persistent ghost” that some of us call God?

    Like a Wu Li Master who would teach us wonder for the falling petal before speaking of gravity, Zukav writes in beautifully clear language—with no mathematical equations—opening our minds to the exciting new theories that are beginning to embrace the ultimate nature of our universe...Quantum mechanics, relativity, and beyond to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect and Bell's theorem.At an Esalen Institute meeting in 1976, tai chi master Al Huang said that the Chinese word for physics is Wu Li, "patterns of organic energy." Journalist Gary Zukav and the others present developed the idea of physics as the dance of the Wu Li Masters--the teachers of physical essence. Zukav explains the concept further: The Wu Li Master dances with his student. The Wu Li Master does not teach, but the student learns. The Wu Li Master always begins at the center, the heart of the matter.... This book deals not with knowledge, which is always past tense anyway, but with imagination, which is physics come alive, which is Wu Li.... Most people believe that physicists are explaining the world. Some physicists even believe that, but the Wu Li Masters know that they are only dancing with it. The "new physics" of Zukav's 1979 book comprises quantum theory, particle physics, and relativity. Even as these theories age they haven't percolated all that far into the collective consciousness; they're too far removed from mundane human experience not to need introduction. The Dancing Wu Li Masters remains an engaging, accessible way to meet the most profound and mind-altering insights of 20th-century science. --Mary Ellen Curtin

    A feast filled with timeless moral and spiritual lessons, these lively tales and

    Be an Island is at once an introduction to the teachings of Buddhism and a rich continuation of Ayya Khema's personal vision of Buddhist practice.

    Zen master Bernie Glassman compares Jeff Bridges’s iconic role in The Big Lebowski to a Lamed-Vavnik: one of the men in Jewish mysticism who “are simple and unassuming, and so good that, on account of them, God lets the world go on.” His buddy Jeff puts it another way. The wonderful thing about the Dude, he says, is that he’d always rather hug it out than slug it out. For more than a decade, Academy Award–winning actor Jeff Bridges and his buddhist teacher, renowned Roshi Bernie Glassman, have been close friends. Inspiring and often hilarious, The Dude and the Zen Master captures their freewheeling dialogue about life, laughter, and the movies with a charm and bonhomie that never fail to enlighten and entertain. Throughout, their remarkable humanism reminds us of the importance of doing good in a difficult world.

    Throughout the book, Harris argues that there are important truths to be found in the experiences of such contemplatives—and, therefore, that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow.Waking Up is part seeker’s memoir and part exploration of the scientific underpinnings of spirituality. No other book marries contemplative wisdom and modern science in this way, and no author other than Sam Harris—a scientist, philosopher, and famous skeptic—could write it.

    One day that possibility became a reality, and it was simple and ordinary, magnificent and revolutionary. It is the open secret that reveals itself in every part of our lives. But realisation does not emerge through our attempts to change our lives, it comes as a direct rediscovery of who it is that lives. "The Open Secret" is a singular and radical work which speaks of the fundamental liberation that is absolutely beyond effort, path, process or belief.

    Over the years it has inspired leading American Zen teachers, students, and practitioners. Its popularity is as high today as ever.Zen Flesh, Zen Bones is a book that offers a collection of accessible, primary Zen sources so that readers can struggle over the meaning of Zen for themselves. It includes 101 Zen Stories, a collection of tales that recount actual experiences of Chinese and Japanese Zen teachers over a period of more than five centuries; The Gateless Gate, the famous thirteenth-century collection of Zen koans; Ten Bulls, a twelfth century commentary on the stages of awareness leading to enlightenment; and Centering, a 4,000 year-old teaching from India that some consider to be the roots of Zen.

    Are you searching for serenity but can’t seem to find it amongst the sticky tubes of lip gloss floating around in your purse, the piles of paperwork stacked on your desk, or the endless numbers programmed into your cell? Have the words "calm" and "stress-free" disappeared from your vocabulary? If so: Take some advice from the Bold and the Buddha-ful Try a mini-meditation Learn how to create your own Space to Chill Improve your love life by using The Eightfold Path to Finding a Good Guy Spice up your sex life by trying some Tantric TricksBuilding on the most basic principles of Buddhism, Girl Seeks Bliss is the perfect book for any young woman looking to unclutter her mind, her heart…and her closet, and be better prepared to face the obstacles life throws her way every day.