This book is a rich suite of practices that open the heart, counter the distortions in our relationships to ourselves, and deepen our relationship to others.

    During a series of complicated operations, weeks in critical condition, and months in slow recovery, he was brought face to face with his own mortality. As he lay dying and, as it turned out, recovering, he found that despite his faith he had been quite unprepared for the experience. This book traces his efforts to understand his own reactions and those of his friends and family, and explores how we as a culture understand and deal with death. As I Lay Dying testifies that dying is-and is not-part of living. We can and should live our dying. Neuhaus interweaves his own story with thoughtful inquiry, circling through philosophy, psychology, literature, theology, and his own experiences to create provocative meditations that explore the many aspects of dying: the private and public experience, the separation of the soul from the body, grief, surrender, and mourning. The result is a book that shakes the foundations of our being-and yet is oddly and convincingly tranquil.

    Do the right thing, of course-- but better yet, find your inner light and doing the right thing becomes as natural as breathing. THE ZEN COMMANDMENTS offers ten powerful nudges toward that light.Drawing on sources from Zen stories and the Bible to jazz and rock 'n' roll, from American movies to Tibetan meditative techniques, Dean Sluyter steers clear of dogma and emphasizes what works-- a sort of spiritual street smarts. He shows that the state of boundless freedom and happiness isn't something distant or exotic, but is right here, while you're stuck in traffic or taking out the trash. And revisiting the Ten Commandments, he shows how on a deeper level they offer some surprising enlightenment wisdom of their own.“The book is extremely well written and joyously entertaining.”—Publishers Weekly “With sparkling clarity and wit, Sluyter's ten suggestions lay out the practical essentials of the path. My suggestion is: listen to this guy.”—Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within “Dean Sluyter clearly presents simple but profound ways to live one's life consciously and skillfully. He teaches that the source of universal truth not only rests in the heart of every one of us, but is the essence of what ultimately brings us true happiness and freedom. This is a wonderful book with rich wisdom and deep insight.”—Rabbi David Cooper, author of God Is a Verb “No matter what your religion (or lack of it), this book shows how to live the kind of life people ache for. It turns out to be pretty simple.”—Jane Cavolina, co-author of Growing Up Catholic

    I tried to cower to make my body curl smaller, instinctively covering my head. ‘Oh God, please don’t kill me.’ My words clung to my teeth and now my whole body was so cold. All I had left were these words. ‘Please. Please don’t kill me. Jesus. God. Please.’ I wanted to live and I knew it with absolute certainty. I don’t want to die." Emma Slade was a high-flying debt analyst for a large investment bank, when she was taken hostage in a hotel room on a business trip to Jakarta. She thought she was lucky to come out of it unscathed, but over the ensuing weeks and months, as the financial markets crashed, Emma became her own distressed asset as the trauma following the event took hold. Realising her view on life had profoundly changed she embarked upon a journey, discovering the healing power of yoga and, in Bhutan, opening her eyes to a kinder, more peaceful way of living. From fast-paced City life to the stillness of Bhutan’s Himalayan mountains, Set Free is the inspiring true story of Emma’s astonishing life lived to extremes and all that that entails: work, travel, spirituality, Buddhism, relationships, and the underlying question of what makes a meaningful life.

    “There are three kinds of secrets,” Mary Pipher says in Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World. “Those we keep from everyone, those we keep from certain people, and those we keep from ourselves. Writing this book forced me to deal with all three.” After decades of exploring the lives of others through her writing and therapy, Mary Pipher turns her attention to herself—culling insights from her own life to highlight the importance of the journey, not just the destination. Like most lives, Pipher’s is filled with glory and tragedy, chaos and clarity, love and abandonment. She spent her childhood in small Nebraska towns, the daughter of a doctor mother and a restless jack-of-all-trades father. Often both of her parents were away and Pipher and her siblings lived as what she calls “feral children.” Later, as an adult and a therapist, Pipher was able to do what she most enjoyed: learn about the world and help others. After the surprising success of Reviving Ophelia, she was overwhelmed by the attention and demands on her time. In 2002, after a personal crisis, Pipher realized that success and fame were harming her, and she began working to find a quieter, more meditative life that would carry her toward self-acceptance and joy. In Seeking Peace, Mary Pipher tells her own remarkable story, and in the process reveals truths about our search for happiness and love. While her story is unique, “the basic map and milestones of my story are universal,” she writes. “We strive to make sense of our selves and our environments.” In Seeking Peace, Pipher reflects on her life in a way that allows readers to reimagine theirs.

    He is a young boy, full of mischief. He is a teenager, full of curiosity and adventurous zeal. He is a seeker, with certain strengths and weaknesses. Just like us, he sometimes fails to distinguish the fake gurus from genuine masters, mistaking magic for spiritual achievement.Living with the Himalayan Masters is one of those rare books that contains the seeds of transformation within its pages--sowing those seeds in the heart of the reader, and creating the potential for true spiritual upliftment. These stories record Swami Rama's personal quest for truth and enlightenment--inspiring, illuminating, entertaining, mystifying, and often droll and humorous.This life-changing book will bring you face-to-face with some great twentieth-century masters, including Mataji of Assam, a ninety-six-year-old sage who never slept; Gudari Baba, who taught Swami Rama the value of direct experience; Yogi Sri Aurobindo, who integrated meditation with action; Uria Baba, who demonstrated that every human being has the potential for healing; and Mahatma Gandhi.Read the humbling story of the man who founded the Himalayan Institute, and the great teachers who molded him into a Himalayan Master.

    Jarvis Jay Masters’s early life was a horror story whose outline we know too well. Born in Long Beach, California, his house was filled with crack, alcohol, physical abuse, and men who paid his mother for sex. He and his siblings were split up and sent to foster care when he was five, and he progressed quickly to juvenile detention, car theft, armed robbery, and ultimately San Quentin. While in prison, he was set up for the murder of a guard—a conviction which landed him on death row, where he’s been since 1990. At the time of his murder trial, he was held in solitary confinement, torn by rage and anxiety, felled by headaches, seizures, and panic attacks. A criminal investigator repeatedly offered to teach him breathing exercises which he repeatedly refused. Until desperation moved him to ask her how to do “that meditation shit.” With uncanny clarity, David Sheff describes Masters’s gradual but profound transformation from a man dedicated to hurting others to one who has prevented violence on the prison yard, counseled high school kids by mail, and helped prisoners—and even guards—find meaning in their lives. Along the way, Masters becomes drawn to the principles that Buddhism espouses—compassion, sacrifice, and living in the moment—and he gains the admiration of Buddhists worldwide, including many of the faith’s most renowned practitioners. And while he is still in San Quentin and still on death row, he is a renowned Buddhist thinker who shows us how to ease our everyday suffering, relish the light that surrounds us, and endure the tragedies that befall us all.

    For more than three millennia, yoga sages systematically explored the essential questions of our human existence: What are the root causes of suffering, and how can we achieve freedom and happiness? What would it be like to function at the maximum potential of our minds, bodies, and spirits? What is an optimal human life?Nowhere have their discoveries been more brilliantly distilled than in a short–but famously difficult–treatise called the Yogasutra. This revered text lays out the entire path of inner development in remarkable detail–ranging from practices that build character and mental power to the highest reaches of spiritual realization. Now Stephen Cope unlocks the teachings of the Yogasutra by showing them at work in the lives of a group of friends and fellow yoga students who are confronting the full modern catastrophe of careers, relationships, and dysfunctional family dynamics. Interweaving their daily dilemmas with insights from modern psychology, neuroscience, religion, and philosophy, he shows the astonishing relevance and practicality of this timeless psychology of awakening.Leavened with wit and passion, The Wisdom of Yoga is a superb companion and guide for anyone seeking enhanced creativity, better relationships, and a more ethical and graceful way of living in the world.

    Discusses Gurdjieff's spiritual teachings, offers a brief profile of the philosopher, and assesses his influence on the modern world.

    "Now I am forty and realize that I could have found the Tao in Jesus." This is an intriguing book that reveals how Zen philosophy parallels the core message of the gospel. It is the spiritual side of Zen, the art to trust and accept life that coincides with the core of the Gospel message. For power, dogma and doctrine were not Jesus' passion, but the mystery of life and the possibility of love. Sometimes people have overlooked the joy, the humor and the depth of Jesus' teachings—often because they could not surmount the narrow confines of openness to the scripture's power to transform our lives.

    A successful finance lawyer began to ask, What does Jesus want me to do? The answer led him to became a chaplain to death row inmates.

    Twenty-seven years ago, his son, Matthieu Ricard, gave up a promising career as a scientist to study Tibetan Buddhism -- not as a detached observer but by immersing himself in its practice under the guidance of its greatest living masters.Meeting in an inn overlooking Katmandu, these two profoundly thoughtful men explored the questions that have occupied humankind throughout its history. Does life have meaning? What is consciousness? Is man free? What is the value of scientific and material progress? Why is there suffering, war, and hatred? Their conversation is not merely abstract: they ask each other questions about ethics, rights, and responsibilities, about knowledge and belief, and they discuss frankly the differences in the way each has tried to make sense of his life.Utterly absorbing, inspiring, and accessible, this remarkable dialogue engages East with West, ideas with life, and science with the humanities, providing wisdom on how to enrich the way we live our lives.

    These captivating stories, legends and yarns — passed orally from teacher to student — capture the vibrant wisdom of an ancient and still-living oral tradition. Magical, whimsical, witty and ribald, The Snow Lion's Turquoise Mane unfolds a luminous vision of a universe where basic goodness, harmony, and hope prevails.

    Shor tracks down the surviving members of this visionary expedition and entwines their remarkable stories of faith and adventure with his own quest to discover the reality of this land known as Beyul. What emerges is a breathtaking story alive with possibility, bringing the reader as close to the Hidden Land as a book possibly can. As the astounding account unfolds, the reader is sure to repeat the question constantly raised by the author in his interviews: And then what happened?A Step Away From Paradise tells the story of Lama Tulshuk Lingpa’s life and his unlikely expedition to a land beyond cares while reflecting on what this means for the rest of us. It draws on both research and extensive interviews with the surviving members of this extraordinary expedition. The book is richly illustrated with portraits of those who went with Tulshuk Lingpa and the places he traveled to. The book also delves into the tradition within Tibetan Buddhism of Shambhala and the hidden valleys, which mirror legends around the world of utopias and lands of milk and honey, thus showing that the quest for the hidden land is a universal urge of humanity.WRITER AND PHOTOGRAPHER Thomas K. Shor was born in Boston, USA, and studied comparative religion and literature in Vermont. With an ear for unusual stories, the fortune to attract them and an eye for detail, he has travelled the planet’s mountainous realms—from the Mayan Highlands of southern Mexico in the midst of insurrection to the mountains of Greece and, more recently to the Indian Himalayas—to collect, illustrate and write stories, with a uniquely personal character often having the flavor of fable.Shor has lectured widely on his writings and has had solo exhibits of his photographs in Europe and in India. He is the author of Windblown Clouds and can often be found in the most obscure locales, immersed in a compelling story touching upon fundamental human themes.The author’s website is www.ThomasShor.com

    A staunch atheist and rationalist, she is profoundly shaken by the implications of her life-long search. Part memoir, part philosophical and spiritual inquiry, Living with a Wild God brings an older woman's wry and erudite perspective to a young girl's uninhibited musings on the questions that, at one point or another, torment us all. Ehrenreich's most personal book ever will spark a lively and heated conversation about religion and spirituality, science and morality, and the "meaning of life." Certain to be a classic, Living with a Wild God combines intellectual rigor with a frank account of the inexplicable, in Ehrenreich's singular voice, to produce a true literary achievement.