Taking a radical departure from traditional views of God, Western or Eastern, author Kevin Griffin neither accepts Christian beliefs in a Supreme Being nor Buddhist non-theism, but rather forges a refreshing, sensible, and accessible Middle Way. Griffin shows how the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha, can be understood as a Higher Power. Karma, mindfulness, impermanence, and the Eightfold Path itself are revealed as powerful forces that can be accessed through meditation and inquiry.Drawing from his own experiences with substance abuse, rehabilitation, and recovery, Griffin looks at the various ways that meditation and spiritual practices helped deepen his experience of sobriety. His personal story of addiction is not only raw, honest and engrossing, but guides readers to an inquiry of their own spirituality. In doing so, he poses profound questions, including:·         How can I understand God from a Buddhist perspective?·         How can I “turn my will and my life over” as a Buddhist?·         How can this idea of God “remove my shortcomings”?·         How do I learn this God’s “will”?

    Atoms, ice crystals, grains of pollen, snowflakes, butterfly wings, cloud formations, searing comets, and showers of stars are born, live and die. The unprecedented scope of Heaven & Earth offers an awe-inspiring voyage of discovery through this infinite world that is science - from the smallest particles on the earth's surface to tiny dots in galaxies that are billions of light years away.Revealing the extensive range of matter contained in the cosmos, this book navigates a fascinating trajectory through an unexplored world, to celebrate the immeasurable beauty and countless mysteries of planet earth and the universe. It charts - chapter by chapter - intricate landscapes of increasing scale and distance, captured by microscope, x-ray, satellite and telescope. Each magnificent photograph is accompanied by an extended caption that explains it in detail, offering a dose of scientific information that enables us to associate with it on a human scale.This volume presents a unique and richly illustrated insight into the momentous relation between aesthetics and nature, in the light of nature's magnitude and its complexity of life. The result is the ultimate fusion of art and science, through a sequence of images that are as subtle as they are stupendous.

    A box set consisting of three Bill Bryson books, 'Notes from a Small Island', 'Notes from a Big Country' and 'A Walk in the Woods'.

    Hank is his long-time student. The aging Jake hopes that Hank will take over teaching for him. But the commitment-phobic Hank doesn’t feel up to the job, and Jake is beginning to exhibit behavior that looks suspiciously like Alzheimer’s disease. Is a guy with as many “issues” as Hank even capable of being a Zen teacher? And are those paradoxical things Jake keeps doing some kind of koan-like wisdom . . . or just dementia? These and other hard questions confront Hank, Jake, and the colorful cast of characters they meet during a week-long trip to the funky neighborhood of Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As they trek back and forth from bar to restaurant to YMCA to Zen Center to doughnut shop, answers arise—in the usual unexpected ways.

    Sickness, hunger, betrayal, envy, greed, old age, and then death..." • A unique and enlightening series. • Experience journey of a man, his quest to seek the universal truth, to unlock the mysteries of universe and witness the transformation of Siddhartha to BUDDHA • The series which began in September 1972 and ended in December 1983, is one of Tezuka's last epic and greatest manga works. Buddha received the 2004 and 2005 Eisner Award(referred to as the Comics Industry's equivalent of the Oscar Awards). • Adapted into an animated movie as well in 2012 which was nominated for the 2012 Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year. About Author:- Osamu Tezuka (3 November 1928 - 9 February 1989 (aged 60)) was a Japanese cartoonist, animator, film producer, activist, and medical doctor who never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of the comics series Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, Black Jack and Buddha. His prolific output, pioneering techniques, and innovative redefinitions of genres earned him such titles as "the father of manga", "the god of comics", and "kamisama of manga". Additionally, he is often credited as the "Godfather of Anime" and is considered the Japanese equivalent to Walt Disney, The Box Set includes Buddha Vol 1 Kapilvastu Buddha Vol 2 The Four Encounters Buddha Vol 3 Devadatta Buddha Vol 4 The Forest of Uruvela Buddha Vol 5 Deer Park Buddha Vol 6 Ananda Buddha Vol 7 Prince Ajatasattu Buddha Vol 8 Jetavana ISBN 9780007942480 Format 8 Volumes in Slipcase Genre Graphic Novel Imprint HarperCollins

    In this small book readers will discover Heart Yoga, which developed over the centuries in the Gelukpa tradition of the Dalai Lamas. The program presented here combines popular yoga exercises wtih special Tibetan poses, and methods of working from the inside to give a healthy and a happy heart. Roach discovered a number of previously unknown Tibetan works on yoga in the course of his ongoing efforts to find and preserve ancient Tibetan Buddhist texts. He discusses the ideas and insights presented in these texts and places them within the context of the Buddhist tradition. To help readers incorporate this ancient wisdom in their daily lives, he provides a specific regime of yoga postures and meditations. Combining instructive illustrations with the unique philosophical underpinnings of the Buddhist approach, Geshe Roach has created a unique program for yoga on a physical and spiritual level.

    Over the past decade, artist Rachel Sussman has researched, worked with biologists, and traveled the world to photograph continuously living organisms that are 2,000 years old and older. Spanning from Antarctica to Greenland, the Mojave Desert to the Australian Outback, the result is a stunning and unique visual collection of ancient organisms unlike anything that has been created in the arts or sciences before, insightfully and accessibly narrated by Sussman along the way. Her work is both timeless and timely, and spans disciplines, continents, and millennia. It is underscored by an innate environmentalism and driven by Sussman’s relentless curiosity. She begins at “year zero,” and looks back from there, photographing the past in the present.  These ancient individuals live on every continent and range from Greenlandic lichens that grow only one centimeter a century, to unique desert shrubs in Africa and South America, a predatory fungus in Oregon, Caribbean brain coral, to an 80,000-year-old colony of aspen in Utah. Sussman journeyed to Antarctica to photograph 5,500-year-old moss; Australia for stromatolites, primeval organisms tied to the oxygenation of the planet and the beginnings of life on Earth; and to Tasmania to capture a 43,600-year-old self-propagating shrub that’s the last individual of its kind. Her portraits reveal the living history of our planet—and what we stand to lose in the future. These ancient survivors have weathered millennia in some of the world’s most extreme environments, yet climate change and human encroachment have put many of them in danger. Two of her subjects have already met with untimely deaths by human hands. Alongside the photographs, Sussman relays fascinating – and sometimes harrowing – tales of her global adventures tracking down her subjects and shares insights from the scientists who research them. The oldest living things in the world are a record and celebration of the past, a call to action in the present, and a barometer of our future.

    But there is another question Good Life, Good Death asks us to contemplate: how does the idea of life after death affect how we live our lives? Gelek Rimpoche tells stories of the mystical Tibet he lived in, as well as the contemporary America he is now a citizen of, and shares the wisdom of the great masters. He asks us to open our minds and see if we can entertain a bigger picture of life after life, even for a moment. He makes the connection between powerful emotions such as anger, obsession, jealousy and pride, and our past as well as our future.

    And when it touches you closely, you must somehow discover a way to find and rebuild your secure home," popular yoga instructor Mary Paterson writes. With the death of her father, she felt as if she had no place to stand. She had lost her home.Paterson's response to this life crisis, was to embark on a pilgrimage to Plum Village, the retreat of Nobel Prize-nominated Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. This wonderfully frank and funny chronicle of her 40-day sojourn offers readers the 40 Buddhist precepts that she learned. The primary theme is the necessity of discovering how to "take refuge" or find a permanent home within ourselves--without taking oneself too seriously.With chapters such as The Lesson in a Bad Fish, The Man Who Nicked My Headphones, How a Monk Washes His Face, and How Not to Be Sneaky, this lyrical, wise, and witty personal journey book is inspirational and a joy to read. Paterson's sensibility is grounded, realistic, and engaging.

    

    But far from being wild and barren, the Himalaya has throughout the ages been home to an astonishing diversity of indigenous and local cultures, as well as a crossroads for trade, and a meeting point and conflict zone for the world’s superpowers. Here Jesuit missionaries exchanged technologies with Tibetan Lamas, Mongol Khans employed Nepali craftsmen, Armenian merchants exchanged musk and gold with Mughals. Here too the East India Company grappled for dominance with China’s emperors, independent India has been locked in conflict with Mao’s Communists and their successors, and the ideological confrontation of the Cold War is now being buried beneath mass tourism and ecological transformation.Featuring scholars and tyrants, bandits and CIA agents, go-betweens and revolutionaries, Himalaya is a panoramic, character-driven history on the grandest but also the most human scale, by far the most comprehensive yet written, encompassing geology and genetics, botany and art, and bursting with stories of courage and resourcefulness.

    He moved to India to become a Buddhist monk: shaving his head, learning Tibetan, and donning long traditional robes. In the Himalayas, living in a hut a stone's throw from the Dalai Lama's compound, Grozni became entrenched in a sometimes comical, sometimes reverent, always intriguing community comprised of feisty nuns, bossy monks, violent chess players, demanding teachers, and a spectacular friend called Tsar, a fallen monk from Bosnia. Grozni went to India in search of knowledge, but learns that the people who can teach him the most are not wearing uniforms and following special diets, but rather those who, like him, struggle with doubts and cannot accept an established system of faith. Instead, he journeys with his colorful cast of friends to a new understanding of himself and his place in the world. Like Anne Lamott or Elizabeth Gilbert, Nikolai Grozni offers the insights of a religious pilgrim from the inside, in his case, from a male, Buddhist perspective. Thoughtful, funny, and elegantly written, Turtle Feet details the reality of a world much mythologized in the West and tells a wonderfully bittersweet story of a spiritual journey.

    This gorgeously photographed lifestyle guide gives readers an insider's tour of the City by the Bay through Victoria Smith's unique lens. Organized by neighborhood, each chapter features enchanting photos of hidden corners, local color, landmarks, and hotspots, revealing why so many people—Victoria included—are falling head over heels for this amazing city. Brimming with original, dreamy photography and packaged as a gorgeous jacketed hardcover, this lovely book makes a perfect gift for photography fans, San Francisco dwellers, visitors to the city, or anyone who has left their heart in San Francisco.

    It is a story told through the eyes of two ordinary travelers who attempt to portray local lifestyles and narratives by means of photography. Since the project’s launch on Instagram, it has become a worldwide Internet sensation, emerging as a leading news feature and gathering millions of views on social media and the news sites that covered it. In each stunning image, photographer Murad Osmann is led to a new location by his girlfriend, Nataly Zakharova.These images remind us that in the hustle and bustle of daily life, we so often forget to stop and appreciate the things that surround us—the historical and architectural heritage left to us by our ancestors. Readers join Osmann from the point of view of the main character and are taken on a journey to different historical and cultural sites. The project aims to acquaint readers with different lifestyles. For Osmann and Zakharova, this theme seems infinite, as there are an endless number of places to visit on our planet. Paging through the book, readers will be invited to see something familiar to them from another point of view, via the lens of Osmann’s camera.Follow Zakharova and Osmann on a trip around the world, through such locations as Moscow, Madrid, Ibiza, Hong Kong, New York, and London.

    In these marvellous essays on history, politics and society, cultural critic Nadeem Farooq Paracha upturns various reductive readings of the country by revealing its multi-layered reality. With wit and insight, he investigates past events and their implications for modern-day society. Thus, one piece explores how and why Mohenjo-daro has been neglected as a historical site, and another examines how Muhammad-bin-Qasim, who briefly invaded Sindh in 713 CE, has come to be lionised as the original founder of Pakistan. There is a story about a Pakistani Jimi Hendrix who plays the guitar like a dream and also one about a medieval emperor who lives on in the swear words of a Punjabi peasant. There are essays on Pakistani pop music, on Afro-Pakistanis and on how Jhuley Lal came to be more than just a folk deity for Sindhi immigrants in India. Points of Entry examines the constant struggle between two distinct tendencies in Pakistani civic-nationalism—one modernist, the other theocratic—and the complex society it has birthed.