This book contains the teachings and meditations Lama gave at a five-day retreat he led near Melbourne, Australia, which he introduced by saying: "Whether or not this five-day meditation course becomes beneficial is up to you; it depends on your own mind. It's not a lama thing; I'm not going to bring you to enlightenment in this short time... If over the next five days you can begin to recognize the reality of your own nature, this meditation course will have been worthwhile. Therefore, dedicate your actions during this time to discovering inner freedom through recognizing the negative characteristics of your own uncontrolled mind."

    Such experiences are best understood not only through the straightforward acquisition of facts but through a process of discovering where and why conscious understanding and memory fail. Literature, according to Cathy Caruth and others, opens a window on traumatic experience because it teaches readers to listen to what can be told only in indirect and surprising ways. Sociology, film, and political activism can also provide new ways of thinking about and responding to the experience of trauma.In Trauma and Memory, a distinguished group of analysts and critics offer a compelling look at what literature and the new approaches of a variety of clinical and theoretical disciplines bring to the understanding of traumatic experience. Combining two highly-acclaimed special issues of American Imago edited by Caruth, this interdisciplinary collection of essays and interviews will be of interest to analysts and critics concerned with the notion of trauma and the problem of interpretation and, more generally, to those interested in current discussions of subjects such as child abuse, AIDS, and the effects of historical atrocities such as the Holocaust.Contributions by: Georges Bataille, Harold Bloom, Laura Brown, Cathy Caruth, Kai Erikson, Shoshana Felman, Henry Krystal, Claude Lanzmann, Dori Laub, Kevin Newmark, Onno van der Hart, and Bessel van der Kolk. Interviews with: Robert Jay Lifton, Gregg Bordowitz, Douglas Crimp, and Laura Pinsky

    At an age when most babies are cooing "Mama, " Popo was speaking in complete sentences. He was reading college textbooks when he was still too young for nursery school. Popo may just be the smartest human being on Earth. And he spends all his time listening to the radio . . . to white noise that comes drifting down from the sky like stardust. Chill Bent is a two-time loser with a hair-trigger temper. After the death of Popo's mother, the ex-con assumes responsibility for his nephew, vowing to protect the boy from a government eager to strip away his African-American heritage and exploit his genius like a natural resource. Together, Popo and Chill are about to embark on an extraordinary journey into the farthest reaches of the mind and the soul . . . a journey you will never forget. In this stunning new speculative fiction short story by the bestselling author of Blue Light, part of an interconnected collection of stories called Futureland, a young African-American genius searches for God with the tools of cutting-edge science. Look for the complete volume of Futureland, available now.

    Dostoyevsky is usually regarded as one of the finest novelists who ever lived. In his time he was also renowned for his activity as a journalist.Each of Dostoevsky´s works is famous for its psychological profundity, and, indeed, Dostoyevsky is commonly regarded as one of the greatest psychologists in the history of literature. He specialized in the analysis of pathological states of mind that lead to insanity, murder, and suicide and in the exploration of the emotions of humiliation, self-destruction, tyrannical domination, and murderous rage. These major works are also renowned as great “novels of ideas” that treat timeless and timely issues in philosophy and politics. Psychology and philosophy are closely linked in Dostoyevsky’s portrayals of intellectuals, who “feel ideas” in the depths of their souls.

    As a celebrated cultural critic and a writer for national publications like The Atlantic and Harper's, Alan Jacobs has spent his adult life belonging to communities that often clash in America's culture wars. And in his years of confronting the big issues that divide us--political, social, religious--Jacobs has learned that many of our fiercest disputes occur not because we're doomed to be divided, but because the people involved simply aren't thinking.Most of us don't want to think, Jacobs writes. Thinking is trouble. Thinking can force us out of familiar, comforting habits, and it can complicate our relationships with like-minded friends. Finally, thinking is slow, and that's a problem when our habits of consuming information (mostly online) leave us lost in the spin cycle of social media, partisan bickering, and confirmation bias.In this smart, endlessly entertaining book, Jacobs diagnoses the many forces that act on us to prevent thinking--forces that have only worsened in the age of Twitter, "alternative facts," and information overload--and he also dispels the many myths we hold about what it means to think well. (For example: It's impossible to "think for yourself.")Drawing on sources as far-flung as novelist Marilynne Robinson, basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain, British philosopher John Stuart Mill, and Christian theologian C.S. Lewis, Jacobs digs into the nuts and bolts of the cognitive process, offering hope that each of us can reclaim our mental lives from the impediments that plague us all. Because if we can learn to think together, maybe we can learn to live together, too.

    Harry Gensler engages students with the basics of logic through practical examples and important arguments both in the history of philosophy and from contemporary philosophy. Using simple and manageable methods for testing arguments, students are led step-by-step to master the complexities of logic.The companion LogiCola instructional program and various teaching aids (including a teacher's manual) are available from the book's website: www.routledge.com/textbooks/gensler_l...

    The author rejects the notion that our thinking processes neutrally report on what is out there in an objective world. He explores the manner in which thought actively participates in forming our perceptions, our sense of meaning and our daily actions. He suggests that collective thought and knowledge have become so automated that we are in large part controlled by them, with a subsequent loss of authenticity, freedom and order.

    That book, which is in its 10th printing and has sold more than 80,000 copies, was such a resounding success that Hochswender has written an insightful new work -- at once a follow-up to the previous volume and a freestanding work of its own. A new breath of inspiration, "The Buddha in Your Rearview Mirror" speaks to the spiritual yearnings so many of us have amid the hustle and flux of contemporary life. The book is a sophisticated but accessible introduction to Buddhism as well as an in-depth study of Buddhism in the Samurai period. Hochswender again focuses on the philosophy of Nichiren and applies its principles to everyday issues ranging from health to careers to family problems. "The Buddha in Your Rearview Mirror" is both cogent and compelling -- informative history and inspiring self-help. Ideal for the novice or veteran Buddhist, the book will resonate with anyone interested in concrete methods for tapping into their own highest potential or enlightened self.

    

    Marlowe and Daa search for a lover and roommate to replace the departed Jackson, while masseur Jack seduces Marlowe's cousin, Sheba, into their world of Buddhist rituals, banana smoothies, and California enlightenment.This story of an eclectic cast of characters in a house share in San Francisco as they grapple with love and liberation, substance and soul, and where nothing is what it seems.

    J Adbul Kalam’s speeches in his post presidency years. Drawn from Dr Kalam’s addresses to parliaments, universities, schools and other institutions in India and abroad, they include his ideas on science, nation building, poverty, compassion and self-confidence.Dr Kalam draws on the lives of stalwarts such as Marie Curie, Dr Vikram Sarabhai to encourage and inspire his young readers. Through these speeches, he shares many valuable lessons in humility, resilience, and determination and leads children to think, grow and evolve.A project very close to his heart, Dr Kalam’s last book for children is a road map for every child to pursue their dreams, to be the best they can be, leading to the realisation of a better India.

    But in the wake of the election of 2016, words felt useless, even indulgent. Action was the only reasonable response. He took to the streets in protest, and the sense of community and collective conviction felt right. But the assaults continued—on citizens’ rights and long-held compacts, on the core principles of our culture and civilization, and on our language itself. Words seemed to be losing the meanings they once had and Freeman was compelled to return to their defense. The result is his Dictionary of the Undoing.From A to Z, “Agitate” to “Zygote,” Freeman assembled the words that felt most essential, most potent, and began to build a case for their renewed power and authority, each word building on the last. The message that emerged was not to retreat behind books, but to emphatically engage in the public sphere, to redefine what it means to be a literary citizen.With an afterword by Valeria Luiselli, Dictionary of the Undoing is a necessary, resounding cri de coeur in defense of language, meaning, and our ability to imagine, describe, and build a better world.

    McCoy, USMCIf you read one book in your lifetime on the warrior culture, this is that book. Active-duty Marine Colonel B. P. McCoy expertly relates his innermost thoughts and feelings, drawing on his mastery of personal leadership. Colonel McCoy understands the intangibles that make up our modern-day warriors, those young Americans on whom we place so much responsibility when we send them into harm's way.The author begins with the institutional design that leads some to believe that because of a manifestation of the American culture in which we're taught to kill from a young age through the use of video games, the task of a warrior would somehow be easily executed, based solely on these inequities. To the contrary, Colonel McCoy points out that the battlefield commander is hampered by the societal digression and the simple fact that young Americans can point a video weapon and kill, never feeling the true effects or suffering associated with actual combat. He explains that our culture is not that of predator, but more of prey. Through examples, he concludes that the American society places grave consequence on the taking of a human life, while we still require our young to bear arms against our enemies and to extinguish life. Only through superb training, conducted by passionate leaders, do our young Americans become moral warriors.Colonel McCoy describes the total cost of combat and the price paid by all who choose to become warriors. By pointing to positive training examples and keying on the effects of situational training—battle drills—conducted prior to and during combat, he successfully trained his Marines and developed the proper habits that would be the difference between life and death during combat. He directed his Marines to become "experts in the application of violence," without sacrificing their humanity. In the book, it became clear that he found the combination that allowed his men to achieve tactical superiority in every aspect.The essence of war is violence and the act of killing legitimate human targets without hesitation. To accomplish this, he instituted meaningful training and used his refined principles as a human being to guide him in the leadership and administration on the moral code that rules the field of battle. He is the perfect example of all that we hold dear in our warrior culture. He loved his men, showed them the right way through his personal example, guided his actions with passion and relayed his feelings to his men completely. He is quick to note his own shortcomings and how he overcame them and was the inspiration to the team that triumphed when all Marines survived the day.Emotionally riveting, The Passion of Command provides inside information into the warrior culture and allows one to grasp the complexities when hardening the mind, body, and spirit for the rigors of combat. Most find it difficult to communicate the human effects of combat to people who have never experienced the harsh realities associated with actually engaging an enemy. Colonel McCoy doesn't have that problem. He has opened the door and let the reader in

    

    The "Theory of Everything" that appears to be emerging includes everything but us: the feelings, meanings, consciousness, and purposes that make us (and many of our animal cousins) what we are. These most immediate and incontrovertible phenomena are left unexplained by the natural sciences because they lack the physical properties—such as mass, momentum, charge, and location—that are assumed to be necessary for something to have physical consequences in the world. This is an unacceptable omission. We need a "theory of everything" that does not leave it absurd that we exist.Incomplete Nature begins by accepting what other theories try to deny: that, although mental contents do indeed lack these material-energetic properties, they are still entirely products of physical processes and have an unprecedented kind of causal power that is unlike anything that physics and chemistry alone have so far explained. Paradoxically, it is the intrinsic incompleteness of these semiotic and teleological phenomena that is the source of their unique form of physical influence in the world. Incomplete Nature meticulously traces the emergence of this special causal capacity from simple thermodynamics to self-organizing dynamics to living and mental dynamics, and it demonstrates how specific absences (or constraints) play the critical causal role in the organization of physical processes that generate these properties.The book's radically challenging conclusion is that we are made of these specific absenses—such stuff as dreams are made on—and that what is not immediately present can be as physically potent as that which is. It offers a figure/background shift that shows how even meanings and values can be understood as legitimate components of the physical world.