Ram Dass is an American psychologist and spiritual teacher who has studied and practiced meditation for many years.  Here he shares his understanding and explores the many paths of meditation--from mantra, prayer, singing, visualizations, and "just sitting" to movement meditations such as tai chi--and suggests how you can find methods suitable for you.  He illuminates the stages and benefits of meditative practice, and provides wise and often humorous advice on overcoming difficulties along the way.

    Meditate Your Weight is a 21-day weight-loss plan that employs a daily journaling and meditation practice to coach readers through the various mental blocks, thoughts, habits, and behaviors that stand in their way of living in strong, healthy, and well-loved bodies.

    Death is always with us, in the marrow of every passing moment. She is the secret teacher hiding in plain sight, helping us to discover what matters most in life.Life and death are a package deal. They cannot be pulled apart and we cannot truly live unless we are aware of death. The Five Invitations is an exhilarating meditation on the meaning of life and how maintaining and ever-present consciousness of death can bring us closer to our truest selves. As a renowned teacher of compassionate care-giving and the cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project, Frank Ostaseski has sat on the precipice of death with more than a thousand people. In The Five Invitations, he distills the lessons gleaned over the course of his career, offering an evocative and stirring guide that points a radical path to transformation.The Five Invitations:-Don’t Wait-Welcome Everything, Push Away Nothing-Bring Your Whole Self to the Experience-Find a Place of Rest in the Middle of Things-Cultivate Don’t Know MindThese invitations show us how to wake up fully to our lives. They can be understood as best practices for anyone coping with death or navigating any sort of transition or crisis; they guide us toward appreciating life’s preciousness. Death can be a valuable companion on the road to living well, forging a rich and meaningful life, and letting go of regret. The Five Invitations is a powerful and inspiring exploration of the essential wisdom dying has to impart to all of us.

    It is only by learning to relate to our emotions skillfully that we benefit from their richness and glean wisdom, rather than letting them control us. Emotions get their power from a simple but deep-seated source: our lack of self-knowledge. When we bring awareness to our experience of emotions, something truly amazing happens—they lose their power to make us miserable.     In this book, Rinpoche leads us through the three steps of his Emotional Rescue Plan. Mindful Gap is the practice of creating a safe distance between you and your emotions, which gives you the psychological space to work with their energy. Clear Seeing involves recognizing the bigger picture. Last, Letting Go is the practice of releasing stressful physical and emotional energy through exercise, relaxation, and awareness. With each step, we become increasingly familiar with the inner workings of our emotions, seeing straight to the heart of anger, fear, passion, jealousy, and pride. With time and practice, instead of leading us astray, our emotions become our guide towards living a more compassionate, creative, and fulfilling life.

    In "Zen and the Art of Happiness", you will learn how to think and feel so that what you think and feel creates happiness and vibrancy in your life rather than gloominess or depression.

    Combining earthly wisdom with spiritual enlightenment, it describes how to live each moment to the full and shows the relevance of Zen to every aspect of life.

    You’ll discover what you can do to put an end to the habitual thoughts and emotions that limit your consciousness. By tapping into traditions of meditation and mindfulness, author and spiritual teacher Michael A. Singer shows how the development of consciousness can enable us all to dwell in the present moment and let go of painful thoughts and memories that keep us from achieving happiness and self-realization.Copublished with the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) The Untethered Soul begins by walking you through your relationship with your thoughts and emotions, helping you uncover the source and fluctuations of your inner energy. It then delves into what you can do to free yourself from the habitual thoughts, emotions, and energy patterns that limit your consciousness. Finally, with perfect clarity, this book opens the door to a life lived in the freedom of your innermost being.

    Done correctly, it can be a way to radically encounter bliss and to begin - and sustain - real transformation in ourselves. In Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond, self-described meditation junkie Ajahn Brahm shares his knowledge and experience of the jhanas - a core part of the Buddha's original meditation teaching. Never before has this material been approached in such an empowering way, by a teacher of such authority and popularity. Full of surprises, delightfully goofy humor, and entertaining stories that inspire, instruct, and illuminate, Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond will encourage those new to meditation, and give a shot in the arm to more experienced practitioners as well.

    But few of those books apply the lessons of Buddhist thinking as resolution and guidance tools. These questions, though found in the modern day, are actually the core of all Buddha’s teachings – impermanence, suffering, and the quest for happiness (freedom from suffering). This makes Buddha the kind of consultant or coach we need today in our workplaces.Following in the tradition of the authors' first bestseller, this work goes on to explore and answer 101 dilemmas that we encounter at work, with topics ranging from time management, goal-setting, conflict to job dissatisfaction, unemployment, and even workplace trysts. The authors emphasize practical learning and coping, not esoteric insights or metaphysics, applying concrete solutions from Buddhist teachings to real problems in easily digestible chunks.

    The sage's sole concern was with human suffering and the ending of suffering. It was his mission to guide the individual to an understanding of his true nature and the timelessness of being. He taught that mind must recognize and penetrate its own state of being, "being this or that, here or that, then or now," but just timeless being.

    This iconic journey changed the world forever, and the truths revealed continue to influence every corner of the globe today.A young man in line for the throne is trapped in his father's kingdom and yearns for the outside world. Betrayed by those closest to him, Siddhartha abandons his palace and princely title. Alone and face-to-face with his demons, he becomes a wandering monk and embarks on a spiritual fast that carries him to the brink of death. Ultimately recognizing his inability to conquer his body and mind by sheer will, Siddhartha transcends his physical pain and achieves enlightenment.Although we recognize Buddha today as an icon of peace and serenity, his life story was a tumultuous and spellbinding affair filled with love and sex, murder and loss, struggle and surrender. From the rocky terrain of the material world to the summit of the spiritual one, Buddha captivates and inspires—ultimately leading us closer to understanding the true nature of life and our selves.

    For centuries, Tibetans have used fifty-nine pithy slogans—such as "A joyous state of mind is a constant support" and "Don't talk about others' shortcomings"—as a means to awaken kindness, gentleness, and compassion. While Tibetan Buddhists have long valued these slogans, recently they have become popular in the West due to such books as Start Where You Are by Pema Chödrön and Training the Mind by Chögyam Trungpa. This edition of The Great Path of Awakening contains an accessible, newly revised translation of the slogans from the famous text The Seven Points of Mind Training . It also includes illuminating commentary from Jamgon Kongtrul that provides further instruction on how to meet every situation with intelligence and an open heart.

    Standing at the Edge is essential reading for our time." -- Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive GlobalStanding at the Edge is an evocative examination of how we can respond to suffering, live our fullest lives, and remain open to the full spectrum of our human experience.Joan Halifax has enriched thousands of lives around the world through her work as a humanitarian, a social activist, an anthropologist, and as a Buddhist teacher. Over many decades, she has also collaborated with neuroscientists, clinicians, and psychologists to understand how contemplative practice can be a vehicle for social transformation. Through her unusual background, she developed an understanding of how our greatest challenges can become the most valuable source of our wisdom--and how we can transform our experience of suffering into the power of compassion for the benefit of others.In this audiobook, Halifax identifies five psychological territories she calls Edge States--altruism, empathy, integrity, respect, and engagement--that epitomize strength of character. Yet each of these states can also be the cause of personal and social suffering. In this way, these five psychological experiences form edges, and it is only when we stand at these edges that we become open to the full range of our human experience and discover who we really are.Recounting the experiences of caregivers, activists, humanitarians, politicians, parents, and teachers, incorporating the wisdom of Zen traditions and mindfulness practices, and rooted in Halifax's groundbreaking research on compassion, Standing at the Edge is destined to become a contemporary classic.A powerful guide on how to find the freedom we seek for others and ourselves, this is an audiobook that will serve us all.Praise for Standing at the Edge: "...narrator Joan Halifax's meditative voice takes us by the ear and reorients us toward serenity...Her slow and steady pace allows listeners to keep up with the considerable wisdom she is passing along. This title will likely leave listeners feeling serene." - AudioFile Magazine"Halifax offers an invitation to hold these states not only in our minds, but in our hearts." -- Psychology Today

    In a  remarkably short period of time, Bill Moyers's  Healing And The Mind has become a  touchstone, shaping the debate over alternative medical  treatments and the role of the mind in illness and  recovery in a way that few books have in recent  memory. With almost half a million copies in print,  it is already a classic -- the most widely read  and influential book of its kind. In a series of  fascinating interviews with world-renowned experts  and laypeople alike, Bill Moyers explores the new  mind/body medicine. Healing And The  Mind shows how it is being practiced in the  treatment of stress, chronic disease, and neonatal  problems in several American hospitals; examines the  chemical basis of emotions, and their potential  for making us sick (and making us well); explores  the fusion of traditional Chinese medicine with  modern Western practices in contemporary China; and  takes an up-close, personal look at alternative  healing therapies, including a Massachusetts center  that combines Eastern meditation and Western group  therapy, and a California retreat for cancer  patients who help each other even when a cure is  impossible. Topics include:The Healing Roles of Doctor and PatientThe Healing EnvironmentHealing and the CommunitySelf-Regulation and ConditioningChanging Life HabitsMeditationStress ReductionTherapeutic Support GroupsThe Chemical CommunicatorsEmotions and the Immune SystemConditioned ResponsesMedicine in a Mind/Body CultureAnother Way of SeeingHealing and WholenessCombining the incisive yet personal interview  approach that made A World Of Ideas  a feast for the mind and the provocative interplay  of text and art that made The Power Of  Myth a feast for the imagination,  Healing And The Mind is a landmark work.

    Introducing mindfulness-based stillness meditation, Ian Gawler and Paul Bedson explain how to build a daily meditation practice. The authors also show how meditation can be used to work with our emotions, aid healing, manage pain, or as a spiritual practice. Meditation is a path we can pursue and refine throughout our lives. Drawing on modern science as well as ancient Eastern traditions and the authors' own extensive personal experience as practitioners and teachers, this guide offers the techniques and understanding needed to explore meditation practice deeply. It is also an invaluable resource for meditation teachers from all background.