Book picks similar to
Experimental Essays on Chuang-Tzu by Victor H. Mair


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religious-studies

Bóg. Życie i twórczość


Szymon Hołownia - 2010
    Popular Polish journalist and columnist's attempt to create a biography of God and by referring to concepts of contemporary culture and popular science, allow readers to familiarize themselves with the religious message.

Religion as We Know It: An Origin Story


Jack Miles - 2019
    In a moving postscript, he shows how this very story continues today in the hearts of individual religious or irreligious men and women.

Grammar for a Full Life: How the Ways We Shape a Sentence Can Limit or Enlarge Us


Lawrence Weinstein - 2020
    Grammar is about much more than rules: it’s about choices, too—since a thought can always be expressed correctly in multiple ways.In Grammar for a Full Life, author Lawrence Weinstein reveals how our grammatical choices either stifle or boost our…sense of agency in lifecreativitydepth of connection to othersand mindfulness.Weinstein shows that certain tweaks to a person’s grammar can bring consequential changes in his or her fulfillment and well-being. In this wonderfully readable book, he describes some forty transformative moves that can be made with English punctuation and syntax. In the book, you’ll learn, for instance, why a greater use of active voice constructions builds assertive energy in us. You’ll discover how—paradoxically—cutting back on the “intensifiers” (exclamation marks and words like really, absolutely) heightens our awareness of the world.There is not too much about personality and life that Weinstein doesn’t see benefitting from a wiser use of grammar. In a chapter titled “Bonding,” even sex comes in for some grammatical attention. Even fear of death receives its own, almost lyrical chapter near book’s end.The farther one gets into this remarkable book, the clearer it becomes that Weinstein’s wish—for both himself and us—is actualization of “the whole person,” through language.No reader should be intimidated by Weinstein’s university credentials. As important a book as his is, it’s conversational throughout—and it’s packed with numerous compelling, clear examples. You will never think of commas or possessive pronouns in the same way again. Your regard for the conjunction “but” is likely to soar.Praise for Grammar for a Full Life has been coming in from thought leaders of all kinds, ranging from well-known authors on language, such as Anne Fadiman, Lynne Truss, and Richard Lederer, to influential spiritual thinkers, like Rabbi Lawrence Kushner. Cornel West calls it “brilliant and original.” Pioneer in mind-body studies Joan Borysenko writes, “If you read just one book this year, let this be the one.” (For a sampling of endorsements, see Editorial Reviews, below.)[PLEASE NOTE: Grammar for a Full Life is not a book intended for the person new to the English language. It assumes familiarity with many of the basics of English.]

Millennium


Peter Lamborn Wilson - 1996
    In MILLENNIUM, Hakim Bey both sustains and expands the ideas of his groundbreaking work, THE TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONE. Here, Bey suggests that mere detachment from (or even outright rejection of) the monolith of global capital is not enough; that either we accept ourselves as the 'last humans,' or else we accept ourselves as the opposition. The book also contains an illuminating interview with Bey, in which he discusses his body of work and assesses our collective position at the turn of the millennium.

Honey from Stone: A Naturalist's Search for God


Chet Raymo - 1987
    As he wanders the land year upon year, Raymo gathers the revelations embedded in the geological and cultural history of this wild and ancient place. "When I called out for the Absolute, I was answered by the wind," Raymo writes. "If it was God's voice in the wind, then I heard it." In poetic prose grounded in a mind trained to discover fact, Honey from Stone enters the wonder of the material world in search of our deepest nature.

Wittgenstein: On Human Nature (The Great Philosophers Series)


P.M.S. Hacker - 1985
    Hacker leads us into a world of philosophical investigation in which to smell a rat is ever so much easier than to trap it. Wittgenstein defined humans as language-using creatures. The role of philosophy is to ask questions which reveal the limits and nature of language. Taking the expression, description and observation of pain as examples, Hacker explores the ingenuity with which Wittgenstein identified the rules and set the limits of language. (less)

Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God


Greg Graffin - 2010
    and a Professor of Life Sciences at UCLA who is immersed in the debate on religion. In Anarchy Evolution, Graffin puts forth his bold ideas about “naturalism” and the connection between science religion and art. In this provocative and timely book, Graffin tackles head on the “intellectual dishonestly” of creationism; he also shares compelling stories about his childhood and how science saved him when he ran into trouble as a teenager. Anarchy Evolution will appeal to the fans of Bad Religion (which as sold over 2.8 million albums) as well as readers of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. The book coincides with a major national Bad Religion reunion tour that will start in October of 2010.

The Tao of the Dude: Awesome Insights of Deep Dudes from Lao Tzu to Lebowski


Oliver Benjamin - 2015
    Throughout history, these lounge-chair revolutionaries have helped correct civilization’s ills and excesses with a mellow, lighthearted, live-and-let live attitude. From Lao Tzu to Lebowski, Epicurus to Einstein, The Buddha to Bob Dylan, all have reminded humanity what is most important in life: personal liberty, peace of mind, leisure time and good friends.Bringing together some of the greatest ideas, quotes and insights Dudeosophy has had to offer, THE TAO OF THE DUDE is not only a virtual Ph.D in Dudeism, but also a soothing sectional sofa for the soul.Each chapter contains an essay and illustration by the founder of Dudeism, followed by an assortment of quotes and passages that show how Dudeism has existed throughout history, down through the generations, across the sands of time...

Suicide


Édouard Levé - 2008
    Presenting itself as an investigation into the suicide of a close friend—perhaps real, perhaps fictional—more than twenty years earlier, Levé gives us, little by little, a striking portrait of a man, with all his talents and flaws, who chose to reject his life, and all the people who loved him, in favor of oblivion. Gradually, through Levé’s casually obsessive, pointillist, beautiful ruminations, we come to know a stoic, sensible, thoughtful man who bears more than a slight psychological resemblance to Levé himself. But Suicide is more than just a compendium of memories of an old friend; it is a near-exhaustive catalog of the ramifications and effects of the act of suicide, and a unique and melancholy farewell to life.

Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener


David Toop - 2010
    The intangibility of sound is uncanny – a phenomenal presence in the head, at its point of source and all around. The close listener is like a medium who draws out substance from that which is not entirely there.The history of listening must be constructed from the narratives of myth and fiction, ‘silent’ arts such as painting, the resonance of architecture, auditory artefacts and nature. In such contexts, sound often functions as a metaphor for mystical revelation, forbidden desires, formlessness, the unknown, and the unconscious. As if reading a map of hitherto unexplored territory, Sinister Resonance deciphers sounds and silences buried within the ghostly horrors of Arthur Machen, Shirley Jackson, Charles Dickens, M.R. James and Edgar Allen Poe, Dutch genre painting from Rembrandt to Vermeer, artists as diverse as Francis Bacon and Juan Munoz, and the writing of many modernist authors including Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, and James Joyce.

To Paint Is To Love Again


Henry Miller - 1960
    

The Dhammapada: The way of the Buddha


Osho - 1981
    Entering into The Dhammapada with Osho is to enter into a deep friendship of enlightened masters. These sutras were compiled by Buddha's disciples to contain the essence of all his teachings.This was the last turning of the Wheel of Dharma, 2,500 years ago. Osho's commentaries on these sutras set the Wheel of Dharma in motion again.Osho also answers questions from disciples and other seekers in alternate discourses all generously sprinkled with stories, personal anecdotes and, of course, a multitude of jokes. Visually this boxed set is stunning, without doubt a collector's piece and twelve volumes to dive into for years to come."Now that religion has become just a formality, and the burning messages of the buddhas who have been on earth degraded to mere formal faith, the message of Osho who has reached to such dazzling heights of human consciousness through his own experience, is incomparable in its strength to pierce the beauty within our hearts."Talks given from 21/06/79 am to 30/04/80 am

Maker of Dune


Frank Herbert - 1985
    

The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa


Fernando Pessoa - 2001
    The heteronyms launch movements and write manifestos, and one of them attempts to break up Pessoa's only known romantic relationship. Also included is a generous selection from Pessoa's masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet, freshly translated by Richard Zenith from newly discovered materials. The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa is an important record of a crucial part of the literary canon.

Everything I've Ever Done That Worked


Lesley Garner - 2004
    Practical, insightful and moving, this collection of short essays by renowned journalist Lesley Garner acts as a spiritual and emotional first-aid kit.