Be an Island is at once an introduction to the teachings of Buddhism and a rich continuation of Ayya Khema's personal vision of Buddhist practice.

    Many people have the compassionate wish to benefit others, but few understand how to make this wish effective in daily life. In this explanation of the Buddhist classic Guide to Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Gelshe Kelsang shows how we can develop and maintain the supremely compassionate motivation of a Bodhisattva, and how we can then engage in the actual practices that provide the greatest benefits to others and lead to the attainment of full enlightenment.

    He emphasizes the path to freedom from emotional and psychological suffering and provides insight into the fact that taking ourselves seriously causes unnecessary hardship. Ajahn Chah influenced a generation of Western teachers: Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Sylvia Boorstein, Joseph Goldstein, and many other Western Buddhist teachers were at one time his students. Anyone who has attended a retreat led by one of these teachers, or read one of their books, will be familiar with this master's name and reputation as one of the great Buddhist teachers of this century.

    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”?

    These are tales of transformation and spiritual growth. They delight and challenge as they express different facets of the Buddhist path to liberation in familiar, yet fresh and engaging, ways. These stories can be reread often, each time supporting new reflec- tions on the spiritual life and the possibility of each person awakening to the kindness, clarity and insight available to all of us. A Monastery Within points to how each person can build an inner home for the awakened life.

    The Buddha in Me, the Buddha in You combines the tried-and-tested wisdom of Nichiren Buddhism with the best of popular psychology and personal development, making this a brilliant guide to how life works, and how to get the most from it.Nichiren Buddhism differs from other Buddhist schools in its focus on the here-and-now, and places great importance on individual growth as the starting point for a better world. This, combined with powerful techniques such as NLP, mindfulness, journalling and coaching, makes The Buddha in Me, the Buddha in You the quintessential handbook for happiness.'Buddha' simply means someone who is awakened - yet while Nichiren Buddhists will find fascinating insights into their practice, there is no need to follow a spiritual path to benefit from this book. Through his experience as an internationally acclaimed life coach and practising Buddhist, author David Hare shows us how to wake up to our own potential and that of those around us – to discover everyday enlightenment.

    That's the premise of this book: how to cook what Zen Buddhists call "the supreme meal"—life. It has to be nourishing, and it has to be shared. And we can use only the ingredients at hand. Inspired by the thirteenth-century manual of the same name by Dogen, the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen tradition, this book teaches us how we can "enlarge the family we're feeding" if we just use some imagination. Bernie Glassman founded Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, New York, in 1982 to employ those whom other companies deem unemployable—the homeless, ex-cons, recovering addicts, low-skill individuals—with the belief that investing in people, and not just products, does pay. He was right. Greyston has evolved into an $8 million-a-year business with clients all over New York City. It is the sole supplier of brownies to Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, and has even sold cakes to the White House. But financial profit is only one of two bottom lines that Greyston is committed to. The other one is social impact, and this goal is certainly being met. The bakery enterprise has led to the creation of the Greyston Foundation, an integrated network of organizations that provide affordable housing, child care, counseling services, and health care to families in the community. Using entrepreneurship to solve the problems of the inner city, Greyston has become a national model for comprehensive community development. Its giving back is more than just sloughing off a percentage of its profits and donating it to charity; it's about working with the community's needs right from the beginning—bringing them from the margins to the core. As its company motto goes, "We don't hire people to bake brownies. We bake brownies to hire people." This book is as much a self-manual as a business manual, addressing such concepts as    • Beginner's mind    • The Middle Way of Sustainability    • The "hungry ghosts" of Buddhism as a picture of all humanity    • Working with our faults    • Indra's Net and the interconnectedness of life    • Leaving no trace

    "In this remarkable book, Ajahn Buddhadasa teaches us beautifully, profoundly, and simply the meaning of sunnata, or voidness, which is a thread that links every great school of Buddhism....He teaches us the truth of this voidness with the same directness and simplicity with which he invites us into his forest."-- from the foreword by Jack Kornfield

    Sylvia Boorstein, Zoketsu Norman Fischer, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche draw on their own experiences with suffering, as well as their many years of practice, to illustrate how we can find serenity and compassion in even the most stressful situations. Solid Ground offers humor, insight, and practical advice as well as five guided meditations for soothing our thoughts and increasing our capacity for equanimity and joy.

    This concise handful of words is in fact the foundation from which all subsequent Buddhist teachings grow, and upon which all of them rely. Their wisdom is as pertinent to the scholar of Buddhist philosophy as it is to the ordinary practitioner, as it is indeed to anyone, anywhere, who aspires to liberation. Chögyam Trungpa's in-depth exploration of the Four Noble Truths reveals the subtlety and sophistication that lie beneath these deceptively simple teachings. He emphasizes their profound relevance not just as an inspiration when we set out on the path but at every other moment of our lives as well, showing how we can join view (intellectual understanding) of the teaching with practical application in order to interrupt suffering before it arises. His teaching is, as always, refreshingly direct and profoundly inspiring. The Truth of Suffering is an ideal introduction to the Four Noble Truths for the beginner as well as for the experienced practitioner in search of deeper understanding.

    We are taught that the ideal is a strong, individuated self, constructed and reinforced over a lifetime. But Buddhist psychiatrist Mark Epstein has found a different way. Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart shows us that happiness doesn't come from any kind of acquisitiveness, be it material or psychological. Happiness comes from letting go. Weaving together the accumulated wisdom of his two worlds--Buddhism and Western psychotherapy--Epstein shows how "the happiness that we seek depends on our ability to balance the ego's need to do with our inherent capacity to be." He encourages us to relax the ever-vigilant mind in order to experience the freedom that comes only from relinquishing control. Drawing on events in his own life and stories from his patients, Going to Pieces  Without Falling Apart teaches us that only by letting go can we start on the path to a more peaceful and spiritually satisfying life.About The Author: Mark Epstein, M.D., is a psychiatrist in private practice and the author of Thoughts Without a Thinker . He is a contributing editor to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and clinical assistant professor of psychology at New York University. He lives in New York City.

    John Daido Loori, one of America's leading Zen teachers, offers everything needed to begin a meditation practice. He covers the basics of where to sit (on a cushion, bench, or chair), how to posture the body (complete with instructional photographs), and how to practice Zen meditation to discover the freedom of a peaceful mind.Book with audio CD.

    Fearless, unorthodox, and irreverent scholar and activist Jay Michaelson shows how meditation and mindfulness have moved from ashrams and self-help groups to classrooms and hospitals, and offers unusually straight talk about the “Big E”— enlightenment. Michaelson introduces us to maverick brainhackers, postmodern Buddhist monks, and cutting-edge neuroscientists and shares his own stories of months-long silent retreats, powerful mystical experiences, and many pitfalls along the way. Evolving Dharma is a must-read for the next-generation meditator, the spiritually cynical, and the curious adventurer in all of us.

    In The Wise Heart, one of the leading spiritual teachers of our time offers the most accessible and illuminating guide to Buddhism’s transformational psychology ever published in the West.Trained as a monk in Thailand, Burma, and India, Jack Kornfield experienced at first hand the life-changing power of Buddhist teachings: the emphasis on the nobility and sacredness of the human spirit, the fine-grained analysis of emotion and thought, the precise techniques for healing, training, and transforming the mind and heart. In contrast to the medical orientation of most Western psychology and psychiatry, here is a vision of radiant human dignity, and a practical path for realizing it in our own lives.The Wise Heart is the fruit of a life’s work that includes such classics as A Path with Heart and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. Filled with stories from Kornfield’s Buddhist psychotherapy practice and portraits of remarkable teachers, it also includes a moving account of his own recovery from a violence-filled childhood. For meditators and mental health professionals, Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, The Wise Heart offers an extraordinary journey from the roots of consciousness to the highest expression of human possibility.

    This biography of one of the few women in her generation to devote herself entirely to the pursuit of meditation also includes Dipa Ma's spiritual teachings, which have made her a major figure in contemporary Buddhism.