The very idea that the teachings of meditation can be mastered will arouse controversy within Buddhist circles. Even so, Ingram insists that enlightenment is an attainable goal, once our fanciful notions of it are stripped away, and we have learned to use meditation as a method for examining reality rather than an opportunity to wallow in self-absorbed mind-noise .Ingram sets out concisely the difference between concentration-based and insight (Vipassana) meditation; he provides example practices; and most importantly he presents detailed maps of the states of mind we are likely to encounter, and the stages we must negotiate as we move through clearly-defined cycles of insight. It s easy to feel overawed, at first, by Ingram s assurance and ease in the higher levels of consciousness, but consistently he writes as a down-to-earth and compassionate guide to the practitioner willing to commit themselves this is a glittering gift of a book."

    

    Moon in a Dewdrop contains the key essays of the great master, as well as extensive background materials that will help Western readers to approach this significant work. There is also a selection of Dogen's poetry, most of which has not appeared in English translation before.Dogen's thought runs counter to conventional logic, employing paradoxical language and startling imagery. It illuminates such fundamental concerns as the nature of time, existence, life, death, the self, and what is beyond self.

    Zen prayer includes intimacy with the ground of Being, making yourself whole through honest self-reflection, clarifying your deepest spiritual intentions, wishing for the welfare of the world, and affirming the essential goodness of people and life.Prayer can release you from your habitual self-centered tendencies and can open the gates to your miraculous and wondrous existence. Prayer invites you to the timeless and infinite border of the material and invisible world, the place where phenomena and emptiness dynamically interact in the dance of existence. Through sound and silence, prayer invokes goodness, healing, mystery, blessings, and can ignite the flame of your heart.

    Read. Respond. Watch. Listen. God is always there. Always, and all ways...

    Zen master Bernie Glassman compares Jeff Bridges’s iconic role in The Big Lebowski to a Lamed-Vavnik: one of the men in Jewish mysticism who “are simple and unassuming, and so good that, on account of them, God lets the world go on.” His buddy Jeff puts it another way. The wonderful thing about the Dude, he says, is that he’d always rather hug it out than slug it out. For more than a decade, Academy Award–winning actor Jeff Bridges and his buddhist teacher, renowned Roshi Bernie Glassman, have been close friends. Inspiring and often hilarious, The Dude and the Zen Master captures their freewheeling dialogue about life, laughter, and the movies with a charm and bonhomie that never fail to enlighten and entertain. Throughout, their remarkable humanism reminds us of the importance of doing good in a difficult world.

    Over the years it has inspired leading American Zen teachers, students, and practitioners. Its popularity is as high today as ever.Zen Flesh, Zen Bones is a book that offers a collection of accessible, primary Zen sources so that readers can struggle over the meaning of Zen for themselves. It includes 101 Zen Stories, a collection of tales that recount actual experiences of Chinese and Japanese Zen teachers over a period of more than five centuries; The Gateless Gate, the famous thirteenth-century collection of Zen koans; Ten Bulls, a twelfth century commentary on the stages of awareness leading to enlightenment; and Centering, a 4,000 year-old teaching from India that some consider to be the roots of Zen.

    The Feeling Buddha is a lucid account of how the Buddha's path of wisdom and loving kindness grew out of the challenges he encountered in life. Brazier explains the concepts of enlightenment, nirvana and the four Noble Truths, free from mystification. Buddha emerges as a very human figure whose success lay not in his perfection, but in how he positively utilized the energy which was generated through his suffering. This rare guide illustrates how Buddha's philosophy of the "middle way" can lead to a balanced, harmonious, and serene existence in the 21st century.

    When a massive wildfire surrounded Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, five monks risked their lives to save it. A gripping narrative as well as a portrait of the Zen path and the ways of wildfire, Fire Monks reveals what it means to meet a crisis with full presence of mind.Zen master and author of the classic Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi established a monastery at Tassajara Hot Springs in 1967, drawn to the location's beauty, peace, and seclusion. Deep in the wilderness east of Big Sur, the center is connected to the outside world by a single unpaved road. The remoteness that makes it an oasis also makes it particularly vulnerable when disaster strikes. If fire entered the canyon, there would be no escape.More than two thousand wildfires, all started by a single lightning storm, blazed across the state of California in June 2008. With resources stretched thin, firefighters advised residents at Tassajara to evacuate early. Most did. A small crew stayed behind, preparing to protect the monastery when the fire arrived.But nothing could have prepared them for what came next. A treacherous shift in weather conditions prompted a final order to evacuate everyone, including all firefighters. As they caravanned up the road, five senior monks made the risky decision to turn back. Relying on their Zen training, they were able to remain in the moment and do the seemingly impossible-to greet the fire not as an enemy to defeat, but as a friend to guide.Fire Monks pivots on the kind of moment some seek and some run from, when life and death hang in simultaneous view. Novices in fire but experts in readiness, the Tassajara monks summoned both intuition and wisdom to face crisis with startling clarity. The result is a profound lesson in the art of living.

    This inspiring book reveals how the simple practice of mindfulness can be a magical and transformative part of anyone's daily life. Thirty-five wide-ranging essays written by well-known spiritual teachers, therapists, and creative artists show how learning to focus awareness can bring a new richness to ordinary activities; how mindfulness can heighten creative pursuits such as painting, journal writing, or playing music; how contemplative awareness enhances both physical and psychological well-being; and how meditation can contribute to better relationships with family, community, and the world at large.Sunshine and green leaves / Thich Nhat Hanh --Everyday life as practice / Karlfried Graf von Dürckheim --Earth and space / Chögyam Trungpa --This very moment / Charlotte Joko Beck --Not preferring samsara or nirvana / Pema Chödrön --Seeing without the observer / J. Krishnamurti --Are you here? / A.H. Almaas --The way of seeing / Frederick Franck --Writing fearlessly / Natalie Goldberg --Meditation and poetics / Allen Ginsberg --Just being at the piano / Mildred Chase --Coming home to the body / Denise Taylor --Zen archery / Eugen Herrigel --The art of sword / Takuan Soho --Driving meditation / Kevin Berger and Todd Berger --The work of craft / Carla Needleman --Working for a living / Jean Martine --The healing power of unconditional presence / John Welwood --Touch and go / Karen Kissel Wegela --The listening mind / Ram Dass and Paul Gorman --On being unable to breathe / Stephen Butterfield --Conscious eating / Marc David --Being with anger / Stephen Levine --Being peace / Thich Nhat Hanh --Personal disarmament / Deena Metzger --The greening of the self / Joanna Macy --The path of service / Jack Kornfield --Mindful social action / Ken Jones --The power of peace / Chagdud Tulku --Nowness and enlightened society / Chögyam Trungpa --Intimate relationship as a practice and a path / John Welwood --Contemplation and intimacy / Monica Furlong --Family life and spiritual practice / Fran Tribe --Working with dying people / Stephen Levine --Facing death / Dainin Katagiri

    The concepts of "subpersonalities" (the many aspects of the personality) and "projection" (the notion that the entire world is a mirror of who we are) are introduced. Readers are encouraged to consider that they see the world the way they do not because the world is inherently that way, but because of who's looking. Seeing ourselves as having many different parts helps us make sense the the whirling mass of contradictions we sometimes experience within ourselves.

    Extremely accessible to people with little or no Zen experience as well as to longtime students of Buddhism, The Zen Path Through Depression shows how the insights and exercises of Zen offer relief for those suffering from depression.This groundbreaking guide shows how to cope and heal, and even how to see the experience as an opportunity for spiritual growth and learning. Leading readers step-by-step through a recovery process that uses walking meditation and other meditative ways of enhancing awareness, koans, and other Zen teachings, Martin offers true help and spiritual guidance on the path to healing and contentment.

    We often regard it as an enemy, when we feel it slipping away before we’re ready for time to be up. The Zen view of time is radically different than that: time is not something separate from our life; rather, our life is time. Understand this, says Dainin Katagiri Roshi, and you can live fully and freely right where you are in each moment.  Katagiri bases his teaching on Being Time, a text by the most famous of all Zen masters, Eihei Dogen (1200–1253), to show that time is a creative, dynamic process that continuously produces the universe and everything in it—and that to understand this is to discover a gateway to freedom from the dissatisfactions of everyday life. He guides us in contemplating impermanence, the present moment, and the ungraspable nature of past and future. He discusses time as part of our inner being, made manifest through constant change in ourselves and our surroundings. And these ideas are by no means metaphysical abstractions: they can be directly perceived by any of us through meditation.

    In its power to touch the heart, to awaken consciousness, [The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying] is an inestimable gift.”—San Francisco Chronicle A newly revised and updated edition of the internationally bestselling spiritual classic, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, written by Sogyal Rinpoche, is the ultimate introduction to Tibetan Buddhist wisdom. An enlightening, inspiring, and comforting manual for life and death that the New York Times calls, “The Tibetan equivalent of [Dante’s] The Divine Comedy,” this is the essential work that moved Huston Smith, author of The World’s Religions, to proclaim, “I have encountered no book on the interplay of life and death that is more comprehensive, practical, and wise.”

    That’s the premise of this first book by Buddhist teacher Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel. How do we find a resting place in a world that is complex and always changing? How do we practice spirituality beyond the limits of blind acceptance and doubt? Elizabeth proposes that we access our deepest intelligence through asking these kinds of questions. “When we ask a question,” she suggests, “our mind is engaged yet open. The process of inquiry protects us from our tendency to reach static conclusions. Instead, we can respond to uncertainty and change with inquisitiveness and a sense of wonder.” Her book guides us on a provocative, playful, and spiritually enriching journey of contemplation that could last a lifetime.