Showing titles in Buddhism

Jarvis Jay Masters’ early life was a horror story whose outline we know too well. Born in Long Beach, California, his house was filled with crack, alcohol, physical abuse and men who paid his mother for sex. He and his siblings were split up and sent to foster care when he was five, and he progressed quickly to juvenile detention, car theft, armed robbery and ultimately San Quentin. While in prison, he was set up for the murder of a guard - a conviction which landed him on death row, where he’s been since 1990.

Immerse yourself in the profound wisdom of Swami Vivekananda with Motivating Thoughts of Swami Vivekananda. This collection of inspirational quotes and teachings reflects the timeless principles of self-discipline, inner strength and spiritual growth. Each moment offers powerful insights to help you overcome challenges, stay motivated and live a purposeful life. Let the words of Swami Vivekananda guide you on a journey of personal and spiritual transformation.

Buddhism! Tibetan Buddhism! Dzogchen! Have you ever wondered what these teachings are all about? Are they understandable to the average individual? Or is it some deep esoteric stuff that only a highly learned scholar can understand? Do you want to know more about these belief systems? Why are they gaining popularity in the modern world? If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, you have come to the right place. This audiobook is a beginner's guide to Dzogchen practice, a form of Tibetan Buddhism believed to have existed from primordial times.

Buddhism: What Everyone Needs to Know offers listeners a brief, authoritative guide to one of the world's most diverse religious traditions in a listener-friendly question-and-answer format. Dale Wright covers the origins and early history of Buddhism, the diversity of types of Buddhism throughout history, and the status of contemporary Buddhism. This is a go-to guide for anyone seeking a basic understanding of the origins, history, teachings, and practices of Buddhism.

The Buddha's teaching on the five hindrances to awakening in the ancient scripture Samyutta Nikaya, where he contrasts them to the seven factors of enlightenment. They are a feature of what's taught in all the Buddhist traditions. Mitch Abblett gives the teaching a unique modern and secular interpretation, combining traditional wisdom with contemporary psychology - with examples from the lives of the real people he has worked with on the hindrances in his psychotherapy practice.

Pain, loss, shame, sadness - suffering is an unavoidable part of being human. The practice of tonglen offers us a way to transform our relationship with suffering - our own and that which is all around us. In The Courage to Love the World, beloved teacher Pema Chödrön shares insightful and heartfelt stories about tonglen, along with direct instruction and guided practice.

Spring Washam is a founder of the East Bay Meditation Center, the most diverse and accessible meditation center in the United States. In A Fierce Heart, she shares her contemporary, unique interpretation of the Buddha's 2,500-year-old teachings that get to the heart of mindfulness, wisdom, and compassion. Woven throughout the book are stories from her life, family, and community, along with soulful and unexpected stories of compassion in action from all over the world.

Sharing is caring. Giving is good. In one way or another, we have all learned that being generous is a commendable quality to have. This book takes a unique approach to a familiar topic by unveiling some lesser-known benefits of giving and detailing the steps to train the mind to be generous in a way that many people will have never heard before. As a Buddhist monk and previously practicing psychotherapist, Venerable Nick presents this deep, ancient wisdom with a simple framework that is easy to digest and apply.

The practice of meditating has been around for many centuries. Where other exercise forms and fads have come and gone, meditation continues to stand the test of time, proving again and again how practicing it regularly provides numerous mental and physical benefits. Many of us, though, struggle to find the type of meditation that best suits our needs and lifestyle and don't even know where to begin. That is, until now.

Composer John Cage sought the silence of a mind at peace with itself - and found it in Zen Buddhism, a spiritual path that changed both his music and his view of the universe. "Remarkably researched, exquisitely written", Where the Heart Beats weaves together "a great many threads of cultural history" (Maria Popova, Brain Pickings) to illuminate Cage’s struggle to accept himself and his relationship with choreographer Merce Cunningham. Freed to be his own man, Cage originated exciting experiments that set him at the epicenter of a new avant-garde forming in the 1950s.

As with Volume 1, Volume 2 follows the traditional ordering of the individual works in the Khuddaka Nikāya, which makes for a curious, but invigorating collection. The first two texts, Therīgāthā and Theragāthā, present the traditional histories of the bhikkhunīs (nuns) and bhikkhus (monks) of the Buddha’s time. In each case, their biographies (written centuries later by Dharmapāla who had access to sources now lost) lead to verses ascribed to the real individuals on gaining nibbāna. Here are fascinating glimpses of life at the time of the Buddha.

Have you ever wanted to love and connect with others more deeply... but felt that you could use a little help shedding your "emotional armor" and opening your heart? With Awakening Love, Pema Chodron invites you to start wherever you are, amid any and all of the challenges, frustrations, or fears you may be facing, and to use them as the starting place to awaken the natural and boundless capacity to give and receive love more fully.

If you are a human being and you ever experience life as being less than amazing and joyous and wonderful, this audiobook is for you. If you have ever wanted to know more about Buddhism and the Buddha but find books about eastern religion confusing and stuffy, this book is for you. If you long for a path that leads you not to dependence upon another religion or master or anything, but leads you right back to your own best self, this book is for you.

William C. Martin has freshly reinterpreted the Tao Te Ching to speak directly and clearly to the most difficult of modern tasks—parenting. With its combination of free verse and judicious advice, The Parent's Tao Te Ching addresses the great themes that permeate the Tao and that support loving parent-child relationships: responding without judgment, emulating natural processes, and balancing between doing and being.

Happiness is your birthright and it is readily available at any given moment, teaches Pema Chodron. So, why do we live in such suffering? "The potential for happiness is not based on outer things; they come and go, causing us misery," she begins. "We're always chasing after something, trying to avoid the difficult places. But there are a lot of small sweetnesses that we ignore because they're so fleeting."

One of the earliest of all Buddhist texts, the Atthakavagga, or Book of Eights, is a remarkable document, not only because it comes from the earliest strain of the literature - before the Buddha, as the title suggests, came to be thought of as a "Buddhist" - but also because its approach to awakening is so simple and free of adherence to any kind of ideology. Instead the Atthakavagga points to a direct and simple approach for attaining peace without requiring the adherence to doctrine.

What if the full sense of our aliveness were only to be found amidst our most challenging times and difficult experiences? In pain and crisis, teaches Pema Chödrön, there lies a hidden doorway to freedom that appears to us only when we're sure that there is no way out. In these intimate audio learning sessions, Pema Chödrön helps us distinguish the triggers or external events that we blame for our suffering from the deeper habitual patterns that feed our anger, fear, or sadness.

In the final volume of his twelve-part series on The Dhammapada, Osho sheds light on Buddha's insight that every person holds the seed of enlightenment and the power to become their own master.

The Dīghanikāya or Long Discourses of the Buddha is one of the four major collections of teachings from the early period of Buddhism. Its 34 suttas (in Sanskrit, sutras) demonstrate remarkable breadth in both content and style, forming a comprehensive collection. The Art of Listening gives an introduction to the Dīghanikāya and demonstrates the historical, cultural, and spiritual insights that emerge when we view the Buddhist suttas as oral literature.

We all have fears, but when we look closely at them, we discover that behind each fear resides a basic fear of ourselves. We're afraid to look at our habitual styles of thinking and behaving because we might not always like what we see. Ironically it is this fear of honest self-reflection that keeps us trapped in patterns of stress and discontentment. Here is a vision for moving beyond this most basic fear to discover the innate bravery, trust, and joy that reside at the core of our being.