Excerpts Guides

Lha Bab Duchen | The Buddha’s Descent from Tushita

Lha Bab Duchen | The Buddha’s Descent from Tushita

Maya’s Conversion An Excerpt from Stars at Dawn We return to the Buddha’s biography as he, too, has reached the end of his life. For forty-five years he roamed northeast India, teaching his disciples and converting an ever-growing number of women and men to the new Buddhist faith. At the core of his ministry’s purpose [...]
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Yvonne Rand: A Profile of a Life of Zen

Yvonne Rand: A Profile of a Life of Zen

A Remembrance of Yvonne RandYvonne Rand, a leading teacher and figure in Zen Buddhism in the US, passed away on August 19, 2020. While not the author of any books, her writing appears in several books including: A White Tea Bowl: 100 Haiku from 100 Years of Life which includes a piece by Yvonne about Shunryu [...]
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The Carp in the Castle Moat

The Carp in the Castle Moat

An Essay by Joanna Macy From A Wild Love for the World In early 1985, I was offering workshops across Australia to activists resisting nuclear testing, uranium mining, and the logging of their last old-growth forests. They found that the Despair and Empowerment work freed them from burnout and kindled their love for one another. [...]
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Zen, Writing, and Studying Brain Damage

Zen, Writing, and Studying Brain Damage

Excerpt from Four Men Shaking: Searching for Sanity with Samuel Beckett, Norman Mailer, and My Perfect Zen Teacher I go to sleep early but wake in a panic, realizing at once that Roshi’s talk is simmering in my mind. No label—not “anxiety,” not “terror,” not even “panic”—seems right for my condition until it occurs to [...]
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The Guru Rinpoche Day of Each Month

The Guru Rinpoche Day of Each Month

An excerpt from Tibetan Astrology, where Phillipe Cornu summarizes Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche's explanation of each month's 10th day, or Guru Rinpoche Day. The 10th is Guru Rinpoche day. Guru Rinpoche or Padmasambhava is the Buddha who established Tantric Buddhism in Tibet. At the esoteric level, he is the essence of all buddhas and masters. He [...]
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Special Practice Days in the Tibetan Calendar

Special Practice Days in the Tibetan Calendar

Special Practice Days in the Tibetan Calendar What follows is an excerpt by Kunkyen Tenpe Nyima from Vajra Wisdom: Deity Practice in Tibetan Buddhism on the special practice days of the month as well as the monthly special days.  It is followed by an excert from Tibetan Astrology on the specific days of each month. [...]
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The Importance of Pain

The Importance of Pain

Natural Warmth An excerpt from Taking the Leap Before we can know what natural warmth really is, often we must experience loss. We go along for years moving through our days, propelled by habit, taking life pretty much for granted. Then we or someone dear to us has an accident or gets seriously ill, and [...]
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Flux of Flowers: Notes on Love

Flux of Flowers: Notes on Love

Notes on Practice, Love, and Social Action Excerpt from The World Comes to You Love 1 By love, I don’t mean just between people—I mean a love for invention, architecture, neighborhoods, water, whales, soil, technology, farmers, etc. I’m talking about a love that doesn’t leave anything out. When we look deeply at the physical world, [...]
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Featured Poems from First Free Women

First Free Women Poems Excerpted from The First Free Women Another Mitta ~ Friend My mother always told me, Be good— and you’ll get everything you ever wanted. Now I eat once a day and wear only a shaved head and double robe. It took some strength. It took some courage to try and see [...]
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The Plasticity of Human Intelligence

The Plasticity of Human Intelligence

Brain Plasticity An Excerpt from The Natural Laws of Children Living with a Child is Participating in the Specialization of its Brain Given this continuous synaptic pruning operating on the basis of frequency of experience, if a child is most frequently exposed to coarse, slangy vocabulary, even if it occasionally has the opportunity to hear [...]
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What Do Our Pets Need?

What Do Our Pets Need?

Emotional Needs of the Animals We Care For An Excerpt from Kindness for All Creatures Core Needs What do animals need? Basics include food, water, shelter, rest, safety from undue fear and harm, opportunities for play, company, solitude, territory (a nest), enrichment (stimulation), toys and activities, and healthy interactions. Most pets need praise and positive feedback. [...]
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One Family

One Family

"It's My Karma" An Excerpt from Choosing Compassion by Anam Thubten Rinpoche One of the strongest impulses we all have is our desire to experience transcendence. When we tap into transcendence we rise above all of our concerns. We are no longer dominated by fear and we are no longer caught up in the web [...]
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Perceiving Reality and the Metaphor of the Way

Perceiving Reality and the Metaphor of the Way

The following is an adapted excerpt from The Great Within The Transformative Power and Psychology of the Spiritual Path By Han F. de Wit The Great Within$24.95 - PaperbackBy: Han F. de Wit Add to Cart Exploring the Meaning of The Way The Way, or the Path, is a universal metaphor encountered again and again in [...]
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The Way of the Warrior

The Way of the Warrior

Essential Teachings An Excerpt from Budōshoshinshu Budōshoshinshu and Hagakure are the most influential treatises on samurai philosophy from the Edo period. The two books were written at about the same time and both address the warrior’s role in times of peace. While Hagakure was mostly a secret book of the Nabeshima clan until the twentieth [...]
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Thomas Merton’s Journals

Thomas Merton’s Journals

Mary Gordon's Close Read of the Journals An Excerpt from On Thomas Merton A Structured Approach I very much regret that it took me so long to get to Merton’s journals. There are seven volumes of them, over 2,500 pages—longer than the whole of Proust, whom I also read obsessively for years. I entered into [...]
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The Benefit of Retreat

The Benefit of Retreat

Shabkar Elucidates the Essentials of Spiritual Practice The Emanated Scripture of Manjushri includes twenty-three pieces of advice from Shabkar (1781–1851), teacher both of the Mind-Training and the Dzogchen traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. In this work, Shabkar shares what he believes to be the essentials of spiritual practice. In this particular section, Shabkar illuminates the importance of retreat [...]
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“Vanished! Extinguished!”

“Vanished! Extinguished!”

Gurdjieff. “Disparu! Éteint!” An Excerpt from Gurdjieff Reconsidered I make a point of visiting her bookstore, the ideal Parisian bookstore if you care for old editions, rarities, surprises. Widow of a well-respected poet, she presides with touching goodwill over history and taste in the form of books, thousands of books, shelves and stacks of books [...]
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My Path | Jules Shuzen Harris’ Journey to Zen Buddhism

My Path | Jules Shuzen Harris’ Journey to Zen Buddhism

My Story of Becoming the First African-American Man to Receive Soto Zen Transmission An Excerpt from Zen beyond Mindfulness My Beginnings I was born in 1939 in Chester, Pennsylvania, an industrial town just outside of Philadelphia that was working class and extremely diverse. Based on this background, the path I ended up taking was exceedingly [...]
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The Second Vajra Point: Magical Illusion

The Second Vajra Point: Magical Illusion

The Universe and Beings An Excerpt from Finding Rest in Illusion This excerpt provides commentary on the second vajra point in Finding Rest in Illusion, the third book in the Trilogy of Rest. The character of illusion is applied to the entire phenomenal field of both samsara and nirvana. The second vajra point explains that we [...]
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Navigating the Battle of Life | An Excerpt from The Bhagavad Gita

Navigating the Battle of Life | An Excerpt from The Bhagavad Gita

A Fresh Translation The Yoga of Arjuna's Crisis No Life without Struggle Dhritarāshtra asked: Sanjaya, what did my sons and the sons of Pāndu do, when they were gathered for the sake of fighting on the field of dharma, in the field of the Kurus? Forces in the Battle of Life Sanjaya said: Having seen [...]
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An Overview of Tsok (Ganachakra) or Feast Practice

An Overview of Tsok (Ganachakra) or Feast Practice

[An Excerpt on the practice of tsok, or ganachakra, from The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness, the Vajrayana volume of The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma] Feast Practice and the Destruction of Rudra In connection with samaya, one of the practices that has been developed is called a feast offering, or tsokkyi khorlo. [...]
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Bhartrihari the Poet | An Excerpt from Some Unquenchable Desire

Bhartrihari the Poet | An Excerpt from Some Unquenchable Desire

Bhartrihari the Poet, Bhartrihari the Linguist Nalanda Everything known for certain about India’s poet Bhartrihari could be engraved on a grain of rice. He steps into the wavering historical record like a ghost out of the mist in 671 C.E., when the Chinese pilgrim I-Tsing (Yijing in the newer way of spelling) jotted down his [...]
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A Buddhist Approach to Politics: An Interview with Chogyam Trungpa

A Buddhist Approach to Politics: An Interview with Chogyam Trungpa

This article on Buddhism and Politics originally appeared in the Shambhala Review of Books and Ideas, Vol 5, Winter 1976.  It in included in the Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, Volume 8. The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Eight$59.95 - HardcoverBy: Carolyn Rose Gimian & Chogyam Trungpa Add to Cart Shambhala Review: To most [...]
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Finding One’s Self in the Universe | An Excerpt from Song of Myself

Finding One’s Self in the Universe | An Excerpt from Song of Myself

The Core of Walt Whitman’s Poetic Vision I am enamoured of growing outdoors, Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods, Of the builders and steerers of ships, of the wielders of axes and mauls, of the drivers of horses, I can eat and sleep with them week in and [...]
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The Book of Divine Consolation | An Excerpt from The Pocket Meister Eckhart

The Book of Divine Consolation | An Excerpt from The Pocket Meister Eckhart

Manifesting Goodness First of all, one should know that the wise man and Wisdom, the true man and Truth, the just man and Justice, the good man and Goodness, are related to each other and are proportioned to one another as follows: Goodness is neither created nor made nor born; but it is giving birth [...]
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At the Mercy of the Bootstraps Barbershop Chorus | An Excerpt from Notes for the Everlost

At the Mercy of the Bootstraps Barbershop Chorus | An Excerpt from Notes for the Everlost

Sharing is the antidote. Irene messaged me a few months after her son Oliver had died of SIDS, another episode in our ongoing conversation from one continent to the other. Looking for you today. I hope you don’t mind. Oh! Are you okay love? No, but I’m getting used to it now and don’t expect [...]
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The Path of Spheres | An Excerpt from Kabbalah

The Path of Spheres | An Excerpt from Kabbalah

Kabbalistic Meditation Since the Middle Ages the cosmic tree of life with its ten spheres, or divine attributes, has been the central image of kabbalistic meditation. Though some masters adapted the “seven heavens” of the first century Merkabah mystics, equating them with the seven lower branches of the tree, most Kabbalists focused their attention on [...]
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North | An Excerpt from After Ikkyu and Other Poems

North | An Excerpt from After Ikkyu and Other Poems

The mind of which we are unaware is aware of us. —R. D. Lang The rising sun not beet. or blood, but sea-rose red. I amplified my heartbeat one thousand times, the animals at first confused then decided I was another thunder being. While talking directly to god my attention waxed and waned. I have [...]
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The Future of Religion | An Excerpt from the Religion of Tomorrow

The Future of Religion | An Excerpt from the Religion of Tomorrow

A Vision for the Future of the Great Traditions A Religion of Tomorrow This is a book about what a possible religion of tomorrow might look like. It is meant to apply across the field of the Great Traditions; I believe that all of them will, in fact, most likely end up incorporating many of [...]
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Chogyur Lingpa: A Profile

Chogyur Lingpa: A Profile

An excerpt from Tibetan Treasure Literature: Revelation, Tradition, and Accomplishment in Visionary Buddhism by Andreas Doctor By www.treasuryoflives.org [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsFew Treasures of the Nyingma School have left a larger imprint on contemporary Tibetan Buddhism than those of the famed nineteenth century master Chokgyur Dechen Shigpo Lingpa (1829-1870). Since the time of his revelations [...]
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Flowers | An Excerpt from The Dhammapada

Flowers | An Excerpt from The Dhammapada

A New Translation of the Buddhist Classic Who will master this world And the realms of Yama and the gods? Who will select a well‑taught Dharma teaching, As a skilled person selects a flower? One in training will master this world And the realms of Yama and the gods. One in training will select A [...]
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The Life of Jigten Sumgön, an excerpt

The Life of Jigten Sumgön, an excerpt

by Drigung Kyabgön Padmai Gyältsen [An excerpt from Opening the Treasure of the Profound: Teachings on the Songs of Jigten Sumgon and Milarepa] OM SVASTI The victorious Shakya saw the five sights. He showed the victorious path, and, to expand the teachings, took birth again as the victorious regent Ratna Shri. I prostrate to him. Opening [...]
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Mountains in My Blood | An Excerpt from Himalaya

Mountains in My Blood | An Excerpt from Himalaya

Meditations on the Roof of the World It was while I was living in England, in the jostle and drizzle of London, that I remembered the Himalayas at their most vivid. I had grown up amongst those great blue and brown mountains; they had nourished my blood; and though I was separated from them by [...]
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Singapore Dream | An Excerpt from Singapore Dream & Other Adventures

Singapore Dream | An Excerpt from Singapore Dream & Other Adventures

Hermann Hesse’s Southeast Asian Travels In the morning I had chased butterflies on the byways, overgrown with grass and overhung with foliage, that run among the European gardens. In the white heat of noon I returned to the city on foot, and I passed the afternoon walking about, visiting shops, and doing my shopping in [...]
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Free Download | Yoga for Brain + Nervous System Health

Free Download | Yoga for Brain + Nervous System Health

Would you like to keep your brain and nervous system happy as you age? These 20 pages provide must-have information about how aging affects your brain, central nervous system, peripheral nervous system, digestive system, circulatory system, and more. There are many easy things you can do to keep these systems healthy—learn how yoga can help! [...]
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The Life of Master Yunmen | An Excerpt from Zen Master Yunmen

The Life of Master Yunmen | An Excerpt from Zen Master Yunmen

An Introduction to a Remarkable Life Youth Yunmen was born in 864 in Jiaxing, a town between Shanghai and Hangzhou on China’s eastern coast. His family name was Zhang; but because it was the custom for Buddhist monks to abandon their family names, he became known as Wenyan and later took the name of Mt. [...]
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The Chariot of Surpassing Purity | An Excerpt from Finding Rest in Meditation

The Chariot of Surpassing Purity | An Excerpt from Finding Rest in Meditation

Prologue Homage to you, O glorious Samantabhadra! Your nature is the ultimate expanse, Primordial and perfect peace. Though free of all conceptual constructs, It is yet embellished by the kāyas and the wisdoms Present of themselves. From this there radiates a myriad rays of light Performing every kind of action In the field of those [...]
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Why Go beyond Gender? | An Excerpt from Buddhism beyond Gender

Why Go beyond Gender? | An Excerpt from Buddhism beyond Gender

Rejecting the Idea of Gender Roles The Prison of Gender Roles What “it” has a greater hold on people’s imaginations or limits them more than ideas about what biological sex must mean, what I call “the prison of gender roles”? Almost all conventional people—often called “ordinary worldlings” in Buddhist texts—as well as many Buddhists hold [...]
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The View | An Excerpt from The Sound of Cherry Blossoms

The View | An Excerpt from The Sound of Cherry Blossoms

Clarify Your Definitions We have all been in gardens—even very costly ones—that we find oddly uninspiring. There are the landscapes around mansions where money has been lavished on moving trees, building pools, patios, and fire pits, and planting lush lawns, yet we don’t much enjoy being in those spaces and may even find them stale [...]
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The F-Word | An Excerpt from The Logic of Faith

The F-Word | An Excerpt from The Logic of Faith

Introduction This entire book hinges on the word faith. You may assume that you know what that means. You may think that it has a single, clear definition. But words are not definitive structures: one word can have limitless—even opposing—meanings. Language morphs over time, and words take on different meanings depending on their contexts. You’ll [...]
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Freedom Fighter | An Excerpt from The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi

Freedom Fighter | An Excerpt from The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi

British Feminist, Indian Nationalist, Buddhist Nun She was the first Western woman to become a Tibetan Buddhist nun—but that pioneering ordination was really just one in a life full of revolutionary acts. Freda Bedi (1911–1977) broke the rules of gender, race, and religion—in many cases before it was thought that the rules were ready to [...]
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The Past | An Excerpt from Integral Buddhism

The Past | An Excerpt from Integral Buddhism

Historical Introduction The Unique Features of Buddhism Buddhism is a unique spiritual system in many ways, while also sharing some fundamental similarities with the other Great Wisdom Traditions of humankind. But perhaps one of the most unique features is its understanding, in some schools, that its own system is evolving or developing. This is generally [...]
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The Anatomy of a Common Tibetan Ritual | An Excerpt from Indestructible Truth

The Anatomy of a Common Tibetan Ritual | An Excerpt from Indestructible Truth

The Anatomy of a Common Tibetan Ritual: The Lhasang The lhasang—literally ‘‘higher purification offering,’’ which may be glossed as ‘‘invocation of the higher beings’’—is one of the most common rituals in traditional Tibet. While some rituals are performed strictly for temporal ends and others for spiritual ends, the lhasang is interesting because it is performed [...]
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The Essence of Wisdom | An Excerpt from Beyond the Ordinary Mind

The Essence of Wisdom | An Excerpt from Beyond the Ordinary Mind

The Essence of Wisdom: How to Sustain the Face of Rigpa by Jamgön Mipham To the glorious primordial protector, I pay homage! There are three stages to sustaining the essence of rigpa: (1) recognition, (2) perfecting the strength, and (3) gaining stability. At first, refine your understanding until, through the guru’s instructions, you come to see [...]
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Meditation Looks Inward, Poetry Holds Forth | An Excerpt from Hard to Be a Saint in the City

Meditation Looks Inward, Poetry Holds Forth | An Excerpt from Hard to Be a Saint in the City

We have excerpted part of the chapter “Meditation Looks Inward, Poetry Holds Forth: Is There a Beat Way of Writing?” from Hard to Be a Saint in the City: The Spiritual Vision of the Beats here. In this book, Robert Inchausti explores the Beat canon to reveal that the movement was at its heart a spiritual one. [...]
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This Deepest Self | An Excerpt from The Truth of This Life

This Deepest Self | An Excerpt from The Truth of This Life

We have excerpted the chapter “This Deepest Self” from The Truth of This Life: Zen Teachings on Loving the World as It Is here. “The truth and joy of this life is that we cannot change things as they are.” The import of those words can be found beautifully expressed in the work of the woman who spoke [...]
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The Most Popular Posts from the Yoga for Healthy Aging Blog

The Most Popular Posts from the Yoga for Healthy Aging Blog

by Nina Zolotow, author of Yoga for Healthy Aging Because the sixth anniversary of the Yoga for Healthy Aging blog is coming up next week, I thought I’d check to see what our nine most popular—or at least most viewed—posts were over all time. (Nine seems like a random number but for some reason that’s [...]
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Offering Realization | An Excerpt from The Supreme Siddhi of Mahamudra

Offering Realization | An Excerpt from The Supreme Siddhi of Mahamudra

We have excerpted the chapter “Offering Realization: In the Presence of Pagmo Drupa” from The Supreme Siddhi of Mahamudra: Teachings, Poems, and Songs of the Drukpa Kagyu Lineage here. The Drukpa Kagyu lineage is renowned among the traditions of Vajrayana Buddhism for producing some of the greatest yogis from across the Himalayas. After spending many years [...]
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Impermanence | An Excerpt from Finding Rest in the Nature of the Mind

Impermanence | An Excerpt from Finding Rest in the Nature of the Mind

We have excerpted the chapter “Impermanence” from Finding Rest in the Nature of the Mind: The Trilogy of Rest, Volume 1 here. Written in the fourteenth century, this text is the first volume of Longchenpa’s Trilogy of Rest, a work of the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition. This profound and comprehensive presentation of the Buddhist view and path combines [...]
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Salamba Prasarita Padottanasana | An Excerpt from Restore & Rebalance

Salamba Prasarita Padottanasana | An Excerpt from Restore & Rebalance

We have excerpted the chapter “Salamba Prasarita Padottanasana: Supported Wide-Legged Forward Bend” from Restore and Rebalance by Judith Hanson Lasater. This chapter describes how to complete the Salamba Prasarita Padottanasana or Supported Wide-Legged Forward Bend pose. Click here to read  “Salamba Prasarita Padottanasana: Supported Wide-Legged Forward Bend” from Restore and Rebalance Related Books Restore and Rebalance$21.95 - [...]
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The Sweeper Printable Coloring Page Excerpt

The Sweeper Printable Coloring Page Excerpt

The Sweeper: A Buddhist Tale by Rebecca Hazell tells the story of Padme, a young servant girl, who meets the Buddha as she is sweeping her master’s house. When she laments that she is so busy that she would never have time to meditate, the Buddha gives her the instruction to “sweep and clean.” This simple [...]
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Suffering and the End of Suffering | An Excerpt from Touching the Infinite

Suffering and the End of Suffering | An Excerpt from Touching the Infinite

We have excerpted a portion of chapter one entitled, “Suffering and the End of Suffering,” from Touching the Infinite: A New Perspective on the Buddha's Four Foundations of Mindfulness here. To order the full book, click here. During a question-and-answer period after a meditation session I was leading, a student asked where meditation was taking us. He [...]
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Samsara | An Excerpt from An Ocean of Blessings

Samsara | An Excerpt from An Ocean of Blessings

We have excerpted the chapter “Samsara” from An Ocean of Blessings: Heart Teachings of Drubwang Penor Rinpoche here. This inspiring work is the first available collection of teachings by one of the most well-known Nyingmapa masters of the twentieth century, His Holiness Penor Rinpoche. To order the full book, click here. Everyone in this world wants perfect comfort [...]
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Trusting in Self | An Excerpt from The Light That Shines through Infinity

Trusting in Self | An Excerpt from The Light That Shines through Infinity

We have excerpted a portion of chapter one from The Light That Shines through Infinity: Zen and the Energy of Life here. To order the full book, click here. Zen Buddhism is not a philosophy like rationalism or empiricism; Zen is actual life. But when you study Zen, sometimes it may seem that Zen denies the value [...]
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Who Is Milarepa?

Who Is Milarepa?

See also our Reader Guide to Milarepa. Milarepa, the famous Tibetan yogi, lives on through his joyous, instructional songs and poetry. Both the new translation of The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, from Christopher Stagg, and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s exploration of his life in Milarepa: Lessons from the Life & Songs of Tibet's Great Yogi [...]
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The Offering of the Pigeon Goddess Girl | Excerpt From The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa

The Offering of the Pigeon Goddess Girl | Excerpt From The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa

In this excerpt, Milarepa is visited by eight goddesses who arrive in the form of pigeons to hide themselves “from people with negativity.” The goddesses perform magic that reveals their bodily forms, and request that Milarepa come to the divine world to teach them the dharma. Milarepa explains the fleeting pleasures of both the divine [...]
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Yeshé Tsogyal: Mother of the Victorious Ones

Yeshé Tsogyal: Mother of the Victorious Ones

In this chapter from The Life and Visions of Yeshé Tsogyal, Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown explains some of the travails Yeshé Tsogyal went through, including a contested betrothal and a journey through hell, to become the mother of the buddhas, accomplished in faith, courage, and kindness. To order the full book, click here. by Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown In 1959, [...]
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Trump and a Post-Truth World Chapter 1

Trump and a Post-Truth World Chapter 1

Here, we have excerpted chapter 1 of Trump and a Post-Truth World by Ken Wilber. It will give you a sense of Wilber’s proposition that postmodernism, while leading to many egalitarian victories, has also lead to a crisis of nihilism, narcissism, and anger that has set the stage for President Donald Trump. To order the full book, click here. [...]
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The Buddha’s Eightfold Path

The Buddha’s Eightfold Path

The Noble Eightfold Path from Chogyam Trungpa's The Path of Indivdual Liberation, volume One of the Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma There are eight categories of the path of meditation, which are collectively known as the noble eightfold path.* The eight limbs of the noble path are perfect view, perfect understanding, perfect speech, [...]
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From the Introduction to Asanga’s Bodhisattvabhumi

From the Introduction to Asanga’s Bodhisattvabhumi

From Artemus Engle's introduction to his translation of Asang'a Bodhisattvabhumi A Manual for the Entire Bodhisattva Collection of Discourses I believe it is also reasonable to describe The Stage of a Bodhisattva as a work that represents a new development in the history of the Buddhist Abhidharma tradition and one that focuses exclusively and in [...]
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An Introduction to the Flower Ornament Sutra

An Introduction to the Flower Ornament Sutra

What follows is an excerpt from Entry into the Inconceivable: An Introduction to Hua-Yen Buddhism, the basis of which is the Avatamsaka or Flower Ornament Sutra. This is entire work is included in Classics of Buddhism and Zen, Volume Five To appreciate fully the comprehensive scope and detail of the Hua­yen teaching, it is necessary [...]
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Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche on Devotion

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche on Devotion

An Excerpt from  Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse's Guru Drinks Bourbon  How to Generate Devotion Most of us think that because we have studied the Dharma for a while we have understood a few things. We may have understood a little, and we may have even had some fleeting experience. If we are aware that this knowledge [...]
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Ramakrishna on Weeping for God

Ramakrishna on Weeping for God

Who Weeps for God? People shed a whole jug of tears for wife and children. They swim in tears for money. But who weeps for God? Cry to Him with a real cry. Longing is like the rosy dawn. After the dawn out comes the sun. Longing is followed by the vision of God. God [...]
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Lana Wachowski, Writer/Director of “The Matrix,” Interviews Ken Wilber about Brief History

Lana Wachowski, Writer/Director of “The Matrix,” Interviews Ken Wilber about Brief History

Lana Wachowski Interviews Ken Wilber Learn More An exploration of Integral Theory Lana Wachowski: Let’s see . . . always awkward getting started with this kind of thing because there is so much context, so many backstories and memories tucked into various corners of the integral cupboard that would not only help readers understand why [...]
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Alex Grey’s Artist’s Prayer in The Mission of Art

Alex Grey’s Artist’s Prayer in The Mission of Art

Creator of the universe, How infinite and astonishing Are your worlds. Thank you For your sacred art And sustaining presence Divine Imagination, Forgive my blindness, Open all my eyes. Reveal the light of truth. Let original beauty Guide my every stroke. Universal Creativity, Flow through me, From my heart Through my mind to my hand, [...]
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Samurai Wisdom Stories: The Archery Contest

Samurai Wisdom Stories: The Archery Contest

With the introduction of firearms, the art of bow shooting was in danger of disappearing. However, this art was one of the principal disciplines of bushido, the Way of the Samurai. As a means of keeping this tradition alive, the annual Toshiya archery contest was instituted. The site of the contest was a temple in [...]
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The Introduction to the Bhagavad Gita

The Introduction to the Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita$19.95 - PaperbackBy: Ravi Ravindra Add to Cart From the introduction of Ravi Ravindra's Bhagavad Gita. Bhagavad means "blessed"; Gita means "song." The Bhagavad Gita is The Song of the Blessed One, although the title is often rendered as The Song of the Blessed Lord, referring to Krishna, an incarnation of the Highest [...]
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From the Foreword to the Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff

From the Foreword to the Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff

The Reality of Being$27.95 - PaperbackBy: Jeanne de Salzmann Add to Cart George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1866–1949) regarded knowl­edge of reality—what he called true "knowledge of being"—as a stream flowing from remote antiquity, passed on from age to age, from people to people, from race to race. He viewed this knowledge as the indis­pensable means to [...]
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A. H. Almaas’s Introduction to the Diamond Approach

A. H. Almaas’s Introduction to the Diamond Approach

The Diamond Approach$19.95 - PaperbackBy: John Davis Add to Cart A.H. Almaas' foreword from John Davis' The Diamond Approach: An Introduction to the Teachings of A. H. Almaas I never intended to create the Diamond Approach. It emerged and developed under its own intelligence and dy­namics. It is true I am the primary person responsible [...]
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The Nature of People from Mastering the Art of War

The Nature of People from Mastering the Art of War

Mastering the Art of War$24.95 - PaperbackBy: Thomas Cleary & Liu Ji & Zhuge Liang Add to Cart Knowing People An excerpt from Mastering the Art of War.  Composed by two prominent statesmen-generals of classical China, this book develops the strategies of Sun Tzu's classic, The Art of War, into a complete handbook of organization and [...]
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The Energy of Life from Eva Wong’s Being Taoist

The Energy of Life from Eva Wong’s Being Taoist

Understanding the Energy of Life An excerpt from Eva Wong's Being Taoist Laozi said the following: The valley spirit that does not die is the Mysterious Female. The gate of the Mysterious Female is the root of the sky and the earth. Heshang Gong (202–157 b.c.e.), known as the Sage of the River, added the [...]
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Mad Monk: An Excerpt from Zen Confidential

Mad Monk: An Excerpt from Zen Confidential

A lot of pissed-off people wind up at our monastery. This place has a tractor beam like the Death Star's in Star Wars that pulls in anyone within a thousand-mile radius with a four-letter word on the tip of his or her tongue. Her marriage tanked; he's got an itch in his brain he just [...]
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10 Tips for a Mindful Home

10 Tips for a Mindful Home

Wake with the sun There is no purer light than what we see when we open our eyes first thing in the morning.   Sit Mindfulness without meditation is just a word.   Make your bed The state of your bed is the state of your head. Enfold your day in dignity.   Empty the [...]
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Honoring Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche

Honoring Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche

The family here at Shambhala Publications is deeply saddened by the loss of the incredible master, teacher, and author Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche, who passed away in Australia at 12:10 a.m. on July 24, 2012, the Fourth Day of the Sixth Month of the Tibetan calendar in the Year of the Dragon. Rinpoche was a close [...]
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A Simple Exercise for Relaxation

A Simple Exercise for Relaxation

Did you know that you can alleviate common stress and mood problems by working with different breathing patterns? Here's an opportunity for you to give it a try. The excerpt and audio exercise below are taken from The Healing Power of the Breath: Simple Techniques to Reduce Stress and Anxiety, Enhance Concentration, and Balance Your [...]
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How Do You Avoid Intimacy?

How Do You Avoid Intimacy?

Everything is the Way: Ordinary Mind Zen By Elihu Genmyo Smith     Intimacy: How does this occur? Practice is intimacy, intimacy as the whole universe, intimacy as our life, as this moment. Because it is so simple and straightforward, for just this reason we find all sorts of ways to avoid our life, our [...]
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No Delight; No Courage

No Delight; No Courage

The excerpt below features a slogan from Michael Carroll's new book,  Fearless at Work: Timeless Teachings for Awakening Confidence, Resilience, and Creativity in the Face of Life's Demands.  Learn more about the book here.     "No Delight; No Courage" One of my favorite Taoist stories passed down through the centuries recounts the tale of [...]
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The Mindful Way through Pregnancy

The Mindful Way through Pregnancy

The audio download below, taken from the companion CD to the book The Mindful Way through Pregnancy, features a guided medita­tion to help you achieve deep relaxation. This body-awareness meditation can be used during pregnancy and after giving birth. It provides a simple way to relax anytime-some­thing invaluable both during the stresses of pregnancy and afterward. [...]
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Drive All Blames into One

Drive All Blames into One

The following is an excerpt from Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong By Norman Fischer It is quite counter-intuitive, quite upside down. What it is saying is: whatever happens, don't ever blame anyone or anything else, always blame only yourself. Eat the blame and it will make you strong. There's another [...]
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The Passing of Lama Tharchin Rinpoche

The Passing of Lama Tharchin Rinpoche

We are deeply saddened when Lama Tharchin Rinpoche passed away  Monday, July 22, 2013. Lama Tharchin was born in Tibet and was a dzogchen master who received his training at Dudjom Rinpoche's monastery. He fled Tibet in 1959 to live in India and Nepal, before arriving in the United States in 1984. He was the tenth [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Red Thread of Passion

Hidden Treasure – The Red Thread of Passion

The Red Thread of Passion by David Guy Is sex an enemy that must be subdued before spiritual practice can happen, or is it a powerful creative force and a vehicle of enlightenment? Opinions have differed throughout the ages. Rather than forcing his own answer, David Guy takes the question as an impetus for exploration, [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Super Human Life of Gesar of Ling

Hidden Treasure – The Super Human Life of Gesar of Ling

The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling Translated by Alexandra David-Neel and Lama Yongden This little volume may have been surpassed by Robin Kornman's monumental translation of the Gesar epic (which we also published), but it's still pretty handy. It serves as a synopsis of the great epic-think of it as the Cliff's Notes version. [...]
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Hidden Treasure – An Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism

An Encylopedia of Archetypal Symbolism, Volume Two: The Body by George R. Elder The glory days of Jungian psychology publishing were over before we got to volume three of this projected multi-volume series, but what a wonder volume two is! The large-format hardcover with its full page images of art related to the body, from [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Natural Laws of Good Luck

The Natural Laws of Good Luck by Ellen Graf A friend of Ellen Graf, thinking they'd hit it off, suggested that Ellen meet her brother. The catch was, he lived in China, he spoke almost no English, and Ellen would have to travel there to meet him. Thus began one of the most unusual blind [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Awakened One

Hidden Treasure – The Awakened One

The Awakened One: A Life of the Buddha by Sherab Chodzin Kohn It's one of the great archetypal stories-and in it is contained the seeds of liberation for all beings. This retelling is both readable and informed by an understanding of Buddhist history and teaching. This volume also includes a short history of Buddhism and [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Golden Ass of Apuleius

Hidden Treasure – The Golden Ass of Apuleius

The Golden Ass of Apuleius by Marie-Louise von Franz Nobody ever took apart a myth better than the great Dr. von Franz, one of C.G. Jung's foremost disciples. Maybe the foremost. Here she analyses the wildly entertaining second-century Roman novel about a man who gets turned into a donkey, and uses it to show us [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Poetry of Zen

Hidden Treasure – The Poetry of Zen

The Poetry of Zen Edited by Sam Hamill and J P Seaton This exquisite little book is a delight to hold and look at. It's even more delightful when you start to read the poetic articulations of enlightenment it contains. So, although it looks great in your hand, don't neglect opening it up! For more [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Two Strang Tales

Hidden Treasure – Two Strang Tales

Two Strange Tales by Mircea Eliade How many people are even aware that the late renowned scholar of religion and author of such works as The Sacred and the Profane even wrote fiction at all? Not too many, probably. But here is some of the fruit of his little-known spare-time activity: two eerily intriguing novellas [...]
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Hidden Treasure – A Monk’s Alphabet

Hidden Treasure – A Monk’s Alphabet

A Monk's Alphabet: Moments of Stillness in a Turning World by Jeremy Driscoll, OSB Yes, that's OSB as in Order of Saint Benedict. This Roman Catholic monk and theologian kept a journal of short reflections inspired by contact with various and sundry experiences: Listening to Beethoven, air travel, Washington, D.C, mosquitoes €¦ He alphabetized them [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali

Hidden Treasure – The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali

The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali: A New Translation with Commentary by Chip Hartranft The Yoga-Sutra is certainly one of the most frequently translated of all Eastern philosophical classics. There are so many different translations out there that the neophyte approaching it could be baffled about which to try. We respectfully suggest you try Chip's. It's informed [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Vivid Awareness

Hidden Treasure – Vivid Awareness

Vivid Awareness: The Mind Instructions of Khenpo Gangshar by Khenchen Thrangu In the summer of 1957, the revered Buddhist teacher and scholar Khenpo Gangshar foresaw the difficulties that would soon fall upon Tibet and began teaching in a startling new way that enabled all those who heard him to use the coming difficulties as the [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Lady of the Hare

Hidden Treasure – The Lady of the Hare

The Lady of the Hare A Study in the Healing Power of Dreams by John Laylard A woman in England had a dream about a hare and told the Jungian analyst she was working with about it. That was the beginning of the process of familial transformation that John Layard (who was that analyst) writes [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Echoing Silence

Hidden Treasure – Echoing Silence

Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing The many fans of Thomas Merton's writing may be unaware that the famous Trappist monk had much to say about the writing process itself. And his advice is much worth listening to. This volume gathers together much of what he has to say on the subject. [...]
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Hidden Treasure – A Jewish Mother in Shangrila

Hidden Treasure – A Jewish Mother in Shangrila

A Jewish Mother in Shangri-la by Rosie Rosenzweig An old joke tells of a Jewish woman who treks to the Himalayas to seek an audience with a guru sitting in seclusion on a mountaintop. When at last she comes before him, she implores: "Sheldon, come home!" Rosie Rosenzweig was that Jewish mother-but in real life, [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Out of This World

Hidden Treasure – Out of This World

Out of This World: Otherworldly Journeys from Gilgamesh to Albert Einstein by I. P. Couliano From Homer to Dante to Swami Yogananda, from Hades to the Seventh Heaven to LSD trips, the late scholar of altered states takes us on a journey through the wild world of ecstatic visionary experiences as they've occurred throughout the [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Waking Up to What You Do

Hidden Treasure – Waking Up to What You Do

Waking Up to What You Do: A Zen Practice for Meeting Every Situation with Intelligence and Compassion By Diane Eshin Rizzetto If you think of the Precepts as a sort of Buddhist Ten Commandments, Diane Rizzetto may change your view. She sees the precepts as, above all, a practice. Rather than keeping your behavior in [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Heroine’s Journey

Hidden Treasure – The Heroine’s Journey

The Heroine's Journey: Woman's Quest for Wholeness by Maureen Murdock This was a best-seller for us in the late 1980s. Maureen recognized that the "Hero's Journey" that Joseph Campbell had written about so memorably missed important aspects of the process for women. The fan mail poured in for this book that spoke so profoundly to [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Voices of Insight

Hidden Treasure – Voices of Insight

Voices of Insight, edited by Sharon Salzberg This book was actually put together as a benefit project-with the royalties to benefit Ram Dass to help pay his medical bills-but it turned out better than expected. It's basically a digest of American Insight Meditation teachers-some of them appearing in print for the first time before they [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Ego and Archetype

Hidden Treasure – Ego and Archetype

Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche by Edward F. Edinger If you've heard C. G. Jung's ideas are good for you, but you're put off by the sheer volume of his work, try looking at him through this marvelous lens provided by the late Dr. Edward Edinger. He takes Jung's [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Beneath a Single Moon

Hidden Treasure – Beneath a Single Moon

Beneath a Single Moon: Buddhism in Contemporary American Poetry, edited by Kent Johnson and Craig Paulenich Oh, just open this marvelous book sometime-anywhere-and fall into it. It's an anthology of the work of 45 poets who (at least around 1990, when this was published) practiced some form of Buddhism and had some idea that the [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Personality Type

Hidden Treasure – Personality Type

Personality Type: An Owner's Manual by Lenore Thomson If you've ever taken the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) and gotten your result (INFJ? ESTP?), you probably read the description of your type and moved on. Few know that the MBTI is actually based on ideas of personality typology developed by C. G. Jung. This book fleshes [...]
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Hidden Treasure – My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization

Hidden Treasure – My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization

My Name Is Chellis, and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization by Chellis Glendinning It's a funny title, and Chellis Glendinning is a fun gal, to be sure-but she's also very serious in her assertion that our relationship to the Earth bears traces of traumatic stress syndrome. Chellis was one of the pioneers in the [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Dakini’s Warm Breath

Hidden Treasure – Dakini’s Warm Breath

Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism by Judith Simmer-Brown Dakinis-those semi-wrathful feminine figures of Tibetan Buddhist cosmology-get a bum rap today. They often end up serving as poster-girls for goddess-spirituality or as exemplars of the "shadow" for proponents of Jungian psychology. The reality is a lot more complex than that-and much more [...]
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Hidden Treasure – In Buddha’s Kitchen

Hidden Treasure – In Buddha’s Kitchen

In Buddha's Kitchen: Cooking, Being Cooked, and Other Adventures in a Meditation Center by Kimberley Snow Anyone who's ever sat a meditation retreat knows how that much time on the cushion can cause one's inner absurdities to spew like Mount Vesuvius. It can be agony when it's happening, but hilarious to recall later. Kimberley Snow's [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Mountain Record of Zen Talks

Hidden Treasure – Mountain Record of Zen Talks

Mountain Record of Zen Talks By John Daido Loori   This book, now more than a quarter-century old, is one of the best ways to get acquainted with the late esteemed Zen master John Daido Loori (1931-2009). He was a lineage holder in both Soto (a dharma heir of Taizan Maezumi) and Rinzai schools, and [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Swampland Flowers

Hidden Treasure – Swampland Flowers

Swampland Flowers: The Letters and Lectures of Zen Master Ta Hui Translated by J. C. Cleary   The writings of the twelfth-century Chan Buddhist master Ta Hui Tsung Kao are testimony to the timelessness of Zen teaching. His letters, sermons, and lectures, often addressed to laypeople, are utterly simple-and utterly effective in helping us to [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Practice of Lojong

Hidden Treasure – The Practice of Lojong

The Practice of Lojong: Cultivating Compassion through Training the Mind, by Traleg Kyabgon The lojong slogans-those fabric-softeners of the heart-have been the focus of much attention in the West the past couple decades, with good reason. They're a particularly effective practice for disciplining the mind in a way that makes compassion bloom. But they're sometimes [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Cloud of Unknowing

Hidden Treasure – The Cloud of Unknowing

The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel: A New Translation by Carmen Acevedo Butcher What makes Carmen's translation of this classic of Christian mysticism stand out from the others is that she puts it in a modern voice that aims to be the equivalent of the original Middle English: the simple and [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Attentive Heart

Hidden Treasure – The Attentive Heart

The Attentive Heart: Conversations with Trees by Stephanie Kaza People sometimes chuckle when they read the subtitle, but you have to read it to see why it's not a joke at all. Zen environmentalist Kaza spent quality time with a number of individual trees, meditating near them, getting to know them, and listening to their [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Unholy Hungers

Hidden Treasure – Unholy Hungers

Unholy Hungers: Encountering the Psychic Vampire in Ourselves and Others by Barbara E. Hort Did you ever have a friend, colleague, or lover who seemed to, inexplicably, drain the spirit right out of you, leaving you depleted of energy, ideas, and focus? You may be the victim of a psychic vampire! Psychotherapist Hort shows that [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Enso

Hidden Treasure – Enso

Enso: Zen Circles of Enlightenment by Audrey Yoshiko Seo These circular brushstrokes have become a kind of Zen cliché. Here's a chance to look past your preconceived ideas about them and appreciate their original energy, whimsy, and beauty. Each is a work of art that's executed in a split second-but the actual work in fact [...]
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Hidden Treasure – What the Stones Remember

Hidden Treasure – What the Stones Remember

What the Stones Remember: A Life Rediscovered by Patrick Lane At age 62, after forty years spent in a haze of heavy drinking, the poet Patrick Lane got sober--and the beauty of the world knocked him off his feet. He spent a good deal of his time working in the garden and recording what arose [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Eight Gates of Zen

Hidden Treasure – The Eight Gates of Zen

The Eight Gates of Zen: A Program of Zen Training by John Daido Loori   If you want to practice Zen but there's no zendo for miles around, this book may be the next best thing. It contains the complete, eight-phase program of training taught at Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt. Tremper, New York. It's a [...]
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Hidden Treasure – A Guided Tour to the Collected Workks or C.G. Jung

Hidden Treasure – A Guided Tour to the Collected Workks or C.G. Jung

A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung by Robert Hopcke When people get their heads rearranged by Jung--sometimes after reading his Man and His Symbols-it often instills in them a craving for more writings of the founder of analytical psychology. But they hit a roadblock: Jung's Collected Works run to more [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The Buddha and His Teachings

Hidden Treasure – The Buddha and His Teachings

The Buddha and His Teachings$21.95 - PaperbackBy: Samuel Bercholz & Sherab Chodzin Kohn Add to Cart The Buddha and His Teachings Edited by Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chodzin Kohn This book was inspired by Bernardo Bertolucci's movie Little Buddha back in 1993-and it was intended as a reference for viewers of the film who wanted [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Living in the Light of Death

Hidden Treasure – Living in the Light of Death

Living in the Light of Death: On the Art of Being Truly Alive by Larry Rosenberg Here's a preview of the rest of your life: you're gonna get old and/or sick and you're gonna die. A great remedy for not forgetting that pesky fact is repetition of the Buddhist text known as the Five Subjects [...]
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Words of Advice from Chatral Rinpoche

Words of Advice from Chatral Rinpoche

The world lost one of its greatest meditation masters and teachers in the past few days, Kyabje Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche,  at the age of 103 or 104.  Chatral Rinpoche was a teacher's teacher - a bridge between the great teachers the 19th and early 20th centuries like Khenpo Ngagchung, Sera Khandro, and Dudjom Rinpoche [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Way of the Pilgrim

Hidden Treasure – Way of the Pilgrim

The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way translated by Olga Savin This is the little book that Franny clings to throughout her doomed date with Lane in the J.D. Salinger classic Franny and Zooey, which is likely how most people came to know about it after 1961. But this classic of [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Untrain Your Parrot

Hidden Treasure – Untrain Your Parrot

Untrain Your Parrot: And Other No-Nonsense Instructions on the Path of Zen By Elizabeth Hamilton   It has nothing to do with birds. The "parrot" Elizabeth Hamilton refers to is nothing other than discursive thinking, and the untraining she offers is about learning not to let it run your life. The wise and quirky voice [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Individuation in Fairy Tales

Hidden Treasure – Individuation in Fairy Tales

Individuation in Fairy Tales by Marie-Louise von Franz Here's another one from the days when we published extensively in Jungian psychology-and it's arguably one of the best. Von Franz was likely Jung's closest student, and her insights into how fairy tales can tell us who we are can be world-view transforming.
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Hidden Treasure – Mango Elephants in the Sun

Hidden Treasure – Mango Elephants in the Sun

Mango Elephants in the Sun: How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin by Susana Herrera It's a funky title, but don't let that hold you back. Susana's account of her two years in the Peace Corps in Cameroon is a rollicking good read. As much for the wisdom it contains [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Cave of Tigers

Hidden Treasure – Cave of Tigers

Cave of Tigers: The Living Zen Practice of Dharma Combat  By John Daido Loori Grrrrrrrrr. These records of public teaching encounters between the founder of Zen Mountain Monastery and his students are disorienting (in the best way), thought-provoking, and funny, and they show that this ancient practice for manifesting wisdom is alive and well in [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Faith in Mind

Hidden Treasure – Faith in Mind

Faith in Mind: A Commentary on Seng Ts'an's Classic by Chan Master Sheng Yen "The Supreme Way is not difficult, if only you do not pick and choose…" The late Master Sheng Yen is the most wonderful Buddhist teacher you never heard of. He wrote so many books that it's hard to know where to [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Hundred Verses of Advice

Hidden Treasure – Hundred Verses of Advice

The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, translated by the Padmakara Translation Group And what is it that matters most? Turns out it's practicing with great sincerity on behalf of all beings. Starting right now. Dilgo Khyentse's commentary on Padampa Sangye's verses of advice to the [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Sacred Time and the Search for Meaning

Hidden Treasure – Sacred Time and the Search for Meaning

Sacred Time and the Search for Meaning by Gary Eberle Before time became commodified-before there were clocks and the schedules they engendered-we humans operated according to the subtle seasons of the days and seasons. Gary Eberle's study of what was lost when time came to be measured draws on philosophers from Aristotle to Heidegger and [...]
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Hidden Treasure – Subtle Sound

Hidden Treasure – Subtle Sound

Subtle Sound: The Zen Teachings of Maurine Stuart Edited by Roko Sherry Chayat Maurine Stuart (1922-1990), spiritual director of the Cambridge Buddhist Association in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a Zen teacher of legendary wisdom and dedication. Before coming to Zen, she was a musician who never wasted a note; as a Zen teacher, she never wasted [...]
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Hidden Treasure – The True Dharma Eye

Hidden Treasure – The True Dharma Eye

The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans, Translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi and John Daido Loori The notion that koans don't belong to the Soto Zen tradition can't withstand the fact that Soto's founder, Eihei Dogen (1200-1253), compiled this monumental collection. Dogen collected the three hundred koans contained in this work called in [...]
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Hidden Treasure – City of Lingering Splendor

Hidden Treasure – City of Lingering Splendor

City of Lingering Splendor: A Frank Account of Old Peking's Exotic Pleasures by John Blofeld On a stroll through the streets of Peking in 1934 you might meet beautiful courtesans, Confucian scholars, Tsarist refugees, aging palace eunuchs, teenage opium addicts, Taoist adepts or Buddhist monks. You might even run into Shura, the White-Russian hermaphrodite. The [...]
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An Exploration of Different Kinds of Love

An Exploration of Different Kinds of Love

The following excerpt is from The Power of Divine Eros: The Illuminating Force of Love in Everyday Life By A. H. Almaas and Karen Johnson This exploration will help reveal how you experience the opposition or conflict between the selfless giving of love and the passionate wanting of lusty desire. Spend fifteen to twenty minutes considering [...]
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Landscape as Spirit

Landscape as Spirit

Gardens can be so much more than merely pleasing to the eye; they can also evoke a contemplative state of mind, connecting us more fully to ourselves and to the world around us. In Landscape as Spirit, Martin Mosko explains his meditative approach to garden and landscape design and then walks us through five of [...]
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Hand Tai Chi

Hand Tai Chi

The following exercise is excerpted from  The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi  by Peter M. Wayne, PhD, and Mark L. Fuerst. A good way to experience the interactions between gentle, pulsing move ­ments, relaxation, imagery, and intention and their potential to alleviate pain is by practicing a simple exercise I developed called "Hand [...]
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Losar Tashi Delek!

Losar Tashi Delek!

On February 9th, 2016, we welcome the Year of the Fire Monkey--a year full of opportunity and transformation! To celebrate, you may want to clean your home, dress up, and make some Tibetan delicacies. We hope you enjoy this  free cookie recipe from Tibetan Cooking: Recipes for Daily Living, Celebration, & Ceremony  by Elizabeth Esther [...]
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Writing from the Senses: Wherever Music Takes You

Writing from the Senses: Wherever Music Takes You

As I approached the Golden Gate Bridge on my way out of town, I cranked up Willie Nelson singing "On the Road Again." A song of freedom, here we go! By the time I was midway across the span, I was waltzing in the driver's seat to the dreamy sounds of "Georgia," symbolically telling the [...]
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Color Yeshe Tsogyal

Color Yeshe Tsogyal

Our Buddhist Art Coloring Books by Robert Beer are  flying off the shelves! Enjoy this free full-size page and see  for yourself how fun, relaxing, and enlightening coloring can be: Yeshe Tsogyal Buddhist Art Coloring Book 1$19.95 - PaperbackBy: Robert Beer Add to Cart Buddhist Art Coloring Book 2$21.95 - PaperbackBy: Robert Beer Add to [...]
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Pema Chodron on Remaining Like a Log

Pema Chodron on Remaining Like a Log

The practice of "remaining like a log " is based on refraining, not repressing. When you realize you're thinking, just acknowledge that. Then turn your attention to your breath flowing in and out, to your body, to the immediacy of your experience. Doing this allows you to be present and alert, and thoughts have a [...]
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South Indian Sambar from Everyday Ayurveda

South Indian Sambar from Everyday Ayurveda

Check out this free recipe for tomato, dal, and tamarind soup from Kate O'Donnell's The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook:  A Seasonal Guide to Eating and Living Well, available today: South Indian Sambar, pages 124-125. 40% off + free shipping on all books with code FFBF15 through 12/15/15 The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook$29.95 - PaperbackBy: Kate O'Donnell Add [...]
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Chokhor Duchen

Chokhor Duchen

Buton’s History of Buddhism in India and Its Spread to Tibet$34.95 - HardcoverBy: Buton Rinchen Drup & Lisa Stein & Ngawang Zangpo Add to Cart The following is an excerpt from the great Buton Rinchen Drup's History of Buddhism in India and Its Spread to Tibet: A Treasury of Priceless Scripture.   Upon arriving at [...]
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