Spiritual Poetry Guides
Happy National Poetry Month! From haiku to the poems of the Beats, from ancient translations to modern free verse, everyone can find a style to love in our poetry collection. Enter your email below for a chance to win a bundle of three poetry books: The Mysterion, Yin Mountain, and The Art of Haiku and receive a code [...]
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Zen and Chan in 2022 Read More We published several books and audiobooks on Zen and Chan Buddhism in 2022 See our other Year in Review Guides: Theravada/Pali/Insight | Zen and Chan | Tibetan Buddhism Yoga | Personal Development | Kids Books We are very happy to share with you a look back at our [...]
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Happy Poetry Month! From lyric to free verse, modern words to ancient translations, spiritual to artistic guidance—discover a new poem to love. Sign up below to receive a new poem delivered straight to your inbox each week of April. Featured Books Poetry and Zen$29.95 - PaperbackBy: R. H. Blyth & Norman Waddell Add to Cart [...]
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Happy Poetry Month! From lyric to free verse, modern words to ancient translations, spiritual to artistic guidance—discover a new poem to love. Sign up below to receive a new poem delivered straight to your inbox each week of April. Email Address * First Name *You are agreeing to receive promotional messages from Shambhala [...]
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“the only war that matters is the war against the imagination.” —Diane di Prima Onehandclapping, CC BY-SA 3.0 We just learned that Diane di Prima passed away on October 25th, 2020. While we did not publish any of her extraordinary stand-alone works, she and her work appear in many Shambhala Publications books. Though I had [...]
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Photo credit: By Onehandclapping - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7751339 The great poet and Shambhala author/contributor/blurber Michael McClure passed away May 4th, 2020. Michael was at the heart of the Beats, always listed as one of the shining lights of this group of explorers and creatives. We published a book of his poetry, Touching [...]
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Chan Master Sheng Yen (1930–2009) was a widely respected Taiwanese Chan (Chinese Zen) master who taught extensively in the West during the last thirty-one years of his life. He had numerous teaching centers throughout North America, as well throughout the world. He co-led retreats with the Dalai Lama, and he is the author of numerous [...]
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Milarepa: A Reader's Guide Learn More There are few figures more beloved in the Buddhist Himalayas than the 11th century yogi-hero Milarepa. Namkading Cave area where Milarepa spent many years in retreat Related Reader Guides: Profiles of early Indian Mahayana figures | Tibetan Masters of the 8th Century | Tibetan Masters of the 10th-11th Centuries The Kagyu Tradition | [...]
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Parched Stories define us, it’s true. And they matter, though they always leave so much out. I like it that way, keep telling them to desert, and desert keeps filling in whatever it is we’re missing. For months now death has felt frail and far away. Breath surprises me. The usual morning ridgeline surprises me, [...]
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Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan | An Excerpt from The Complete Cold Mountain
Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan The Universality of Hanshan’s Writing Though the poems in this collection were written more than twelve hundred years ago, poetry that expresses our common human experience with the unflinching wisdom and truth found in Hanshan’s writing has a way of collapsing time and distance, and even cultural differences, because it [...]
Buddhist Poetry: A Reader Guide Read More Shambhala Publications publishes numerous books of Buddhist poetry, and we’ve gathered some of our favorites here. Jump to sections on this page: Recent Releases | Chan and Zen Poetry | Indian Poetry | Tibetan Poetry | Southeast Asian Poetry | Contemporary Buddhist Poetry Related Books and Articles Recent [...]
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In the world of religion, some things stay the same, while many are constantly adapting to meet our new world of the internet and cell phones, scientific discovery, increasing awareness of gender and race dynamics, multiculturalism, the numbers of people identifying their religion as “none” or “spiritual but not religious,” and so much more. We [...]
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Thomas Merton's Influence on the Beats by Robert Inchausti, author of Hard to Be a Saint in the City Thomas Merton, “Honorary Beatnik” It’s hard to say exactly when Thomas Merton became an “Honorary Beatnik.” One could chase the association all the way back to the mid-thirties when, as an undergraduate at Columbia, he first became friends [...]
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Also see our Reader's Guide to Buddhist Poetry. Many know haiku as a three-line poem, the first and last lines five syllables long, and the second line, seven. But there is much more to what defines haiku, elements more subtle than prescribed syllable counts or line breaks. In fact, Japanese haiku are typically written in [...]
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From the introduction to The Art of Haiku: Its History through Poems and Paintings by Japanese Masters This book will trace the history of Japanese haiku, including the poetic traditions from which it was born, primarily through the work of leading masters such as Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki, along with a number of other fine poets. [...]
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