Mindfulness

Humanity is currently facing a series of interconnected emergencies that threaten our very survival--from climate change to economic inequality and beyond. And yet, at the same time, a global shift towards harnessing our collective power to create a life-affirming future is flourishing.

Featuring chapters by forty-three leading-edge contributors, such as Gregg Braden, Lynne McTaggart, Bruce Lipton, Jean Houston, Michael Bernard Beckwith, Ervin Laszlo, Joan Borysenko, Larry Dossey, and many more, Our Moment of Choice provides eye-opening and inspirational visions for a unified, peaceful, and thriving world. The time has come for all humanity to be united in purpose. This is our collective moment of choice, upon which our future depends.

I've had a sense since I was young
that there's more going on here, that
the world is not a cold, dead place,
that it's alive in some compelling and
mysterious way.

This book is about that sense. I've tried
to listen to it, and follow it, and trust it.
It's been devastating at times, intoxicating
at others, heartbreaking and maddening
and euphoric----how do you make sense
of this experience we're having here on
this ball of rock hurtling through space
at 67,000 miles an hour?

There are big questions: Everything
is made of particles and atoms, and the
universe has been expanding for thirteen
billion years?

And then there are those other questions, about the people and places and
events that have shaped us.

HOWEVER MASSIVE AND
COSMIC IT ALL IS, IT'S ALSO
REALLY, REALLY PERSONAL.
AND SPIRITUAL.
THAT'S THE WORD FOR IT.

That's the sense I've been following
for a while now----this awareness that
there's something bigger happening in
the depth and complexity and struggle
of life, something that connects us all,
reminding us that it all matters and it's
all headed somewhere.

Part memoir, part confession, part
extended riff on the endlessly evolving
nature of reality, Everything Is Spiritual
is an invitation to see what you've been
a part of this whole time.

How would your life change if you genuinely accepted yourself, just the way you are? According to Dr. Tara Brach, feelings of shame and unworthiness are the source of many problems we experience with our relationships, careers, creative endeavors, and most fundamentally, our spiritual unfolding.

Course objectives:

Explain how feelings of shame and unworthiness are the source of many problems we experience with our relationships, careers, creative endeavors, and most fundamentally, our spiritual unfolding.
- Discuss Radical Self-Acceptance and how to free yourself from the grip of your insecurities about being good enough.
- Practice Radical Self-Acceptance as a way to discover the freedom that comes with kindness and true appreciation of yourself and others.
- Utilize insights from both Eastern contemplative traditions and Western psychotherapies to guide you through a full program of meditations and skills you need to become more compassionate toward the unforgivable parts of your Self.
On Radical Self-Acceptance, this respected clinical psychologist and Buddhist meditation teacher shows you how to free yourself from the grip of your insecurities about being good enough.

With insights from both Eastern contemplative traditions and Western psychotherapies, Dr. Brach guides you through a full program of meditations and skills you need to become more compassionate toward the unforgivable parts of your Self.

As Dr. Brach says, the most difficult--and pervasive--challenge to Westerners today is the suffering caused by our feelings of unworthiness and self-aversion. Radical Self-Acceptance offers a way to break out of this emotional prison, so you can discover the freedom that comes with kindness and true appreciation of yourself and others.

Foreword INDIES Award-Winner -- Gold Medal for Self-Help

When a loved one dies, the pain of loss can feel unbearable--especially in the case of a traumatizing death that leaves us shouting, "NO!" with every fiber of our body. The process of grieving can feel wild and nonlinear--and often lasts for much longer than other people, the nonbereaved, tell us it should.

Organized into fifty-two short chapters, Bearing the Unbearable is a companion for life's most difficult times, revealing how grief can open our hearts to connection, compassion, and the very essence of our shared humanity. Dr. Joanne Cacciatore--bereavement educator, researcher, Zen priest, and leading counselor in the field--accompanies us along the heartbreaking path of love, loss, and grief. Through moving stories of her encounters with grief over decades of supporting individuals, families, and communities--as well as her own experience with loss--Cacciatore opens a space to process, integrate, and deeply honor our grief.

Not just for the bereaved, Bearing the Unbearable will be required reading for grief counselors, therapists and social workers, clergy of all varieties, educators, academics, and medical professionals. Organized into fifty-two accessible and stand-alone chapters, this book is also perfect for being read aloud in support groups.

Now available as an online course from the Wisdom Academy.

Have you ever had an itch and not scratched it? In the Buddhist tradition, this points to a vast paradox: that by refraining from our urge to scratch, great peace and happiness is available.

On Getting Unstuck, Pema Chödrön introduces a rare Tibetan teaching she received from her teacher, Dzigar Kontrul Rinpoche, and one that has become critical to her practice. Here, she unveils the mystery of an ineffable quality: a pre-emotional feeling that arises in us, brings us discomfort, and causes us to react by escaping the discomfort often with harmful habits.

With Getting Unstuck, she offers us a first look at both the itch and the scratch, which Tibetan Buddhists call shenpa. On this full-length recording, Pema Chödrön, bestselling author and beloved American Buddhist nun, shows us how to recognize shenpa, catch it as it appears, and develop a playful, lively curiosity toward it. Join Pema Chödrön to discover more about:

Critical mind--how to recognize this fundamental shenpa, and approach yourself and others with a sense of humor and loving-kindness
- Ways to unravel the patterns of self-denigration, and develop the fundamental maitri--loving-kindness--toward yourself
- How to cultivate acceptance of your irritability, insecurities, and other simply human traits
- Recognition, Refrain, Relaxing, and Resolve: the four R's of working with shenpa, and more
An urge comes up, we succumb to it, and it becomes stronger, teaches Pema Chödrön. We reinforce our cravings, habits, and addictions by giving in to them repeatedly. On Getting Unstuck, Chödrön guides us through this sticky feeling, exploring the moments when we get hooked, and offers us tools for learning to stay with our uneasiness, soften our hearts toward ourselves and others, and live a more peaceful life in the fullness of the present moment.

For the past thirty years, Deepak Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution in the West. Total Meditation offers a complete exploration and reinterpretation of the physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual benefits that this practice can bring. Deepak guides readers on how to wake up to new levels of awareness that will ultimately cultivate a clear vision, heal suffering in your mind and body, and help recover who you really are. Readers will undergo a transformative process, which will result in an awakening of the body, mind, and spirit that will allow you to live in a state of open, free, creative, and blissful awareness twenty-four hours a day.

With this book, Deepak elevates the practice of meditation to a life-changing quest for higher consciousness and a more fulfilling existence. He also incorporates new research on meditation and its benefits, provides practical awareness exercises, and concludes with a 52-week program of meditations to help revolutionize every aspect of your life.

Neural plasticity-the discovery that the brain is capable of rewiring itself-is now widely understood. But what few people have grasped yet is how quickly this is happening, how extensive brain changes can be, and how much control each of us has over the process.
In Bliss Brain, famed researcher Dawson Church digs deep into leading-edge science, and finds stunning evidence of rapid and radical brain change. In just eight weeks of practice, 12 minutes a day, using the right techniques, we can produce measurable changes in our brains. These make us calmer, happier, and more resilient.
When we cultivate these pleasurable states over time, they become traits. We don't just feel more blissful as a temporary state; the changes are literally hard-wired into our brains, becoming stable and enduring personality traits.
The startling conclusions of Church's research show that neural remodeling goes much farther than scientists have previously understood, with stress circuits shriveling over time. Simultaneously, The Enlightenment Circuit-associated with happiness, compassion, productivity, creativity, and resilience-expands.
During deep meditation, Church shows how the 7 neurochemicals of ecstasy are released in our brains. These include anandamide, a neurotransmitter that's been named the bliss molecule because it mimics the effects of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. It boosts serotonin and dopamine; the first is an analog of psilocybin, the second of cocaine. He shows how cultivating these elevated emotional states literally produces a self-induced high.

Nearly every time you see him, he's laughing, or at least smiling. And he makes everyone else around him feel like smiling. He's the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet, a Nobel Prize winner, and a hugely sought-after speaker and statesman. Why is he so popular? Even after spending only a few minutes in his presence you can't help feeling happier.

If you ask him if he's happy, even though he's suffered the loss of his country, the Dalai Lama will give you an unconditional yes. What's more, he'll tell you that happiness is the purpose of life, and that the very motion of our life is toward happiness. How to get there has always been the question. He's tried to answer it before, but he's never had the help of a psychiatrist to get the message across in a context we can easily understand.

The Art of Happiness is the book that started the genre of happiness books, and it remains the cornerstone of the field of positive psychology.

Through conversations, stories, and meditations, the Dalai Lama shows us how to defeat day-to-day anxiety, insecurity, anger, and discouragement. Together with Dr. Howard Cutler, he explores many facets of everyday life, including relationships, loss, and the pursuit of wealth, to illustrate how to ride through life's obstacles on a deep and abiding source of inner peace. Based on 2,500 years of Buddhist meditations mixed with a healthy dose of common sense, The Art of Happiness is a book that crosses the boundaries of traditions to help readers with difficulties common to all human beings. After being in print for ten years, this book has touched countless lives and uplifted spirits around the world.

In the COVID crisis, the beloved shepherd of over one billion Catholics saw the cruelty and inequity of our society exposed more vividly than ever before. He also saw, in the resilience, generosity, and creativity of so many people, the means to rescue our society, our economy, and our planet. In direct, powerful prose, Pope Francis urges us not to let the pain be in vain.

He begins Let Us Dream by exploring what this crisis can teach us about how to handle upheaval of any kind in our own lives and the world at large. With unprecedented candor, he reveals how three crises in his own life changed him dramatically for the better. By its very nature, he shows, crisis presents us with a choice: we make a grievous error if we try to return to some pre-crisis state. But if we have the courage to change, we can emerge from the crisis better than before.

Francis then offers a brilliant, scathing critique of the systems and ideologies that conspired to produce the current crisis, from a global economy obsessed with profit and heedless of the people and environment it harms, to politicians who foment their people's fear and use it to increase their own power at their people's expense. He reminds us that Christians' first duty is to serve others, especially the poor and the marginalized, just as Jesus did.

Finally, the Pope offers an inspiring and actionable blueprint for building a better world for all humanity by putting the poor and the planet at the heart of new thinking. For this plan, he draws not only on sacred sources, but on the latest findings from renowned scientists, economists, activists, and other thinkers. Yet rather than simply offer prescriptions, he shows how ordinary people acting together despite their differences can discover unforeseen possibilities.

Along the way, he offers dozens of wise and surprising observations on the value of unconventional thinking, on why we must dramatically increase women's leadership in the Church and throughout society, on what he learned while scouring the streets of Buenos Aires with garbage-pickers, and much more.

Let Us Dream is an epiphany, a call to arms, and a pleasure to read. It is Pope Francis at his most personal, profound and passionate. With this book and with open hearts, we can change the world.

Many have suspected that your birthday affects your personality and how you relate to others. Nineteen years and over one million copies later, The Secret Language of Birthdays continues to fascinate readers by describing the characteristics associated with being born on a particular day. The 366 personality profiles are based on astrology, numerology, the tarot, and Gary Goldschneider's observations of more than 14,000 people. Your strengths, weaknesses, and major concerns will be illuminated while you are given practical advice and spiritual guidance. After you study your profile, it will be hard to resist examining those of family, friends, colleagues, and even celebrities.

Like nearly one in five people, Matt Haig suffers from depression. Reasons to Stay Alive is Matt's inspiring account of how, minute by minute and day by day, he overcame the disease with the help of reading, writing, and the love of his parents and his girlfriend (and now-wife), Andrea. And eventually, he learned to appreciate life all the more for it.

Everyone's lives are touched by mental illness: if we do not suffer from it ourselves, then we have a friend or loved one who does. Matt's frankness about his experiences is both inspiring to those who feel daunted by depression and illuminating to those who are mystified by it. Above all, his humor and encouragement never let us lose sight of hope. Speaking as his present self to his former self in the depths of depression, He is adamant that the oldest cliché is the truest--there is light at the end of the tunnel. He teaches us to celebrate the small joys and moments of peace that life brings, and reminds us that there are always reasons to stay alive.

The classic guide for dealing with grief and loss

For those who have suffered the loss of a loved one, here are thoughtful words to strengthen, inspire and comfort.

Make your day-to-day life more magical, spiritual, and in sync with the stars!

Graduate from daily horoscopes and dive into a deeper understanding of astrology with this user-friendly tell-all guide to the cosmos. Nina Kahn's Astrology for Life spills the tea on our celestial neighbors: the Sun, Moon, and planets (plus all twelve zodiac signs) so you can get to know their quirky personalities and use their energies to your advantage every day. Learn your way around a birth chart and get the lowdown on nodes, aspects, degrees, decans, Moon signs, rising signs, retrogrades, eclipses, and more! Most importantly, discover how to use planetary transits to step up your career game, find love, take better care of yourself, crush your goals, and live your most magical life.

-Go beyond your Sun sign to uncover a deeper, more nuanced astrological profile-- one that's truly unique to you.
-Learn to read the basics of your birth chart in a way that inspires self-reflection and understanding.
-Start using retrogrades, eclipses, and the cycles of the Sun and Moon to your advantage.
-Align yourself with the cosmos to welcome new opportunities for love, career success, and personal achievements.
-Build a stronger connection to the universe and find your place among the stars.

With Astrology for Life, you can satisfy your cosmic curiosity and make your journey through life even more wondrous and fulfilling!

In this hugely powerful and evocative book, Sister Stan looks to the earth that is so precious to our existence for inspiration throughout the year. Reflecting the garden's changing rhythms through the seasons, Gardening the Soul offers us a daily thought to keep us going as we face the challenges of modern life.

All our moods are covered here...
* in January, when there is silence in the garden, she looks at Solitude in our soul...
* in March, with emergence in the garden, she offers Hope...
* in August, when there is fullness and abundance everywhere, there is Blessing, and
* in October, the time of harvest, there is Harmony

Comforting and insightful, Gardening the Soul is an inspirational daybook of lessons gleaned from the wisdom of nature.

This book will teach you how to use word power rather than willpower to increase your motivation and overcome your struggles with eating and body care. It explains how self-talk ties thought to action or inaction and how what we say to ourselves is shaped--for better or worse--by our families, culture and personal history. It illustrates how unconscious, unhealthy self-talk leads to poor decision-making around eating, fitness and general self-care and how conscious, healthy self-talk promotes a positive relationship with food, body and mind.

Words to Eat By details key elements of constructive, smart self-talk. You'll learn how to distinguish trash thoughts from treasure thoughts, why external motivators don't work long-term, and which internal motivators will fast track you to success. It includes hundreds of examples of exactly what to say and not say to yourself in challenging food situations--eating alone, with family, friends, dates and mates, at parties, restaurants and buffets--and how to get and keep your body moving. Reflective questions help you zero in on which self-talk you want to change, while case studies illustrate how other troubled eaters have transformed their self-talk and their lives.

Written by a national expert, award-winning, international author and seasoned clinician who is also half-a-lifetime recovered from weight-loss dieting and binge-eating, this book introduces you to the nitty gritty of your eating and self-care problems and teaches you how to speak to yourself with the love, compassion, encouragement and hope needed to jump start or sustain your recovery.

One of the most beloved of all Buddhist texts, The Way of the Bodhisattva is a practical guide to generating the qualities of love, compassion, generosity, and patience. In this commentary on key sections of the text, the Dalai Lama shows how any of us can develop a truly "good heart," and why aspiring toward the happiness and enlightenment of others is central to any genuinely spiritual path. His Holiness's profound wisdom--the result of a lifetime of practice and study--shines brilliantly throughout this extraordinary book.

This book is part of the Shambhala Pocket Library series. It was previously published with the title For the Benefit of All Beings.

The Shambhala Pocket Library is a collection of short, portable teachings from notable figures across religious traditions and classic texts. The covers in this series are rendered by Colorado artist Robert Spellman. The books in this collection distill the wisdom and heart of the work Shambhala Publications has published over 50 years into a compact format that is collectible, reader-friendly, and applicable to everyday life.

In the tradition of the spiritual classics The Shack and The Screwtape Letters comes a captivating and poignant debut novel from the revered Jesuit priest and New York Times bestselling author of Jesus and The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything.

A divorced single mom, Anne can barely cope with life and struggles to make sense of the death of her young son.

A former architect with a promising career, Mark works as a handyman and wonders how his life got off track.

The abbot of the Abbey of Saints Philip and James, Father Paul sometimes questions whether he made the right decision in secluding himself so thoroughly from the world.

At this Pennsylvania abbey, this unlikely trio will discover the answers they seek--a miracle of hope and understanding that bears witness to the power of God to bring healing and wholeness to our lives.

Written with the compassion, insight, and warmth of his previous bestsellers--Jesus, Between Heaven and Mirth, and The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything--Father James Martin's debut novel is infused with deep spiritual wisdom, wry humor, and loving grace. Through his characters' struggles, questions, and crises, we see firsthand how God uses our worries, anger, doubts, prayers, failures, and longings to help us complete ourselves and feel wholly loved.

For Jon Meacham, as for believers worldwide, the events of Good Friday and Easter reveal essential truths about Christianity. A former vestryman of Trinity Church Wall Street and St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, Meacham delves into that intersection of faith and history in this meditation on the seven phrases Jesus spoke from the cross.

Beginning with "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do" and ending with "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," Meacham captures for the reader how these words epitomize Jesus's message of love, not hate; grace, not rage; and, rather than vengeance, extraordinary mercy. For each saying, Meacham composes an essay on the origins of Christianity and how Jesus's final words created a foundation for oral and written traditions that upended the very order of the world.

Writing in a tone more intimate than any of his previous works, Jon Meacham returns us to the moment that transformed Jesus from a historical figure into the proclaimed Son of God, worshiped by billions.

Translated into more than thirty languages and with half a million copies sold in the US alone, reading Being Peace is like drinking a cool glass of water on a hot day. Many of the hallmarks of Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching appear here for the first time, in his trademark clear and steady style. The book's opening has become one of his most widely quoted teachings: Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, such as the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not enough.

Available in this stunning hardcover commemorative edition for the first time and with a new foreword from Dr. Jane Goodall, this is the perfect introduction to Thich Nhat Hanh's work, for yourself or for your loved ones.

Heart of Gold is brimming with creative ideas for volunteering and community service. With prompts for simple acts of kindness and service, like smiling at a stranger, planting a tree or flowers in your community, or taking a shelter dog for a walk, and gold sticker hearts for marking your finished good deeds, this charming and hard-working little book will help you make the world a better place day by day.