Mediocre Monk
Mediocre Monk

Author: Grant Lindsley

Publisher:

Published: 2023-04-11

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781954854987

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Funny, perceptive, and deeply personal, Mediocre Monk follows Grant Lindsley's rocky journey toward spiritual growth--one that ultimately leads him to places he never expected. After the sudden death of a friend, Grant Lindsley abandons his corporate job to train as a monk in one of the strictest Buddhist traditions on earth. Lost and bereft, he believes he can find answers in the mountains of Thailand. He shaves his head and eyebrows, eats one bowl of food a day, and lives in a cave, his solitude punctuated by brushes with snakes, scorpions, and drug smugglers. But Lindsley can't transform himself into the profound guru he envisions--he's hungry, restless, and lacking in the humility that monkhood requires. Eventually, he exhausts himself into moments of genuine growth, but in the opposite way from what he expects. Rather than transcending grief and becoming entirely self-reliant, he is surprised to find solace in allowing pain and reopening himself to community. For anyone who has nurtured a fantasy of dropping out in search of answers, Mediocre Monk suggests a reality that is far more complicated--and rewarding.

Meditations for Mediocre Mystics
Meditations for Mediocre Mystics

Author: Tom Stella

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2023-10-11

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The term "mediocre mystics" seems a fitting way to refer to those who yearn for the nameless but do not qualify as full-blown mystics. I realize that because there is nothing middling about mystics, "mediocre mystics" may appear to be an oxymoron, but the root meaning of "mediocre" is not second-rate. From the Latin mediocris, the word means moderate or ordinary and has been used figuratively to refer to one who is halfway up a mountain. Unlike ordinary folks, sainted mystics have reached the mountaintop; they are on a first-name basis with the nameless! But just because we haven't arrived at the heights, just because our lives unfold in the valley of ordinary, everyday life doesn't mean that we cannot or do not experience the desire that has fueled the mystic's climb.

Family Instructions for the Yan Clan and Other Works by Yan Zhitui (531–590s)
Family Instructions for the Yan Clan and Other Works by Yan Zhitui (531–590s)

Author: Xiaofei Tian

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-03-08

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 1501503138

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Yan Zhitui (531–590s) was a courtier and cultural luminary who lived a colourful life during one of the most chaotic periods, known as the Northern and Southern Dynasties, in Chinese history. Beginning his career in the southern Liang court, he was taken captive to the north after the Liang capital fell, and served several northern dynasties. Today he remains one of the best-known medieval writers for his book-length “family instructions” (jiaxun), the earliest surviving and the most influential of its kind. Completed in his last years, the work resembles a long letter addressed to his sons, in which he discusses a wide range of topics from family relations and remarriage to religious faith, philology, cultural arts, and codes of conduct in public and private life. It is filled with vivid details of contemporary social life, and with the author’s keen observations of the mores of north and south China. This is a new, complete translation into English, with critical notes and introduction, and based on recent scholarship, of Yan Zhitui’s Family Instructions, and of all of his extant literary works, including his self-annotated poetic autobiography and a never-before-translated fragmentary rhapsody, as well as of his biographies in dynastic histories.

Spirituality
Spirituality

Author: Kees Waaijman

Publisher: Peeters Publishers

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 986

ISBN-13: 9789042911833

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This textbook is a systematic guide to the extensive field of spirituality. Kees Waaijman charts the multiform phenomenon of spirituality: the spirituality of ordinary people, the great spiritual traditions and the force of counter-movements. From the foundation of this survey he answers questions like: What exactly is spirituality? What forms can a scholarly approach take? Finally, the book provides methodic access to the study of spirituality, focusing on the following questions: Which are the different forms of spirituality and how can we describe them? How can spiritual texts be given a reliable reading? Which themes can be distinguished in the field of spirituality and what would be a meaningful way to address them? What do we mean by spiritual guidance and what can we learn from it? This textbook has no equal. It is indispensable to scholars wishing to study the subject, but also to others who want to learn about spirituality.

Darkling I Listen
Darkling I Listen

Author: David Fiore

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2002-03-29

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 0595223036

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Darkling I Listen analyzes the foundational moment in a young man's life, made possible by and later dealt with through the use of Dial-a-M8, a Montreal talk-personals system. It is a novel about first love, academic masturbation, and the bankruptcy of the 'coming-of-age' formula."

Things Revealed
Things Revealed

Author: Michael Edward Stone

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 9004138854

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This collection of articles dedicated to Michael E. Stone contains cutting-edge studies on apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, early Judaism, and early Christianity.

Buddhism and Society
Buddhism and Society

Author: Melford E. Spiro

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1982-05-27

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13: 9780520046726

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The current Western interest in Buddhism and other Eastern religions is--among other reasons--both the result of and the stimulation for an entire library of books purporting to bring the Wisdom of the East to an audience for whom the wisdom of the West has failed. This book is not an example of that genre. It is an attempt to interpret Buddhism in the light of some current theories about religion. As a work of scholarship, rather than a homiletic tract or an apologetic treatise, its aim is to understand Buddhism as one historical variant of the generic human attempt to find meaning and hope in a sacred order that transcends the mundane order of existence; its aime is not to encourage or discourage either a devotional or a soteriological interest in Buddhism.

Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition
Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition

Author: Kyoko Motomuchi Nakamura

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 1136792538

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is the first collection of Buddhist legends in Japan, and these stories form the repertoire of miraculous events and moral examples that later Buddhist priests used for preaching to the people. As Kyokai describes his own intentions, "By editing these stories of miraculous events I want to pull the people forward by the ears, offer my hand to lead them to good, and show them how to cleanse their feet of evil" (p.222). Nakamura's book is actually two works in one: first an introduction to the Nihon ryoiki, and then an annotated translation. The introduction analyzes the life of the author and the influence of earlier writings, and provides a valuable synthesis of the world view reflected in the work. The annotated translation renders the more than one hundred stories into English narrative, with copious notes. Difficult terms are identified in the text with the original Chinese characters, while historical matters and Buddhist technical terms are explained in the footnotes.

Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk

Author: Robin D. G. Kelley

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-11-02

Total Pages: 624

ISBN-13: 1439190461

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first full biography of Thelonious Monk, written by a brilliant historian, with full access to the family's archives and with dozens of interviews.

A Little Life
A Little Life

Author: Hanya Yanagihara

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2016-01-26

Total Pages: 833

ISBN-13: 0804172706

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.