My Spiritual Journey (2009) by the Dalai Lama and Sofia Stril-Rever chronicles the Dalai Lama’s experiences as the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, particularly in the last several decades of Chinese occupation. Interwoven throughout the text are Buddhist principles to which the Dalai Lama has devoted his life, as a monk and human being... Purchase this in-depth summary to learn more.
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 I first tried to meditate in 1973, between my sophomore and junior years of college, when I was working as a research assistant for a cardiologist at Boston City Hospital. meditation was given scientific credence by the work of Dr. Herbert Benson and his coauthor Robert Keith Wallace. #2 I was happy to have a prestigious summer job working with Dr. Benson, who was open to my abstruse interests. I knew that he was doing my father a favor by taking me on, but I surprised him by talking at length about the placebo effect, a subject I had explored and written about during the previous semester in my psychophysiology course. #3 I did not feel engaged by the meditation technique that Dr. Benson was using with his patients, and I did not see how it could be the beall and endall of what meditation was about. #4 The placebo effect is when a patient believes in a treatment, and that belief helps them recover. I was drawn to meditation for the same reason I was interested in placebos. The placebo effect points to the body’s capacity to heal itself, helped along by some combination of trust, faith, and human empathy.
Winner of the 1997 National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought, "Stalking Elijah" traces Rodger Kamenetz's rollicking and profound cross-country journey in search of the great teachers revitalizing Judaism today.
Engaging, innovative, and fresh, Gahl Sasson's approach to Kabbalah—the ancient teachings of Jewish mysticism—integrates mythology, scholarship, and practical exercises for seekers of both material and spiritual gratification. Based on his popular Tree of Life workshops, which incorporate meditation, dreams, and real-life synchronicities with myths, rituals, and philosophies from around the world, A Wish Can Change Your Life provides a universal path to finding and embracing all of life's riches.
An acclaimed expert in Christian mysticism travels to a monastery high in the Trodos Mountains of Cyprus and offers a fascinating look at the Greek Orthodox approach to spirituality that will appeal to readers of Carlos Castaneda. In an engaging combination of dialogues, reflections, conversations, history, and travel information, Kyriacos C. Markides continues the exploration of a spiritual tradition and practice little known in the West he began in Riding with the Lion. His earlier book took readers to the isolated peninsula of Mount Athos in northern Greece and into the group of ancient monasteries. There, in what might be called a “Christian Tibet,” two thousand monks and hermits practice the spiritual arts to attain a oneness with God. In his new book, Markides follows Father Maximos, one of Mount Athos’s monks, to the troubled island of Cyprus. As Father Maximos establishes churches, convents, and monasteries in this deeply divided land, Markides is awakened anew to the magnificent spirituality of the Greek Orthodox Church. Images of the land and the people of Cyprus and details of its tragic history enrich the Mountain of Silence. Like the writings of Castaneda, the book brilliantly evokes the confluence of an inner and outer journey. The depth and richness of its spiritual message echo the thoughts and writings of Saint Francis of Assisi and other great saints of the Church as well. The result is a remarkable work–a moving, profoundly human examination of the role and the power of spirituality in a complex and confusing world.
Breandán Ó Seighin is a musician, singer, sportsman and smoker. Follow his exploits as he rock 'n' rolls with hedonistic excess through the drug fuelled 90's, journeying through India, the Middle east, Northern Africa and the Mediterranean, in and out of psychiatric hospitals and living to tell the tale.
A groundbreaking and timely book about how evolutionary biology can explain our black-and-white brains, and a lesson in how we can escape the pitfalls of binary thinking. Several million years ago, natural selection equipped us with binary, black-and-white brains. Though the world was arguably simpler back then, it was in many ways much more dangerous. Not coincidentally, the binary brain was highly adept at detecting risk: the ability to analyze threats and respond to changes in the sensory environment—a drop in temperature, the crack of a branch—was essential to our survival as a species. Since then, the world has evolved—but we, for the most part, haven’t. Confronted with a panoply of shades of gray, our brains have a tendency to “force quit:” to sort the things we see, hear, and experience into manageable but simplistic categories. We stereotype, pigeon-hole, and, above all, draw lines where in reality there are none. In our modern, interconnected world, it might seem like we are ill-equipped to deal with the challenges we face—that living with a binary brain is like trying to navigate a teeming city center with a map that shows only highways. In Black-and-White Thinking, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton pulls back the curtains of the mind to reveal a new way of thinking about a problem as old as humanity itself. While our instinct for categorization often leads us astray, encouraging polarization, rigid thinking, and sometimes outright denialism, it is an essential component of the mental machinery we use to make sense of the world. Simply put, unless we perceived our environment as a chessboard, our brains wouldn’t be able to play the game. Using the latest advances in psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, Dutton shows how we can optimize our tendency to categorize and fine-tune our minds to avoid the pitfalls of too little, and too much, complexity. He reveals the enduring importance of three “super categories”—fight or flight, us versus them, and right or wrong—and argues that they remain essential to not only convincing others to change their minds but to changing the world for the better. Black-and-White Thinking is a scientifically informed wake-up call for an era of increasing extremism and a thought-provoking, uplifting guide to training our gray matter to see that gray really does matter.
