Alcoholics Anonymous

Alcoholics Anonymous
Author: Bill W.
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2014-09-04
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0698176936

A 75th anniversary e-book version of the most important and practical self-help book ever written, Alcoholics Anonymous. Here is a special deluxe edition of a book that has changed millions of lives and launched the modern recovery movement: Alcoholics Anonymous. This edition not only reproduces the original 1939 text of Alcoholics Anonymous, but as a special bonus features the complete 1941 Saturday Evening Post article “Alcoholics Anonymous” by journalist Jack Alexander, which, at the time, did as much as the book itself to introduce millions of seekers to AA’s program. Alcoholics Anonymous has touched and transformed myriad lives, and finally appears in a volume that honors its posterity and impact.

How to Be Sick

How to Be Sick
Author: Toni Bernhard
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2010-05-10
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0861719263

This life-affirming, instructive, and thoroughly inspiring book is a must-read for anyone who is - or who might one day be - sick. It can also be the perfect gift of guidance, encouragement, and uplifting inspiration to family, friends, and loved ones struggling with the many terrifying or disheartening life changes that come so close on the heels of a diagnosis of a chronic condition or life-threatening illness. Authentic and graceful, How to be Sick reminds us of our limitless inner freedom, even under high degrees of suffering and pain. The author - who became ill while a university law professor in the prime of her career - tells the reader how she got sick and, to her and her partner's bewilderment, stayed that way. Toni had been a longtime meditator, going on long meditation retreats and spending many hours rigorously practicing, but soon discovered that she simply could no longer engage in those difficult and taxing forms. She had to learn ways to make "being sick" the heart of her spiritual practice - and through truly learning how to be sick, she learned how, even with many physical and energetic limitations, to live a life of equanimity, compassion, and joy. And whether we ourselves are ill or not, we can learn these vital arts from Bernhard's generous wisdom in How to Be Sick.

McMindfulness

McMindfulness
Author: Ronald Purser
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2019-07-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1912248492

A lively and razor-sharp critique of mindfulness as it has been enthusiastically co-opted by corporations, public schools, and the US military. Mindfulness is now all the rage. From celebrity endorsements to monks, neuroscientists and meditation coaches rubbing shoulders with CEOs at the World Economic Forum in Davos, it is clear that mindfulness has gone mainstream. Some have even called it a revolution. But what if, instead of changing the world, mindfulness has become a banal form of capitalist spirituality that mindlessly avoids social and political transformation, reinforcing the neoliberal status quo? In McMindfulness, Ronald Purser debunks the so-called "mindfulness revolution," exposing how corporations, schools, governments and the military have co-opted it as technique for social control and self-pacification. A lively and razor-sharp critique, Purser busts the myths its salesmen rely on, challenging the narrative that stress is self-imposed and mindfulness is the cure-all. If we are to harness the truly revolutionary potential of mindfulness, we have to cast off its neoliberal shackles, liberating mindfulness for a collective awakening.

What's Wrong with Mindfulness (And What Isn't)

What's Wrong with Mindfulness (And What Isn't)
Author: Barry Magid
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2016-10-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1614293074

Mindfulness seems to be everywhere—but are we sure that's a good thing? Teachers Sallie Jiko Tisdale, Gil Fronsdal, Norman Fischer, and more explain how removing mindfulness from Buddhism may set a dangerous precedent. Mindfulness is in fashion. Oprah loves it, Google teaches it to employees—it has become widespread as a cure-all for stress, health problems and psychological difficulties, interpersonal trouble, and existential anxiety. However, when its proponents try to make it more accessible by severing it from its Buddhist roots, they run the risk of leeching mindfulness of its transformative power. Taught outside of its ethical and spiritual context it becomes a mere means to an end, rather than a way of life. Mindfulness is in danger of being co-opted into the spiritual equivalent of fast food: “McMindfulness.” Instead of being better people, we just become better employees, better consumers. The Zen teachers gathered here ask a bold question: Is universal mindfulness really a good thing? Ranging from thoughtful critiques to personal accounts of integrating mindfulness into daily life, each chapter offers insights to ground mindfulness in a deeper understanding of both where it comes from, and where it might be headed. With contributions from Marc Poirer, Robert Meikyo Rosenbaum, Barry Magid, Hozan Alan Senauke, Sallie Jiko Tisdale, Gil Fronsdal, Max Erdstein, Zoketsu Norman Fischer, Janet Jiryu Abels, Grace Schireson, Sojun Mel Weitsman, and Robert Sharf.

Daoist Meditation

Daoist Meditation
Author: Wu Jyh Cherng
Publisher: Singing Dragon
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2014-09-21
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0857011618

Master Cherng's translation of Discourse on Sitting and Forgetting, an 8th century classic text on meditation by Si Ma Cheng Zhen, is accompanied by his extensive explanatory commentary, unique in its ability to make this complex text accessible to the Western reader. In the introduction to the text, Master Cherng explains how to practice the Purification of the Heart method of meditation and photographs clearly illustrate the correct postures. He deciphers the Chinese metaphors and abstract language of Si Ma Cheng Zhen to give a clear explanation of the processes involved and the resulting changes to mind, spirit and body. His translation and explanatory commentary present the classic text in a way that can be easily understood and applied, allowing Western students of Daoism, and anyone with an interest in meditation, direct access to the meaning of this text in practice.

Meditation, Buddhism, and Science

Meditation, Buddhism, and Science
Author: David McMahan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2017-09-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0190495812

The scientific study of Buddhist forms of meditation has surged in recent years, capturing the popular imagination and reshaping conceptions of what meditation is and what it can do. For perhaps the first time in history, meditation has shifted from Buddhist monasteries and practice centers to some of the most prominent and powerful modern institutions in the world, as well as non-institutional settings. As their contexts change, so do the practices-sometimes drastically. New ways of thinking about meditation are emerging as it moves toward more secular settings, ways that profoundly affect millions of lives all over the world. To understand these changes and their effects, the essays in this volume explore the unaddressed complexities in the interrelations between Buddhist history and thought and the scientific study of meditation. The contributors bring philosophical, cultural, historical, and ethnographic perspectives to bear, considering such issues as the philosophical presuppositions behind practice, the secularization of meditation, the values and goods assumed in clinical approaches, and the sorts of subjects that take shape under the influence of these transformed and transformative practices-all the more powerful for being so often formulated with the authority of scientific discourse.

Discourse on the Method

Discourse on the Method
Author: René Descartes
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 1996-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780300067736

Descartes' ideas not only changed the course of Western philosophy but also led to or transformed the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, physics and mathematics, political theory and ethics, psychoanalysis, and literature and the arts. This book reprints Descartes' major works, Discourse on Method and Meditations, and presents essays by leading scholars that explore his contributions in each of those fields and place his ideas in the context of his time and our own. There are chapters by David Weissman on metaphysics and psychoanalysis, John Post on epistemology, Lou Massa on physics and mathematics, William T. Bluhm on politics and ethics, and Thomas Pavel on literature and art. These essays are accompanied by others by David Weissman and by Stephen Toulmin that introduce the idea of intellectual lineages, discuss the period in which Descartes wrote, and reexamine the premises of his philosophy in light of contemporary philosophical, political, and social thinking.

Like Cats and Dogs

Like Cats and Dogs
Author: Steven Heine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2013-10-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199837295

Koans are dialogues that stand at the center of Zen Buddhist literature and are often used to provoke the "great doubt" in testing a trainee's progress. The Mu Koan consists of a brief conversation in which a monk asks Master Zhaozhou whether or not a dog has Buddha-nature. According to the main version, the reply is "Mu": literally, "No," but implying the philosophical notion of nothingness. This case is widely considered to be the single best- known and most widely circulated koan record of the Zen school that offers existential release from anxiety to attain spiritual illumination. In a careful analysis of the historical and rhetorical basis of the literature, Steven Heine demonstrates that the Mu version of the case, preferred by advocates of the key-phrase approach, does not by any means constitute the final word concerning the meaning and significance of the Mu Koan. He shows that another canonical version, which gives both "Yes" and "No" responses, must be taken into account. Like Cats and Dogs offers critical insight and a new theoretical perspective on "the koan of koans."

Meditation—The Complete Guide

Meditation—The Complete Guide
Author: Patricia Monaghan
Publisher: New World Library
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2011
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1608680479

A revised guide to positive transformation through meditation profiles 35 diverse practices from different world regions while explaining their respective histories and virtues, in a resource that includes coverage of options ranging from drumming and trance dancing to labyrinth walking and gardening. Original.