How to Love is part of a charming series of books from Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh, exploring the essential foundations of mindful meditation and practise. How to Love shows that when we feel closer to our loved ones, we are also more connected to the world as a whole. Nhat Hanh brings his signature clarity, compassion and humour to the thorny question of how to love and distils one of our strongest emotions down to four essentials: you can only love another when you feel true love for yourself; love is understanding; understanding brings compassion; and deep listening and loving speech are key ways of showing our love.

As religion and politics become ever more intertwined, relationships between religion and political parties are of increasing global political significance. This handbook responds to that development, providing important results of current research involving religion and politics, focusing on: democratisation, democracy, party platform formation, party moderation and secularisation, social constituency representation and interest articulation. Covering core issues, new debates, and country case studies, the handbook provides a comprehensive overview of fundamentals and new directions in the subject. Adopting a comparative approach, it examines the relationships between religion and political parties in a variety of contexts, regions and countries with a focus on Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Hinduism. Contributions cover such topics as: religion, secularisation and modernisation; religious fundamentalism and terrorism; the role of religion in conflict resolution and peacebuilding; religion and its connection to state, democratisation and democracy; and regional case studies covering Asia, the Americas, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa. This comprehensive handbook provides crucial information for students, researchers and professionals researching the topics of politics, religion, comparative politics, secularism, religious movements, political parties and interest groups, and religion and sociology.

In "Buddhism Without Beliefs," author Stephen Batchelor reminds us that the Buddha was not a mystic. His awakening was not a shattering insight into a transcendent truth that revealed to him the mysteries of God, and he did not claim to have had an experience that granted him privileged, esoteric knowledge of how the universe ticks. What the Buddha taught, says Batchelor, is not something to believe in but something to do. He challenged people to understand the nature of anguish, let go of its origins, realize its cessation, and bring into being a way of life. This way of life is available to all of us, and Batchelor explains clearly and compellingly how we can practice it and live it every day. Each chapter of Batchelor's book examines how to work toward awakening realistically, with the understanding that embarking on this path does not mean never deviating from it.

Why is it easier to ruminate over hurt feelings than it is to bask in the warmth of being appreciated?
Because your brain evolved to learn quickly from bad experiences but slowly from the good ones.
You can change this.
Hardwiring Happiness lays out a simple method that uses the hidden power of everyday experiences to build new neural structures full of happiness, love, confidence, and peace. Dr. Hanson's four steps build strengths into your brain-- balancing its ancient negativity bias--making contentment and a powerful sense of resilience the new normal. In mere minutes each day, we can transform our brains into refuges and power centers of calm and happiness.

Filled with simple exercises and thought-provoking lessons, this Buddhist instructional book will help you get started on the Buddhist path of moderation, mindfulness, and enlightened living. More than any other introduction to Buddhism, Buddhism in Ten provides readers with the understanding and tools they need to live a deeper and fuller life along Buddhist principles. Ten lessons, each inspired by an aspect of Buddhism, show how to incorporate this Eastern philosophy into your daily life. Each lesson is enhanced with several exercises--some physical, some mental, and some spiritual. Simple lessons show you how to: Develop a sense of clarity through Right Meditation Understand and accept your own experiences through the Four Noble Truths Enrich everyday life with Right Mindfulness Remove obstacles to a spiritually enlightened life--and reveal your own Buddha nature The Buddhist tradition can help you develop a life of wisdom, awareness, and compassion. With its thorough, accessible exploration of Buddhist philosophy and practice, this book can guide you to a more rewarding, more joyful life.

This book explores the possible relations between Western types of rationality and Buddhism. It also examines some cliches about Buddhism and questions the old antinomies of Western culture ("faith and reason," or "idealism and materialism"). The use of the Buddhist notion of the Two Truths as a hermeneutic device leads to a double or multiple exposure that will call into question our mental habits and force us to ask questions differently, to think "in a new key." Double Exposure is somewhat of an oddity. Written by a specialist for nonspecialists, it is not a book of vulgarization. Although it aims at a better integration of Western and Buddhist thought, it is not an exercise in comparative philosophy or religion. It is neither a contribution to Buddhist scholarship in the narrow sense, nor a contribution to some vague Western "spirituality." Cutting across traditional disciplines and blurring established genres, it provides a leisurely but deeply insightful stroll through philosophical and literary texts, dreams, poetry, and paradoxes.

Walpola Rahula's What the Buddha Taught is a perennial backlist bestseller and has proven to be an indispensable guide to beginning Buddhism. It is renowned for its authoritative, clear, logical, and comprehensive approach. The Heritage of the Bhikkhu is a vivid account of the Buddhist's monk's role as a servant to people's needs as a follower and teacher of the basic Buddhist principles. In this fascinating and informative volume, the author emphasizes Buddhism as a practical doctrine for daily living and spiritual perfection and not simply a monastic discipline. The Heritage of the Bhikkhu is a pioneering work that deserves to stand with the author's earlier masterpiece.

Moments of peace and stillness give us a glimpse of how extraordinary our lives could be. Yet this sense of meaning and wonder is so easy to lose sight of in the hectic pace of modern living. In The Buddhist Path to Simplicity, Christina Feldman, an internationally renowned Buddhist teacher, shows you how to find harmony and balance by applying ancient Buddhist Wisdom to the here and now. The path of conscious simplicity she suggests allows us to fully recover ourselves, by rediscovering our sense of meaning and wonder. As a mother, a layperson and an internationally renowned teacher, Feldman knows the stresses and strains of modern life. In this book she shows how to harmonize and achieve balance and how to apply Buddhist wisdom to the here and now. She addresses subjects of compassion, speech, effort, intention, mindfulness and awakening. The path to peace, she suggests, is not necessarily complex or arduous. If we simply turn our attention to this moment, it will speak to us of wonder, mystery, harmony and peace. She demonstrates that there is no better moment in which to awaken and discover everything our heart longs for than this very moment.

The four noble truths are well known as the Buddha's first and most essential explanation of his enlightened realizations. The truths diagnose the human existential crisis--suffering and its origin--and prescribe a solution--cessation and the path. To understand the four noble truths is to understand Buddhism as a whole.
In "The Four Noble Truths," Geshe Tashi draws on his decades of training in Tibetan Buddhism to illuminate these truths for a modern audience. His respectful engagement with Buddhists outside his own tradition and his insights into Western culture make this book refreshing. It will reward even those already acquainted with the fundamentals of Buddhism.
"The Four Noble Truths" is the first of six stand-alone volumes in the Foundation of Buddhist Thought series.

Recounts the struggles of a young Thai woman to become a Buddhist nun and the challenges and rewards of that life.

Secret Drugs of Buddhism is the first book to explore the historical evidence for the use of entheogenic plants within the Buddhist tradition. Drawing on scriptural sources, botany, pharmacology, and religious iconography, this book calls attention to the central role which psychedelics played in Indian religions. It traces their history from the mysterious soma potion, celebrated in the most ancient Hindu scriptures, to amrita, the sacramental drink of Vajrayana Buddhism. Although amrita used in modern Vajrayana ceremonies lacks any psychoactivity, there is copious evidence that the amrita used by the earliest Vajrayana practitioners was a potent entheogen. It is the nature of this psychedelic form of the sacrament which is the central topic of this book. In particular, Secret Drugs of Buddhism attempts to identify the specific ingredients employed in amrita's earliest formulations. To this end, the book presents evidence from many countries in which the Vajrayana movement flourished. These include Bhutan, Japan, Mongolia, and Tibet but special attention is given to India, the land of its origin.

An essential companion to a timeless spiritual classic The Lotus Sutra is among the most venerated scriptures of Buddhism. Composed in India some two millennia ago, it asserts the potential for all beings to attain supreme enlightenment. Donald Lopez and Jacqueline Stone provide an essential reading companion to this inspiring yet enigmatic masterpiece, explaining how it was understood by its compilers in India and, centuries later in medieval Japan, by one of its most influential proponents. In this illuminating chapter-by-chapter guide, Lopez and Stone show how the sutra's anonymous authors skillfully reframed the mainstream Buddhist tradition in light of a new vision of the path and the person of the Buddha himself, and examine how the sutra's metaphors, parables, and other literary devices worked to legitimate that vision. They go on to explore how the Lotus was interpreted by the Japanese Buddhist master Nichiren (1222-1282), whose inspired reading of the book helped to redefine modern Buddhism. In doing so, Lopez and Stone demonstrate how readers of sacred works continually reinterpret them in light of their own unique circumstances. An invaluable guide to an incomparable spiritual classic, this book unlocks the teachings of the Lotus for modern readers while providing insights into the central importance of commentary as the vehicle by which ancient writings are given contemporary meaning.

"Beyond the Breath" is one of the first books to give a complete overview and description of sensation based vipassana meditation, the form of mediation thought of as the original method of meditation as used by the Buddha 2,500 years ago. This form of meditation, brought to the West by S.N. Geoneka, provides a means to experience emotions directly and nonverbally--accessing the mind through the body. One of the main principles of this school of meditation is that meditation alone is not sufficient practice, but that it must be combined with a whole-life and ethical commitment.
M.Glickman's approach is unique--he takes a mediation practice deeply rooted within a historic Buddhist framework, and gives it a modern-day, scientific spin--he presents sensation based viapassana meditaiton and Buddhist principles in 20th-century language, secularizing ideas that may sound exotic, off-putting, or out-dated. Glickman's passion for the topic, as well as his great understanding of Buddhist concepts, make this an inspiring read.

In 1979, 24-year-old Maura O'Halloran left her waitressing job in Boston and began her study of Zen in Japan. Today she is revered as a Buddhist saint, and a statue in her honor stands at the monastery where she lived. This is the story of her journey.

Buddhist philosophy is fundamentally ambivalent toward language. Language is paradoxically seen as both obstructive and necessary for liberation. In this book, Roy Tzohar delves into the ingenious response to this tension from the Yogacara school of Indian Buddhism: that all language-use is metaphorical. Exploring the profound implications of this claim, Tzohar makes the case for viewing the Yogacara account as a full-fledged theory of meaning, one that is not merely linguistic, but also applicable both in the world as well as in texts. Despite the overwhelming visibility of figurative language in Buddhist philosophical texts, this is the first sustained and systematic attempt to present an indigenous Buddhist theory of metaphor. By grounding the Yogacara pan-metaphorical claim in a broader intellectual context, of both Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools, the book uncovers an intense philosophical conversation about metaphor and language that reaches across sectarian lines. Tzohar's analysis radically reframes the Yogacara controversy with the Madhyamaka school of philosophy, sheds light on the Yogacara application of particular metaphors, and explicates the school's unique understanding of experience.

Buddhism: The Big Picture Explained answers the common questions a beginning and inquisitive learner might have regarding this seemingly complex religion. In easy-to-understand terms, Edward Woo first demonstrates the ideas and concepts behind this often misunderstood faith and then provides explanations for both basic and intricate questions including:

What is a religion?
Why is Buddhism a religion?
What does Buddhism teach us?
What constitutes the basic principle of Buddhism?
What is the most important of Buddhist teachings?
What precisely it means to get enlightened?
Why is Buddhism meaningful?
How does Buddhism change our way of life?
In a sometimes unpredictable world, Buddhism: The Big Picture Explained explores the benefit this great religion has on global peace and harmony, promotes the idea of being good to others and the environment, and teaches us that we are the masters of our own destiny.Buddhism: The Big Picture Explained answers the common questions a beginning and inquisitive learner might have regarding this seemingly complex religion. In easy-to-understand terms, Edward Woo first demonstrates the ideas and concepts behind this often misunderstood faith and then provides explanations for both basic and intricate questions including:

What is a religion?
Why is Buddhism a religion?
What does Buddhism teach us?
What constitutes the basic principle of Buddhism?
What is the most important of Buddhist teachings?
What precisely it means to get enlightened?
Why is Buddhism meaningful?
How does Buddhism change our way of life?
In a sometimes unpredictable world, Buddhism: The Big PictureExplained explores the benefit this great religion has on global peace and harmony, promotes the idea of being good to others and the environment, and teaches us that we are the masters of our own destiny.

The Mahabodhi temple at Bodhgaya in eastern India has long been recognised as the place where the Buddha sat in meditation and attained enlightenment. The site, soon identified as the 'Diamond Throne' or vajrasana, became a destination for pilgrims and a focus of religious attention for more than two thousand years. This volume presents new research on Bodhgaya and assesses the important archaeological, artistic and literary evidence that bears witness to the Buddha's enlightenment and to the enduring significance of Bodhgaya in the history of Buddhism. The book brings together a team of international scholars to look at the history and perception of the site across the Buddhist world and its position in the networks of patronage and complex religious landscape of northern India. The volume assesses the site's decline in the thirteenth century, as well as its subsequent revival as a result of archaeological excavations in the nineteenth century. Using the British Museum's collections as a base, the authors discuss the rich material culture excavated from the site that highlights Bodhgaya's importance in the field of Buddhist studies.

Written by the leading authority on Theravada Buddhism, this up-dated edition takes into account recent research to include the controversies over the date of the Buddha and current social and political developments in Sri Lanka. Gombrich explores the legacy of the Buddha's predecessors and the social and religious contexts against which Buddhism has developed and changed throughout history, demonstrating above all, how it has always influenced and been influenced by its social surroundings in a way which continues to this day.

In this book the author considers data from both early and later schools of Buddhism in an attempt to provide an overall characterization of the structure of Buddhist ethics. The importance of ethics in the Buddha's teachings is widely acknowledged, but the pursuit of ethical ideals has up to now been widely held to be secondary to the attainment of knowledge. Drawing on the Aristotelian tradition of ethics the author argues against this intellectualization of Buddhism and in favour of a new understanding of the tradition in terms of which ethics plays an absolutely central role. In the course of this reassessment many basic concepts such as karma, nirvana, and the Eightfold Path, are reviewed and presented in a fresh light. The book will be of interest to readers with a background in either Buddhist studies or comparative religious ethics.

The author of The World's Religions and the award-winning author of The World's Wisdom present an incisive introduction to Buddhism that traces its history, teachings, and practices throughout the world. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.