According to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, we each possess the ability to achieve happiness and a meaningful life, but the key to realizing that goal is self-knowledge. In "How to See Yourself As You Really Are," the world's foremost Buddhist leader and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize shows readers how to recognize and dispel misguided notions of self and embrace the world from a more realistic -- and loving -- perspective. Through illuminating explanations and step-by-step exercises, His Holiness helps readers to see the world as it actually exists, and explains how, through the interconnection of meditative concentration and love, true altruistic enlightenment is attained.

Enlivened by personal anecdotes and intimate accounts of the Dalai Lama's own life experiences, "How to See Yourself As You Really Are" is an inspirational and empowering guide that can be read and enjoyed by anyone seeking spiritual fulfillment.

This pictorial memory album of mothers and daughters looks at a mother's legacy, a mother's teaching, and a mother's love and devotion. Stories from many mothers and daughters, some well-known, show how family values and traditions are passed from one generation to another. Beautifully illustrated. "A Mother's Legacy" also includes a presentation page for gift giving and includes space for personal reflections. A perfect gift for Mother's Day, baby showers, birthdays or Christmas.

Ask any person to name the first man to walk on the moon, and most can tell you it was Neil Armstrong. And almost anyone could tell you Charles Lindberg made the first solo transatlantic flight. Few would know that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first successfully scaled Mt. Everest, but our admiration is no less because we don't remember their names. As a society, we reward, revere, and respect "firsts" and the courageous men and women who achieve them. Rod Parsley calls these individuals "breakers."

"Breakers look at barriers as merely building blocks to further feats of achievement," Parsley writes. "They refuse to take life at face value, believing that greatness lies beyond the next barrier. With fierce determination and fearless courage, they break through what others believed was impenetrable."

Parsley contends that God is raising a modern generation of breakers to achieve His purposes. We have the perfect model in Jesus Christ, the "First of all firsts" who shattered the barrier between divinity and humanity, proving Himself to be "the Breaker who goes before us." Through Scripture and insight, Rod Parsley passionately urges Christians to break out in obedience and become modern-day Samsons, Deborahs, Esthers, and Stephens.

This eleven-volume set gathers together some essential texts on Zen Buddhism. They range from newly-translated sixteenth-century documents from a Japanese temple to a modern work on the usefulness of Zen precepts in the 'helping professions' of medicine and the social services. Works also detail the rigours of training for a life as a Buddhist priest, the links between yoga and Zen, Zen and swordsmanship, and other Japanese Zen traditions.

""During my boxing career, you did not see the real Muhammad Ali. You just saw a little boxing. You saw only a part of me. After I retired from boxing my true work began. I have embarked on a journey of love.""
So Muhammad Ali begins this spiritual memoir, his description of the values that have shaped and sustained him and that continue to guide his life. In "The Soul of a Butterfly" the great champion takes readers on a spiritual journey through the seasons of life, from childhood to the present, and shares the beliefs that have served him well.
After fighting some of the fiercest bouts in boxing history against Joe Frazier and George Foreman, today Muhammad Ali faces his most powerful foe -- outside the boxing ring. Like many people, he battles an illness that limits his physical abilities, but as he says, "I have gained more than I have lost....I have never had a more powerful voice than I have now." Ali reflects on his faith in God and the strength it gave him during his greatest challenge, when he lost the prime years of his boxing career because he would not compromise his beliefs. He describes how his study of true Islam has helped him accept the changes in his life and has brought him to a greater awareness of life's true purpose. As a United Nations "Messenger of Peace," he has traveled widely, and he describes his 2002 mission to Afghanistan to heighten public awareness of that country's desperate situation, as well as his more recent meeting with the Dalai Lama.
Ali's reflections on topics ranging from moral courage to belief in God to respect for those who differ from us will inspire and enlighten all who read them. Written with the assistance of his daughter Hana, "The Soul of a Butterfly" is a compassionate and heartfelt book that will provide comfort for our troubled times.

The managing editor of Christianity Today and founder of the popular Her.meneutics blog encourages women to find joy in vocation in this game-changing look at the importance of women and work.Women today inhabit and excel in every profession, yet many Christian women wonder about the value of work outside the home. And in circles where the traditional family model is highly regarded, many working women who sense a call to work find little church or peer support. In A Woman's Place, Katelyn Beaty, print managing editor of Christianity Today and cofounder of Her.meneutics, insists it's time to reconsider women's work. She challenges us to explore new ways to live out the Scriptural call to rule over creation--in the office, the home, in ministry, and beyond. Starting with the Bible's approach to work--including the creation story, the Proverbs 31 woman, and New Testament models--Beaty shows how women's roles in Western society have changed; how the work-home divide came to exist; and how the Bible offers models of women in leadership. Readers will be inspired by stories of women effecting dynamic cultural change, leading institutions, and living out grand and beautiful vocations. Far from insisting that women must work outside the home, Beaty urges all believers into a better framework for imagining career, ambition, and calling. Whether caring for children, running a home, business, or working full-time, all readers will be inspired to live in a way that glorifies God. Sure to spark discussion, A Woman's Place is a game-changing look at the importance of work for women and men alike.

Religious freedom is one of the most debated and controversial human rights in contemporary public discourse. At once a universally held human right and a flash point in the political sphere, religious freedom has resisted scholarly efforts to define its parameters. Taliaferro explores a different way of examining the tensions between the aims of religion and the needs of political communities, arguing that religious freedom is a uniquely difficult human right to uphold because it rests on two competing conceptions, human and divine. Drawing on classical natural law, Taliaferro expounds a new, practical theory of religious freedom for the modern world. By examining conceptions of law such as Sophocles' Antigone, Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, Ibn Rushd's Middle Commentary on Aristotle's Rhetoric, and Tertullian's writings, The Possibility of Religious Freedom explains how expanding our notion of law to incorporate such theories can mediate conflicts of human and divine law and provide a solid foundation for religious liberty in modernity's pluralism.

This is the first multidisciplinary text to address the growing scholarly connection between religion and family life. The latest literature from family studies, psychology, sociology, and religion is reviewed along with narratives drawn from interviews with 200 racially, religiously, and regionally diverse families which bring the concepts to life. Written in a thought-provoking, accessible, and sometimes humorous style by two of the leading researchers in the field, the book reflects the authors' firsthand experience in teaching today's students about religion's impact on families. Prior to writing the book, the authors read the sacred texts of many faiths, interviewed religious leaders, and attended religious services for a wide array of faiths. The result is an accurate and engaging account of why and how families are impacted by their religion. The pedagogical features of the text include boldfaced key terms defined in the glossary, text boxes, chapter conclusions, summary points, and review questions. Religion and Families: Examines several denominations within Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Reviews findings from racially and ethnically diverse families, from traditional and diverse family forms, and examines gender and life-course issues. Addresses the impact of one's religious involvement on longevity, divorce rates, and parenting styles. Considers demographic, family-, couple-, and individual-level data that relate to prayer and other sacred practices. Presents a balanced treatment of the latest research and a new model for studying family and religion. Explores the "whys," "hows," and processes at work in the religion-family connection. The book opens with a discussion of why religion and family connections matter. Chapter 2 defines religion and presents a new conceptualization of religion. Empirical research connections between religion and marriage, divorce, family, and parent-child relationships are explored in chapters 3 through 6. The interface between religion and the family in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are reviewed in chapters 7, 8, and 9. Chapter 10 explores the unique challenges that religion presents for diverse family forms. Prayer as a coping mechanism for life's challenges such as death and disability are explored in chapter 11. Chapter 12 examines forgiveness in the context of marriages and families. The book concludes with a review of the book's most important themes and findings. Intended as a text for undergraduate courses in family and religion, the psychology or sociology of the family, the psychology or sociology of religion, pastoral/biblical counseling, or family and youth ministry, taught in human development and family studies, psychology, sociology, religion, social work, pastoral counseling, and sometimes philosophy. This book also appeals to family therapists and counselors.

Religions Today provides a sympathetic account of what living religions really are. Fisher traces the historical development and practices of major religious movements and explores how these evolve into contemporary belief and teaching. She considers major faiths as well as indigenous religions and new religious movements, focusing on how living religions affect contemporary society. Case studies and interviews with living people ensure that this concise guide is both readable and stimulating.

The field encompassed by this collection on 'Religion, Sexuality, and Spirituality' is a vast and controversial one. It encompasses both normative and non-normative sexual identities and behaviours in the so-called 'world religions' (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) and also such modes of being and conduct in the multitudinous indigenous religions, new religions and spiritualities, and smaller long-established traditions (for example, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Shinto, and so on).

In Indic religious traditions, a number of rituals and myths exist in which the environment is revered. Despite this nature worship in India, its natural resources are under heavy pressure with its growing economy and exploding population. This has led several scholars to raise questions about the role religious communities can play in environmentalism. Does nature worship inspire Hindus to act in an environmentally conscious way? This book explores the above questions with three communities, the Swadhyaya movement, the Bishnoi, and the Bhil communities. Presenting the texts of Bishnois, their environmental history, and their contemporary activism; investigating the Swadhyaya movement from an ecological perspective; and exploring the Bhil communities and their Sacred Groves, this book applies a non-Western hermeneutical model to interpret the religious traditions of Indic communities. With a foreword by Roger S Gottlieb.

This book, first published in 1994, is a compendium of new translations of certain works regarded as fundamental texts in the Serene Reflection Buddhist Tradition (Soto Zen). All the texts were in Chinese, either as original works or as translations from Sanskrit. Several of them are central to the ceremonial not only of the Soto Zen Tradition but also of other Mahayana Buddhist traditions as well.

In Jews, Judaism, and Success, Robert Eisen attempts to solve a long-standing mystery that has fascinated many: How did Jews become such a remarkably successful minority in the modern western world? Eisen argues that Jews achieved such success because they were unusually well-prepared for it by their religion - in particular, Rabbinic Judaism, or the Judaism of the rabbis. Rooted in the Talmud, this form of Judaism instilled in Jews key values that paved the way for success in modern western society: autonomy, freedom of thought, worldliness, and education. The book carefully analyses the evolution of these four values over the past two thousand years in order to demonstrate that they had a longer and richer history in Jewish culture than in western culture. The book thus disputes the common assumption that Rabbinic Judaism was always an obstacle to Jews becoming modern. It demonstrates that while modern Jews rejected aspects of Rabbinic Judaism, they also retained some of its values, and these values in particular led to Jewish success. Written for a broad range of readers, Jews, Judaism, and Success provides unique insights on the meaning of success and how it is achieved in the modern world.

The topic of love and non-violence in Islam, in an environment imbued with intolerance, extremism and terrorism, is very significant. This book portrays how loving humanity and eliminating violence are key in all the Islamic teachings and are evident in the conduct of Allah's exalted Messenger.The Holy Quran states that Almighty Allah has raised the Prophet as an epitome of mercy for the entire universe. Despite atrocious afflictions caused by the polytheists of Mecca, the Prophet remained peaceful and always sought dialogue as a means of resolution.Islam is a religion that preaches peace, security, love and regard. According to Islamic teachings, a Muslim is one from whose tongue and hand all people, whether Muslim or Non-Muslim, are safe. The dignity, inviolability and protection of human life is basic to Islamic law. Killing a human unjustly is unlawful and also an act of disbelief in certain cases. Islam states that the sanctity of life is superior to the sanctity of the Ka'ba hence shedding blood unjustly has been condemned in the harshest possible terms.Under Islamic law even in the state of war non-combatants cannot be killed during battle.The only enemies who are allowed to be killed are those actively take part in combat. Other restrictions also include killing animals, damaging crops, destroying buildings, properties and places of worship. Such strict rulings are in place even during times of war therefore it is clear that all acts of terrorism and extremism are in direct contravention of the teachings of the Quran and hadith.Islam eliminated hatred through love, terrorism through peace and ignorance through knowledge. This book portrays how love, peace and knowledge form the very essence of Islam.

On Salafism offers a compelling new understanding of this phenomenon, both its development and contemporary manifestations. Salafism became associated with fundamentalism when the 9/11 Commission used it to explain the terror attacks and has since been connected with the violence of the so-called Islamic State. With this book, Azmi Bishara critically deconstructs claims of continuity between early Islam and modern militancy and makes a counterargument: Salafism is a wholly modern construct informed by specific sociopolitical contexts. Bishara offers a sophisticated account of various movements-such as Wahabbism and Hanbalism-frequently collapsed into simplistic understandings of Salafism. He distinguishes reformist from regressive Salafism, and examines patterns of modernization in the development of contemporary Islamic political movements and associations. In deconstructing the assumptions of linear continuity between traditional and contemporary movements, Bishara details various divergences in both doctrine and context of modern Salafisms, plural. On Salafism is a crucial read for those interested in Islamism, jihadism, and Middle East politics and history.

Within contemporary orthodoxy, debates over sex and gender have become increasingly polemical over the past generation. Beginning with questions around women’s ordination, arguments have expanded to include feminism, sexual orientation, the sacrament of marriage, definitions of family, adoption of children, and care of transgender individuals. Preliminary responses to each of these topics are shaped by gender essentialism, the idea that male and female are ontologically fixed and incommensurate categories with different sets of characteristics and gifts for each sex. These categories, in turn, delineate gender roles in the family, the church, and society. Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy offers an immanent critique of gender essentialism in the stream of the contemporary Orthodox Church influenced by the “Paris School” of Russian émigré theologians and their heirs. It uses an interdisciplinary approach to bring into conversation patristic reflections on sex and gender, personalist theological anthropology, insights from gender and queer theory, and modern biological understandings of human sexual differentiation. Though these are seemingly unrelated discourses, Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy reveals unexpected points of convergence, as each line of thought eschews a strict gender binary in favor of more open-ended possibilities. The study concludes by drawing out some theological implications of the preceding findings as they relate to the ordination of women to the priesthood, same-sex unions and sacramental understandings of marriage, definitions of family, and pastoral care for intersex, transgender, and nonbinary parishioners.

Ishita Pande's innovative study provides a dual biography of India's path-breaking Child Marriage Restraint Act (1929) and of 'age' itself as a key category of identity for upholding the rule of law, and for governing intimate life in late colonial India. Through a reading of legislative assembly debates, legal cases, government reports, propaganda literature, Hindi novels and sexological tracts, Pande tells a wide-ranging story about the importance of debates over child protection to India's coming of age. By tracing the history of age in colonial India she illuminates the role of law in sculpting modern subjects, demonstrating how seemingly natural age-based exclusions and understandings of legal minority became the alibi for other political exclusions and the minoritization of entire communities in colonial India. In doing so, Pande highlights how childhood as a political category was fundamental not just to ideas of sexual norms and domestic life, but also to the conceptualisation of citizenship and India as a nation in this formative period.

Do you have the courage...the faith...the fire?
Loving the world like God does involves extreme sacrifice. Living the passionate, courageous life Jesus challenged us all to live also has radical effects, demonstrated in these 366 true accounts of fellow believers from around the world:
A Christian claims the names of God at knifepoint-- and lives to tell about it . . .
Prayer revives a coma victim, in defiance of village witch doctors . . .
A former Muslim finds forgiveness in the Jesus she denied . . .
Prayerwalking college students lay a foundation for spiritual revival in West Africa . . .
If you're bored with your comfort-fit Christianity, if you're ready for God to shake you awake, then take the challenge. Find out in these pages what on earth God is doing in your generation . . .and discover your role in making a difference in the world.

Walk alongside Grammy Award-winning artist, worship leader, and Bible study
teacher Laura Story in her continuing journey of accepting God's plan for her
life and living it out in total surrender.

Laura Story's husband, Martin, was diagnosed with a brain tumor early in their
marriage. In a moment their life plans changed drastically. After wondering about
their ability to be parents and a struggle with infertility, Laura gave birth to three
children, including twin boys, in three years' time. Then a sonogram at thirty-seven
weeks revealed an unexpected issue with their fourth child. No life is without trouble,
but when you face one challenging situation after another, your days can begin to feel
desperately hopeless. Yet God truly uses all things for our good. When offered up to
him, every circumstance can become a perfect opportunity to completely surrender
your will to his.

In I Give Up, Laura uses her story to show why surrender to God is important and
how we can go about doing it. She shares how surrendering expectations is not a
step-by-step process but a willful decision to wait on God, trusting that he and his
word are true. In this four-part study she explains

• why surrender is a good thing
• whom we surrender to
• how we surrender
• how our surrender affects the lives of others

Though surrender sometimes flies in the face of our instincts, hopes, and dreams, it's
never without benefit. A surrendered life includes the surprise of a true joy-filled
existence in which trust is reasonable, reconciliation is possible, and relationships can
heal.

St. Martin de Porres was a friend of St. Rose of Lima. He became a Dominican lay brother and spent his life helping those in need. Many anecdotes telling how he raised the dead, multiplied food, cured the sick, healed animals, visited the needy through bilocation and did extreme penance.

When Bob "Bull" Watson was hired as general manager of the New York Yankees in 1996, his orders were to give the club a title it had not had since 1977 and 1978 World Series Champions -- to do it as soon as possible, preferably that same year. Watson survived that pressure just as he survived his bout with cancer and his difficult climb out of the minor leagues in the racially turbulent 1960s. "After 32 years in baseball .. surviving may be the one thing I do best." Interwoven with his life story is an informative and entertaining discussion of all things baseball -- how a hitter thinks, how to build a powerful ball club, how to manage the personalities and egos in the game, and how the game has changed over the years.

In "You Don't Have to Be Blind to See," Jim Stovall shows you how to choose a new path that will lead to success in every area of your life. This powerful, inspiring book will help you dream big dreams and define success for yourself. It will also give you the tools to make your dreams come true and succeed on your own terms. Let Jim Stovall show you how to discover a vision for your personal destiny. "You don't need to wait for a tragedy to give you a wake-up call about your priorities and your dreams....You don't have to be blind to see "