This latest edition in "The Best Buddhist Writing" series is a thoughtful, inspiring collection of writings from a Buddhist perspecive. Selected by the editors of the" Shambhala Sun," North America's leading Buddhist-inspired magazine, this anthology offers an entertaining mix of writing styles and reflects on a wide range of issues from a Buddhist point of view. The collection includes writings by Susan Piver, Thich Nhat Hanh, Edward Espe Brown, Pico Iyer, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Karen Connelly, Noah Levine, Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, Dzogchen Ponlop, Jack Kornfield, Toni Bernhard, Joanna Macy, Matthieu Ricard, Karen Miller, and the Dalai Lama.

With more than four thousand entries and over one hundred illustrations, this encyclopedia offers a complete survey of the four major religious traditions of Asia. It is designed not only for students and scholars but also to help general readers find their way through the thicket of unfamiliar words and concepts that are often encountered today in various fields such as the health professions, psychotherapy, the sciences, and the media. Among the subjects covered are:
- Important terms such as "chakra," "karma," "koan," "nirvana," "tantra," "Tao," and "yin-yang"
- The lives and teachings of mystics, philosophers, and masters of meditation
- Basic texts and scriptures
- Sects and schools of thought
- Mythological figures and events

In addition, pronunciation tables, a comprehensive bibliography, and a Ch'an/Zen Lineage Chart are provided.

A practical, accessible guide to the fundamentals of Buddhist meditation, with pointers from some of today's most respected Buddhist teachers, including Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hanh, Cyndi Lee, and Sharon Salzberg. As countless meditators have learned firsthand, meditation practice can positively transform the way we see and experience our lives. This practical, accessible guide to the fundamentals of Buddhist meditation introduces you to the practice, explains how it is approached in the main schools of Buddhism, and offers advice and inspiration from Buddhism's most renowned and effective meditation teachers, including Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Sharon Salzberg, Norman Fischer, Ajahn Chah, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Sylvia Boorstein, Noah Levine, Matthieu Ricard, Judy Lief, and many others. Topics include how to build excitement and energy to start a meditation routine and keep it going, setting up a meditation space, working with and through boredom, what to look for when seeking others to meditate with, how to know when it's time to try doing a formal meditation retreat, how to bring the practice "off the cushion" with walking meditation and other practices, and much more.

Leading psychologists and meditation teachers explain how mindfulness can help us work with our anger--and ultimately transform it into compassion.
Anger. For all of us, it's a familiar feeling--jaw clenching, face flushing, hands shaking. We feel it for rational and irrational reasons, on a personal and on a global level. If we know how to handle our anger skillfully, it is an effective tool for helping us recognize that a situation needs to change and for providing the energy to create that change. Yet more often anger is destructive--and in its grip we hurt ourselves and those around us.
In recent years scientists have discovered that mindfulness practice can reduce stress, improve mood, and enhance our sense of well-being. It also offers us a way of dealing with strong emotions, like anger. This anthology offers a Buddhist perspective on how we can better work with anger and ultimately transform it into compassion, with insight and practices from a variety of contributors, including:
- Thich Nhat Hanh on how anger grows in us because we feed it through certain habits
- Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche on while there is always something to complain about, blaming others will never bring about peace or happiness
- Sylvia Boorstein on how there are no human enemies, only confused people needing help.
- Pema Chodron on how when something goes wrong and we want to blame someone or someone else, we could instead take responsibility for our own tendency to blame.
- Tara Bennett-Goleman on how the first step in dealing with our anger is to compassionately accept ourselves and how we're feeling
- Pat Enkyo O'Hara on how there will always be a potential energy within us. How we use this energy is the key to how we affect our own life and the lives of others
- Jules Shuzen Harris on how meditation practice can help us find some space between what triggers our anger and our reaction
- Christina Feldman on how it is difficult to release our anger, yet it's a much greater hardship to hold on to it
- Mark Epstein on moving beyond doer and done to
- Ezra Bayda on how there is no solid "self"--there is no "self" forgiving another "self." Waking from this illusion, we step into the universal heart, the essential fact of our basic connectedness. We discover that forgiveness is our true nature.
- Judith Toy on her struggle to make sense of the murder of three family members and how she found Zen and forgiveness along the way
- Stan Goldberg on how life doesn't last forever. If we've done something to hurt others or if others have hurt us, now is the time to ask for forgiveness.