"This is the story of a circle of friends dreaming a dream, and working to make it a reality. . . . It's the nitty-gritty story of how a community evolves. It's a story of idealism and naivety, growth and growing pains, hard work and burn-out, friendship and fall-out."

This book tells the story of an international Buddhist movement, from its inception in London to its growth worldwide. It is the story of mistakes made, lessons learned, and how a Buddhist community was built.

Vajragupta is the author of the best-selling "Buddhism: Tools for Living your Life."

This work features tools which are teachings, exercises and reflections which can be applied to everyday life. The tools draw on the Buddhist tradition to guide us along a progressive path of ethics, meditation and wisdom in the context of our day-to-day living. The tools are drawn from the author's rich experience of guiding newcomers to Buddhism and meditation in how to integrate the teachings into our daily lives. There are also tools on how to bring calm into the midst of a busy active life. It is the next best thing to your own personal Buddhist teacher!

What is it like to be completely alone, attempting to face your experience with only nature for company? Buddhist teacher and author, Vajragupta, has been doing just that every year for twenty-five years. Here he recounts how these `solitary retreats' have changed him, how he fell in love with the places he stayed in and the creatures there. He reflects on how the outer world and his inner world began to speak more deeply to each other, and how there were moments when the barrier between them seemed to dissolve away. Also includes an `A-to-Z' guide of how to do your own solitary retreat.

How do we really get on in this world? Tossed around by gain, buffeted by loss, borne aloft by praise, cast down by blame, how can we not be ground under, lose all direction, confidence, and sense of purpose? The Buddha had clear guidance on how to rise above these 'worldly winds', and Vajragupta here opens up for us the Buddha's compassionate yet uncompromising teaching. Using reflections, exercises and suggestions for daily practice, this book can help you find greater equanimity and perspective in the ups and downs - big and small - of everyday life.

In our fast moving world many of us feel our time is wound tight, our lives constantly hassled and hectic. `Fast-forward' seems to be the collective default setting. So often we can be over busy and over stimulated, and this can send stress levels higher and higher. In Free Time!, Vajragupta Staunton shows us that investigating our experience of time, and considering our relationship with it, can be deeply and powerfully transformative. Noticing the feel and texture of our time can help us see more clearly, and understand more profoundly, the anxiety and restlessness that so often dominates our minds. We and time are intimately intertwined. It is not something we are in; it is something that we are. That means we have a choice about our experience of time: what we do with our minds and our hearts, with our thoughts and emotions, will condition the quality of the time we live in. Vajragupta Staunton explores time from a number of different angles, in order to see how we can have a more healthy and human relationship with it. He looks at our actual day-to-day experience of time and applies a variety of Buddhist ideas and teachings in order to understand what time really is. He also offers practical ways of helping us live in a way that is relaxed and open, in a way that is not oppressive and restrictive, but free and flowing.

Forgiveness has often viewed as a religious obligation but is increasingly being advocated as a means of healing, release and promoting wellbeing. Forgiveness is variously viewed as a duty, virtue or cure, but when it comes to practising forgiveness in real life we find it is always caught up in the complexity of the situation. This book shines a light on how we tend to think about forgiveness in practice, including examples from social work, family therapy, chaplaincy and criminal justice. The book contains many different perspectives on how we think about forgiveness, including overviews of four major religions and reflections from those working in the healing professions. Without advocating a particular approach this book raises important questions around self-forgiveness and forgiving institutions and encourages the reader to think again about forgiveness and how it impacts, challenges and transforms relationships.