Buddhism Essays

Buddhism is practiced by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, from Tibetan caves to Tokyo temples to redwood retreats. To an outside viewer, it might be hard to see what they all have in common. In Buddhism, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and American Buddhist nun Thubten Chodron map out with clarity the convergences and the divergences between the two major strains of Buddhism - the Sanskrit traditions of Tibet and East Asia and the Pali traditions of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

The Hidden Lamp is a collection of 100 koans and stories of Buddhist women from the time of the Buddha to the present day. This revolutionary book brings together many teaching stories that were hidden for centuries, unknown until this volume. These stories are extraordinary expressions of freedom and fearlessness, relevant for men and women of any time or place. In this audio, we meet nuns, laywomen practicing with their families, famous teachers honored by emperors, and old women selling tea on the side of the road.

In celebration of its 10th anniversary, a revised and updated edition of the award-winning #1 New York Times bestseller that changed the way we look at meditation, expanded with new material by Dan Harris. After having a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America, Dan Harris knew...

❓ What if pain was never the problem—but the path? 🌀 What if addiction wasn’t just weakness—but forgetting who you were meant to be? 🌿 What if less isn’t emptiness—but freedom? 🔥 What if the life you crave begins the moment you let go? In a world that medicates discomfort, sells noise, and rewards distraction— The Zen Meditations of an Addict Monk is a quiet rebellion. A book meant not only to inspire you—but to awaken you. A guide. A mirror. 🪞 A fire. 🔥 A return. A spiritual reckoning. A raw, poetic journey through fear, pain, addiction, consumerism, anger, ...

THE CAGE IS OPEN. WHY ARE YOU STILL SITTING INSIDE? We live in an age of miracles, yet we carry the anxieties of prisoners. We march through life to the beat of a clock we didn’t wind, chasing a definition of success that leaves us exhausted rather than fulfilled. We have built an "Artificial Garden" of safety and status, but inside, we are withering. You are not broken. You are just asleep. 31 Essays on Being Human is not a manual for self-improvement. It is a manifesto for self-remembering. It is a collection of wake-up calls designed to shatter the trance of modern life and return you ...

One of the most beloved stories of the Tibetan people and a great literary example of the contemplative life The Life of Milarepa, a biography and a dramatic tale from a culture now in crisis, can be read on several levels. A personal and moving introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, it is also a...

Over the course of twenty-five centuries, Buddhism spread from its place of origin in northern India to become a global tradition of remarkable breadth, depth, and richness. Donald S. Lopez Jr. draws on the latest scholarship to construct a detailed and innovative history of Buddhism—not just as a chronology through the centuries or as geographic movement, but as a dense matrix of interconnections.

AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB SELECTION Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory. I never believed the diagnoses the doctors settled...

From the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning bestseller Ishmael and its sequel, My Ishmael, comes a powerful novel with one of the most profound spiritual testaments of our time “A compelling ‘humantale’ that will unglue, stun, shock, and rearrange everything you’ve...

1. The Nondual Practice Myth 2. A Cult of One 3. The Power of Language 4. Warpath: Achilles’ Heel 5. Negative Progress 6. The Illusion of Disorder 7. Who cares about truth? 8. Love & Happiness 9. The First Veil 10. Zen and the Art of Self-Mutilation 11. Dropping Baggage 12. The Spiritual Trilemma 13. The Artifice Guy 14. People I Trust to Lie 15. The Open Road 16. The Razor’s Edge 17. A Major Bummer 18. The Rightness of Wrongness 19. Nonduality 101 20. Zombie Apocalypse 21. Game of Lies 22. The Prime Noodlebaker 23. What I Understand 24. The Parable of the Strata 25. The Greatest Wonder...

In the 17th century, a renowned Japanese monk and Zen master named Takuan Soho penned a collection of profound treatises, unraveling the essence of Buddhist philosophy with eloquence and simplicity. This captivating book unites three of his most significant essays: The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom, The Clear Sound of Jewels, and Chronicles of the Taia Sword. Through his translucent prose, Soho unveils the enigmatic nature of existence, illuminates the path to personal perfection, and unveils the foundational principles that underpin our very being.

The world’s only non-denominational exorcist—the subject of a forthcoming major motion picture—tells her astonishing true story: a riveting chronicle of wrestling entities from infected souls, showing how pain and trauma opens us to attachment from forces that drain our energy . . . and...

Martín Prechtel continues the narrative of his unique life in Santiago, Atitlan in Long Life, Honey in the Heart, an eloquent memoir replete with the subtle intelligence and sophistication of Mayan culture. Set against the dramatic backdrop of Guatemala's political upheaval in the 1980s, this...

Go deeper than superficial self-care with the religious secret sauce you didn’t know you were missing "An emotionally and intellectually honest alternative for people who are seeking meaning beyond generic spirituality"—Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, author of Real Self-Care In the chaos of today’s...

Moving from the Paleolithic age to the present, Karen Armstrong details the great lengths to which humankind has gone in order to experience a sacred reality that it called by many names, such as God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. Focusing especially on Christianity but including Judaism...

Winner of the René Wellek Prize Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, The Millions, and The Sydney Morning Herald A profound, original, and accessible book that offers a new secular vision of how we can lead our lives. Ranging from fundamental existential questions to the most pressing...

An extraordinary and startlingly original sequel to Ishmael “Enthralling, shocking, hope-filled, and utterly fearless, Daniel Quinn leads us deeper and deeper into the human heart, history, and spirit. In My Ishmael, Quinn strikes out into entirely new territory, posing questions that...

"A gripping guide to the modern taming of the infinite." —New York Times Part history, part philosophy, part love letter to the study of mathematics, Everything and More is an illuminating tour of infinity. With his infectious curiosity and trademark verbal pyrotechnics, David Foster Wallace...

This book is a thoroughly researched primer on the 108 Upanishads, philosophical treatises that form a part of the Vedas, the revered Hindu texts. These Upanishads contain the most crystallized bits of wisdom gleaned from Hinduism. Roshen Dalal explains the concepts at the core of each Upanishad...

A Brief History of Everything is an altogether friendly and accessible account of men and women's place in a universe of sex, soul, and spirit, written by an author of whom New York Times reporter Tony Schwartz says: "No one has described the path to wisdom better than Ken Wilber." Wilber...