Showing titles in Eastern

The Art of War dates back to the fifth century BC, and is an ancient Chinese military handbook. Attributed to the intelligent military strategist Sun Tzu, the title of the work is Master Sun's Rules of Warfare when literally translated from Chinese. The book contains 13 chapters, each of which are dedicated to a single aspect of warfare strategy. Emperor Shenzong of Song deemed it the most important of China's Seven Military Classics in 1080 and it is still one of the most influential strategy texts in East Asia.

Bhakti (love for the Beloved) is the highest pinnacle of any spiritual endeavor. Unlike other paths, it is a wholly selfless path in which the practitioner is unconcerned with personal gain or spiritual goals. The goal is simply to love God. In this path, one experiences the bliss of the divine from the very outset. As Ramakrishna says, God’s devotees are invited into the living room of God’s heart from the very beginning, while others have to wait outside until the very end. Bhakti is the simplest, easiest, most satisfying and most expedient path to the divine.

We all long for boundless love as we long for home. But how can we find our home our meaning and purpose if we don't know our self? Wise-Love is an exploration of the self, or consciousness, guided through the meditative eyes of saints, sages, seers, and mystics. As we embark on the journey to the self, we discover that the self's most charming characteristic part of its eternal, unchanging nature is that it is a lover, a lover who can be satisfied only when ordinary love evolves into wise-love.

A leading thinker in the field of secular spirituality reveals why mindfulness is perhaps our most promising tool for creating real change in a polarized world. An audio workshop filled with insights and practices to help us evolve past our genetically inherent biases, develop greater clarity and inclusiveness, cultivate compassion, and more.

Mindfulness and insight - clearly knowing what is happening in one's present moment experience - and concentration - the ability of the mind to remain steady and undistracted - are foundational elements of meditation, yet people are often confused about how these aspects of the practice fit together. Should they be doing insight meditation or concentration practices? How does concentration fit into insight meditation? To help, The Art and Skill of Buddhist Meditation offers specific guidance.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky is best known as the cofounder of theosophy, which is essentially a selective conflation of Hindu and Buddhist ideas combined with Blavatsky's idiosyncratic system of cosmology. The Voice of the Silence, first published in 1889, is described by the author as "chosen fragments from the Book of the Golden Precepts, for the daily use of disciples".

The concept of nonduality lies at the very heart of Mahayana Buddhism. In the West, it's usually associated with various kinds of absolute idealism in the West, or mystical traditions in the East-and as a result, many modern philosophers are poorly informed on the topic. Increasingly, however, nonduality is finding its way into Western philosophical debates. In this analysis of the philosophies of nondualism of (Hindu) Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism, and Taoism, renowned thinker David R. Loy extracts what he calls "a core doctrine" of nonduality.

Does it take faith to be a Jedi? Are droids capable of thought? Should Jar Jar Binks be held responsible for the rise of the Empire? Presenting entirely new essays, no aspect of the myth and magic of George Lucas's creation is left philosophically unexamined in The Ultimate Star Wars and Philosophy.

Completed just four years after his escape from Tibet and four years after completing his religious education, the Dalai Lama's classic text on Buddhist philosophy is a thorough but succinct overview of Buddhist doctrines as they have been practiced in Tibet for a thousand years. This invaluable handbook provides a compendium of Buddhist thought and practice that is both dense and rich - serving at once as a summation of knowledge and as an invitation to further study.

This lecture series with Sarah Shaw looks at several texts in the Pali Canon from the Dīgha Nikāya, the “collection of long discourses”. Sarah explores the Buddha’s teachings on subjects, including meditation, ethics, meditative states, and conditionality. This series is an excellent foundation for understanding the underpinnings of all Buddhist philosophy.

Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the history of the Islamic world through its religion, thinkers, poetry, empire and rulers. Since 1998, In Our Time has been the go-to radio programme for knowledge seekers and inquiring minds. This special themed collection provides a focussed, wide-ranging introduction to 25 of the ideas and events that shaped the Islamic world, highlighting the numerous connections between Islamdom and the West throughout history.

Ocho pasos hacia la felicidad es un profundo y práctico comentario de una de las escrituras budistas más apreciadas, Adiestramiento de la mente en ocho estrofas, compuesta por el gran Bodhisatva tibetano Langri Tangpa. En este comentario se presentan con claridad métodos eficaces para transformar todas las dificultades de la vida en experiencias espirituales de gran valor, mejorar nuestras relaciones con los demás y despertar nuestro potencial ilimitado de amor, compasión y sabiduría. Durante siglos, estos métodos han proporcionado paz duradera, inspiración y serenidad a innumerables personas en Oriente....

This course introduces key concepts of Indian Buddhist thought. Over five lectures, Bee explains the fundamental themes and problems of Buddhist philosophy, from the early Buddhist teachings on "suffering", "karma", and "No-Self" to the later scholasticism and the famous schools of thought around "emptiness" and "mind-only". Each chapter introduces another layer of Buddhist philosophical development and depth. The course forms a very clear and intriguing introduction to the wealth of Buddhist thought.

This Bodhi Leaf by Ajahn Brahmavamso (Ajahn Brahm) is an essay on the path, and the qualities, that lead to Nibbana. Ajahn Brahm is a senior Western monk of the Forest Tradition who lives and teaches in Australia.

Do you feel at home right now? Or do you sense a hovering anxiety or uncertainty, an underlying unease that makes you feel just a bit uncomfortable, a bit distracted and disconnected from those around you? In The Road Home, Ethan Nichtern, a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, investigates the journey each of us takes to find where we belong.

Oriental Magic is recognized as a brilliant study of how, what and why people think, in territories extending from North Africa to Japan. The book is the product of years of research and fieldwork in a dozen different cultural regions. Its scholarly accuracy and genuine contribution to cultural understanding have made it a key text for anyone interested in informal beliefs and esoteric practices.

Kína i.e. hatodik századának két szellemóriása: Lao-ce és Konfu-ce. Tanításuk látszólag ellentétes, a mélyben mégis egybeér. Lao-ce a tao (az Út) világrendjébe történő, nem cselekvő beilleszkedést tanítja, míg Konfu-ce azt vallja: a bölcs fáradhatatlanul hirdesse felismert igazságát. A ma uralkodói trezorjaikban és hadseregükben bíznak. Ezért mondja már Platón, hogy ma már csak "demokráciák és önkényuralmak váltogatják egymást". A közép ismerete elveszett.

From self-realization and self-promotion to self-help and the selfie, the modern world encourages us to be self-obsessed. We are even told that finding ourselves is the key to happiness. Better to lose yourself! More than 2,500 years ago, the Buddha argued that the self is an illusion—and that our belief in it is the cause of most, if not all, of our suffering. How to Lose Yourself presents lively, accessible, and expert new translations of ancient Buddhist writings about the central, unique, and powerful Buddhist teaching of "no-self."

Initial awakening is the most important shift that can occur within our lifetime, but even that key development is no more than an invitation to the larger dance. Ultimately, if we do not clear up after we wake up, then awakening will have been of little consequence. In the absence of that critical clearing process, our awakening is reduced to becoming a pleasant memory of an important event that happened long ago and which we presently cannot quite remember or explain.

In Yoga and the Pursuit of Happiness, you'll discover that lasting happiness is already at your fingertips - in the small, everyday moments inherently infused with purpose and meaning. The philosophy of yoga - rather than the poses and postures - boils down to one fundamental process: overcoming suffering by coming to know ourselves and aligning our actions with our own intrinsic sense of spiritual purpose. And yoga gives us the tools to address two basic existential questions: Who am I? What should I do?