"A moving description of a life in practice which goes far beyond text-based ideas of prayer, devotion, guru-connection, or meditation, and most especially of tantric practice." - Anne Klein, former Chair of the Department of Religion at Rice University.A ground-breaking book, The Magic of Vajrayana opens new doors to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of Vajrayana, one of the most vibrant traditions of mystical practice in the world today. Ken McLeod deftly deploys his considerable sk...

In This Unexpected Jewel, Ken McLeod offers a fresh and highly readable translation of the Diamond Sutra, one of the most revered texts in the Buddhist tradition. Trained in the Tibetan tradition and translating from the Tibetan, McLeod approaches the Diamond Sutra not as a philosophical treatise but as a series of pointing out instructions, that is, ways to cut through conceptual thinking to the essence of what we are. In short, it is a translation for practitio...

Reflections on Silver River consists of a new translation of Tokmé Zongpo's Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva and a verse-by verse commentary. In just thirty-seven verses, Tokmé Zongpo summarizes the bodhisattva path. While this revered and loved text from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition has been translated many times, Ken McLeod's plain and simple English beautifully reflects the simplicity and directness of the original Tibetan. McLeod's commentary is full of striking images, prov...

At the core of spiritual development in Mahayana Buddhism is the arousal of bodhicitta, “awakened heart.” Bodhicitta is the unconditional intention to help all sentient beings to become free from suffering. It is the complete abandonment of any sort of personal territory, both in our relationship with others and in our understanding of the world as it is. It begins with the development of love and compassion for others and matures into the full resolution to help them as much as possible.

In this wonderful guide, respected teacher Ken McLeod deconstructs TibetanBuddhism to make it a path accessible to the Western reader.With abundant anecdotal and illustrative material, he addresses a vast number ofteachings, from the Four Noble Truths, through death and impermanence meditations,karma, mind training, and insight practices. Especially engaging and relevant toWestern readers are the sections on dismantling attachment to conventional suc...

Driving Identities examines long-standing connections between popular music and the automotive industry and how this relationship has helped to construct and reflect various socio-cultural identities. It also challenges common assumptions regarding the divergences between industry and art, and reveals how music and sound are used to suture the putative divide between human and non-human.This book is a ground-breaking inquiry into the relationship between popular music and ...

The ideas and practices related to afrofuturism have existed for most of the 20th century, especially in the north American African diaspora community. After Mark Dery coined the word "afrofuturism" in 1993, Alondra Nelson as a member of an online forum, along with other participants, began to explore the initial terrain and intellectual underpinnings of the concept noting that “AfroFuturism has emerged as a term of convenience to describe analysis, criticism and cultural production that a...

Sports and popular music are synergistic agents in the construction of identity and community. They are often interconnected through common cross-marketing tactics and through influence on each other's performative strategies and stylistic content. Typically only studied as separate entities, popular music and sport cultures mutually 'play' off each other in exchanges of style, ideologies and forms. Posing unique challenges to notions of mind - body dualities, nationalism, class, gender, a...

The Dalai Lama presents the basic worldview of Buddhism while offering answers to some of life's most profound and challenging questions: Why are we in this situation? Where are we going? Do our lives have any meaning? How should we live our lives?Basing his explanation on the twelve links of dependent-arising as depicted in the Buddhist image of the Wheel of Life, His Holiness vividly describes how human beings become trapped in a counterproductive prison of selfishness and suffer...

"Our biggest fear," says poet and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, "is that we will become nothing when we die. If we think that we cease to exist when we die, we have not looked very deeply at ourselves."It is possible to live every day without being afraid of what happens when we die. Through a close examination of who we are, how we exist, and how we live, we can conquer our fear to live a freer and happier life. Through stories and lucid teachings, Thich Naht Hanh brings peace of mi...

**"[Thich Nhat Hanh] shows us the connection between personal, inner peace and peace on earth." –His Holiness The Dalai LamaNominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for a Nobel Peace Prize, Thich Nhat Hanh is one of today’s leading sources of wisdom, peace, compassion and comfort.It was under the bodhi tree in India twenty-five centuries ago that Buddha achieved the insight that three states of mind were the source of all our unhappiness: wron...

In this extensive lesson, Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, beautifully elucidates the meaning of the path to enlightenment.His discourse arises from the Third Dalai Lama's brilliant and powerful work, Essence of Refined Gold, a classic text that summarizes the meaning of all Buddha's teachings. The subject of Essence is the Lam Rim, a term that literally means "stages on the spiritual path."Through his insightful exploration and i...