This book examines the importance of the topic of *‘*feeling tone’ (vedanā) as it appears in early Buddhist texts and practice, and also within contemporary, secular, mindfulness-based interventions.The volume aims to highlight the crucial nature of the ‘feeling tone’ or ‘taste of experience’ in determining mental reactivity, behaviour, character, and ethics. In the history of Buddhism, and in its reception in contemporary discourse, vedanā has often been a much-n...

The heart and lung are intricately linked. When the heart is affected by disease, the lungs will often show some related pathological or clinical conditions and vice versa. Pulmonary heart disease is by definition a condition when the lungs cause the heart to fail. The left ventricle in combination with the other structures in the “left heart” pumps blood throughout the body. The right ventricle (and structures of the “right heart”) pumps blood to the lungs where it is oxygenated and retur...

This interdisciplinary study examines painted portraiture as a defining metaphor of elite self-representation in early modern culture.Beginning with Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier (1528), the most influential early modern account of the formation of elite identity, the argument traces a path across the ensuing century towards the images of courtiers and nobles by the most persuasive of European portrait painters, Van Dyck, especially those produced in London during the...

An immersive drama series offering a window into the lives of visitors to the fictional seaside town of Porthant Bay in CornwallShifting the Leaves by Dave Sheasby: Returning to Porthant Bay in Cornwall after 60 years, Marjorie Beaumont rediscovers something of her past.I Am a Postcard by Lavinia Murray: Teenagers Nina and Lex go on a caravan holiday to Porthant Bay with their father following their parents’ break up.

Toulouse-Lautrec's iconic Parisian poster stars come to life in these full-cast dramas, set in 19th-century Montmartre1889, Paris. When Charles Zidler's extravagant pleasure palace, the Moulin Rouge, opens in bohemian Montmartre, he commissions local artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to create a series of posters to promote it. The striking lithographs Henri produces will make his name - and launch the careers of the performers he portrayed.This sparkling co...

A BBC Radio thriller series about two old-school detectives who solve crimes in Victorian London1839, and Bow Street Runner Pip Shepherd is out of a job. The Runners have been disbanded, merged with Sir Robert Peel's new Metropolitan Police - and there's no way Pip's signing up with them. But when he befriends 'Peeler' Thomas Tedman, and hears about an upcoming detective division, he has second thoughts: and soon the duo are investigating their first cases together...

*Why do seemingly rational, intelligent people commit acts of cruelty and violence?*What are the root causes of destructive behavior?*How can we control the emotions that drive these impulses?*Can we learn to live at peace with ourselves and others?Imagine sitting with the Dalai Lama in his private meeting room with a small group of world-class scientists and philosophers. The talk is lively and fascinating as these leading minds grapple with age-old questio...

Gallileo, Copernicus, Newton, Niels Bohr, Einstein. Their insights shook our perception of who we are and where we stand in the world and in their wake have left an uneasy co-existence: science vs. religion, faith vs. empirical enquiry. Which is the keeper of truth? Which is the true path to understanding reality?After forty years of study with some of the greatest scientific minds as well as a lifetime of meditative, spiritual and philosophical study, the Dalai Lama presents a bri...

What does it mean to be enlightened or spiritually awakened? In The Leap, Steve Taylor shows that this state is much more common than is generally believed. He shows that ordinary people — from all walks of life — can and do regularly “wake up” to a more intense reality, even if they know nothing about spiritual practices and paths. Wakefulness is a more expansive and harmonious state of being that can be cultivated or that can arise accidentally. It may also be a process we are u...

A renowned philosopher of the mind, also known for his groundbreaking work on Buddhism and cognitive science, Evan Thompson combines the latest neuroscience research on sleep, dreaming, and meditation with Indian and Western philosophy of mind, casting new light on the self and its relation to the brain.Thompson shows how the self is a changing process, not a static thing. When we are awake we identify with our body, but if we let our mind wander or daydream, we project a mentally ...

Drawing on decades of experience, a psychotherapist and Zen practitioner makes the Abhidharma—the framework of Buddhist psychology—accessible to a general audience for the first time.The Abhidharma, one of the 3 major text collections of the original Buddhist canon, explores the critical juncture of Buddhist thought and the therapeutic aspects of the religion and meditation. It frames the psychological system of Buddhism, explaining the workings of reality...

A Buddhist monk and esteemed neuroscientist discuss their converging—and diverging—views on the mind and self, consciousness and the unconscious, free will and perception, and more.Buddhism shares with science the task of examining the mind empirically; it has pursued, for two millennia, direct investigation of the mind through penetrating introspection. Neuroscience, on the other hand, relies on third-person knowledge in the form of scientific observation. In this...