The classic guide for Zen students pursuing the true way."Somebody comes into the Zen center with a lighted cigarette, walks up to the Buddha-statue, blows smoke in its face and drops ashes on its lap. You are standing there. What can you do?" This is a problem that Zen Master Seung Sahn was fond of posing to his American students who attended his Zen centers.Dropping Ashes on the Buddha is a delightful, irreverent, and often hilariously funny livi...

Loving What Is by bestselling author Byron Katie is a simple, straightforward antidote to the suffering we unnecessarily create for ourselves and has inspired and help millions of people transform their pain into freedom. Written in an easy-to-follow, interactive and accessible way and drawing on illustrative case studies, reading this is the first step to turning your life around and achieving inner peace and harmony...'A great blessing for our pl...

The Bhagavad Gita, or 'Song of the Spirit', is the best known book of India's national epic The Mahabharata. Based on a dialogue between Bhagavan Krishna and Prince Arjuna on the eve of a great battle, it is held to be the essence of Hindu spirituality, sacred literature and yoga, as well as exploring the great universal themes of courage, honour, death, love, virtue and fulfilment. Of interest to the large number of contemporary spiritual seekers - of any faith and none - who want to read...

“I love The First Christmas. What a charming way Stephen Mitchell has found to tell my favorite story of all, the Nativity, character by character (I love the donkey and the ox), with wise and thrilling interludes about God, reality, truth.” –Anne LamottIn The First Christmas, Stephen Mitchell brings the Nativity story to vivid life as never before. A narrative that is only sketched out in two Gospels becomes fully realized here with nuanced chara...

This remarkable Zen book is of great importance not only for the variety of the 365 kong-ans, but for Zen Master Seung Sahn's own questions and commentary which accompany each kong-an. This prodding and guidance serve as guideposts along a difficult road to enlightenment. The kong-ans themselves and practice for life-practice for life-practice for answering the questions which are profound and practical arising everyday.One of the distinctive qualities of The Whole World Is a S...

Inspired by the Tao Te Ching, this is Byron Katie's inspiring and pragmatic approach to achieving an awakened mind and living more simply and profoundly. Using the template of the 81 chapters of the Tao Te Ching she talks about her own experience of living in harmony with the way things are, and the difference between what hurts and what doesn't.Katie has written two books that teach how suffering can be relieved by questioning the thoughts that create it, the tho...

Some fights can make you stronger; here's how...Every couple wants to feel alive and deeply connected to one another. In fact, those with children often feel the added desire to have and become it all: the perfect parents, partners, and fulfilled individuals. And yet, most of us are too exhausted and consumed by endless demands to still feel close as a couple. Too often, we plod along, swallowing resentment until it explodes. This book shows you that it doesn't hav...

Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poetare arguably the most famous and beloved letters of the twentieth century. Written when the poet was himself still a young man, with most of his greatest work before him, they were addressed to a student who had sent Rilke some of his own writing, asking for advice on becoming a writer. The two never met, but over a period of several years Rilke wrote him these ten letters, which have been cherished by hundreds of thousands of readers for what Stephe...

'A powerful translation' The Telegraph'As narrative verse, this Gilgamesh entrances and enthrals.' Independent'Stephen Mitchell's Gilgamesh is a wonderful version' Harold BloomVivid, enjoyable and comprehensible, the poet and pre-eminent translator Stephen Mitchell makes the oldest epic poem in the world accessible for the first time.Gilgamesh is a born leader, but in an att...

The classic tale of Odysseus's return home in a stunning new translation.THE ODYSSEY, which tells of Odysseus's long voyage home after the battle of Troy, is one of the defining masterpieces of Western literature.Populated by one-eyed man-eating giants, beautiful seductive goddesses, and lavishly hospitable kings and queens, it is an extraordinary work of the imagination, the original epic voyage into the unknown that has inspired other writing down through...

This "touching and funny" book by a Jewish Buddhist "giv[es] a sense of the richness that comes with opening to more than one way of spiritual observance" ( San Francisco Chronicle)."How can you be a Buddhist and a Jew?" It's a question Sylvia Boorstein, author of It's Easier Than You Think, has heard many times. Can an authentic Jewish faith be wedded with Buddhist meditation practice? In this landmark national bestseller, the es...

The ten letters collected here are arguably the most famous and beloved letters of our century. Written when Rainer Maria Rilke was himself still a young man with most of his greatest work before him, they are addressed to a student who had sent Rilke some of his work, asking for advice about becoming a writer. The two never met, but over a period of several years Rilke wrote him these ten letters, which have been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of readers for what Stephen Mitchell calls ...