Books by Stephen Batchelor

Demystifies Buddhism by explaining, without jargon or obscure terminology, what awakening is and how to practise it.

Some twenty-five centuries after the Buddha started teaching, his message continues to inspire people across the globe, including those living in predominantly secular societies. What does it mean to adapt religious practices to secular contexts? Stephen Batchelor, an internationally known author and teacher, is committed to a secularized version of the Buddha's teachings. The time has come, he feels, to articulate a coherent ethical, contemplative, and philosophical vision of Buddhism for our age. After Buddhism, the culmination of four decades of study and practice in the Tibetan, Zen, and Theravada traditions, is his attempt to set the record straight about who the Buddha was and what he was trying to teach. Combining critical readings of the earliest canonical texts with narrative accounts of five members of the Buddha's inner circle, Batchelor depicts the Buddha as a pragmatic ethicist rather than a dogmatic metaphysician. He envisions Buddhism as a constantly evolving culture of awakening whose long survival is due to its capacity to reinvent itself and interact creatively with each society it encounters. This original and provocative book presents a new framework for understanding the remarkable spread of Buddhism in today's globalized world. It also reminds us of what was so startling about the Buddha's vision of human flourishing.

What is this? Ancient questions for modern minds presents talks given by Martine and Stephen Batchelor during a Sön (Chan/Zen) retreat in England in 2016. Leading us through the practice of radical questioning at the heart of this Korean Buddhist tradition, the authors show how anyone at all can benefit from this form of radical inquiry today.These talks demonstrate clearly how a practice with origins in China a thousand years ago can meld with insights from the natural sciences, classical and modern western philosophy, Romantic poetry, and early Buddhism. The reader can use this book as a companion in facing the challenge of living a fully human life in our complex contemporary world, or as a practice manual, or both.Stephen Batchelor is a writer, teacher and artist. He trained as a Sön monk in Korea for four years. He is the author of Buddhism without beliefs, After Buddhism and, most recently, Secular Buddhism. He is a co-founder of Bodhi College.Martine Batchelor lived as a Sön nun in Korea for ten years. She is author of Meditation for life, The path of compassion, Women in Korean Zen and Let go. Her most recent book is The spirit of the Buddha.Martine and Stephen have taught at Gaia House since 1986. They live in southwest France, and conduct seminars and retreats worldwide.

An essential collection of Stephen Batchelor's most probing and important work on secular Buddhism As the practice of mindfulness permeates mainstream Western culture, more and more people are engaging in a traditional form of Buddhist meditation. However, many of these people have little interest in the religious aspects of Buddhism, and the practice occurs within secular contexts such as hospitals, schools, and the workplace. Is it possible to recover from the Buddhist teachings a vision of human flourishing that is secular rather than religious without compromising the integrity of the tradition? Is there an ethical framework that can underpin and contextualize these practices in a rapidly changing world? In this collected volume of Stephen Batchelor's writings on these themes, he explores the complex implications of Buddhism's secularization. Ranging widely-from reincarnation, religious belief, and agnosticism to the role of the arts in Buddhist practice-he offers a detailed picture of contemporary Buddhism and its attempt to find a voice in the modern world.

Is your knowledge of The Crusades less than tip-top? Maybe you're curious about Columbus, or you're desperate to read about the Black Death in all its gory detail? This title includes - from kings, knights and anti-Popes, to invasion, famine, the Magna Carta and Joan of Arc (and a few rebellious peasants thrown in for good measure).

The civilisation of the Ancient Greeks has been immensely influential on the language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, science and arts of Western culture.