Books published by Shambhala Publications Inc

Just because you live in the city doesn't mean you can't enjoy nature. This compact guide offers 52 nature-focused explorations, adventures, observations, and games that can help you and your child connect to nature while living in the city. While it may be hard to see nature through the traffic, buildings, and busyness of the city, there is still much of the natural world to explore when you turn your gaze to the cracks in the sidewalk, the trees on the street, or the green spaces that your city offers. Become an urban birder, make your own man vs. wild observations, and discover the not-so-hidden pockets of nature in your neighborhood. For children ages 4 to 8. Jennifer Ward is the author of I Love Dirt!, Let's Go Outside!, and numerous children's books, all of which present nature to kids. Learn more about her at jenniferwardbooks.com.

Regular meditation practice has a powerful impact on the mind and body, rewiring the brain and bringing us all kinds of benefits: contentment and well-being, resilience and focus, better mental and physical health, and greater empathy and compassion. This wide-ranging anthology brings together pioneering Tibetan Buddhist teachers, scientific researchers, and health professionals to offer fascinating perspectives on the mind and emotions, new studies, and firsthand accounts of how meditation is being applied to great effect in health and social care today.    • Sogyal Rinpoche and Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche on how meditation unlocks the mind’s healing power    • Jon Kabat-Zinn on the benefits of mindfulness in mainstream health care    • Clifford Saron on the Shamatha Project, the most comprehensive study of the effects of meditation ever conducted    • Sara Lazar on what happens to our brain when we meditate    • Erika Rosenberg on how meditation helps us relate better to our emotions    • Dr. Lucio Bizzini, MD, on how Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy is used to treat depression    • Ursula Bates on how mindfulness supports terminally ill patients as they approach the end of their lives Plus chapters from other innovators who apply meditation in health care and social work: Dr. Edel Maex, MD, Dr. Cathy Blanc, MD, Rosamund Oliver, and Dr. Frédéric Rosenfeld, MD.

This concise handbook of Tibetan Buddhist teachings, designed for Western students, is centered on a sitting practice called Contemplative Meditation. This practice can be used as a way to change troublesome habits, even by someone with little knowledge of Buddhism. Although the teachings are based it on a nineteenth-century text by Lama Mipham, they are presented in a non-scholarly way, with examples drawn from modern life and everyday experience. In particular, the author addresses the unique attitudes and questions of twenty-first-century Westerners who are exploring Buddhism.The practice taught in the book consists of a reflection on four subjects, known as the Four Seals of the Buddha''s teaching: multiplicity, impermanence, suffering, and emptiness. Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche explains how to investigate each of these topics in a way that helps you recognize your innate wisdom mind, which is your ultimate teacher. Once you learn how to examine your own mind and your life with this method, you will start to look at everything differently. By helping to dissolve negative thoughts and habits, the practice can increase your focus, confidence, self-esteem, and happiness. Along with exercises and questions, short readings, a glossary, and checklists for study, this book provides a complete handbook, with simple instructions for additional practices:    • the Ninefold Exhalation, a breathing method for expelling stale air before meditation    • visualization of buddhas and great teachers to inspire practice    •  the practice of bodhichitta, or generating love and compassion for all beings    • the seven-branch offering, seven devotional thoughts to strengthen efforts    • dedication of merit—the positive energy from the meditation--for the benefit of all beings Finally, the appendix gives translations of two short readings: The Wheel of Analytical Meditation by Lama Mipham, which is the source of this book''s teaching, and the Heart Sutra, a famous brief teaching on emptiness, along with a traditional commentary.

This 14th century lively history introduces basic Buddhism as practiced throughout India and Tibet and describes the process of entering the Buddhist path through study and reflection. In the first chapter, we read about the structure of Buddhist education and the range of its subjects, and we''re treated to a rousing litany of the merits of such instruction. In the second chapter, Butön introduces us to the buddhas of our world and eon, three of whom have already lived, taught, and passed into transcendence, before examining in detail the fourth, our own Buddha Shakyamuni. Butön tells the story of Shakyamuni in his past lives, then presents the path the Buddha followed (the same that all historical buddhas, including future ones, must follow). Only at the conclusion of the discussion of the result—enlightenment—do we return to the specific case of the Buddha and his twelve deeds. This marks the start of the history of the Buddha as most of us imagine it. After the Buddha''s story, Butön recounts three compilations of Buddhist scriptures, and then quotes from sacred texts that foretell the lives and contributions of great Indian Buddhist masters, which he then relates. The chapter concludes with the tale of the Buddhist doctrine''s eventual demise and disappearance, a concept and a tale squarely within the Mahayana. The final chapter, the shortest of the three, gives an account of the inception and spread of Buddhism in Tibet, focused mainly on the country''s kings and early adopters of the foreign faith. The watershed debate at Samyé Monastery between representatives of Chinese and Indian styles of Buddhist practice is given the most attention in this chapter. An afterword by Ngawang Zangpo, one of the translators, discusses and contextualizes Butön''s exemplary life, his turbulent times, and his prolific works.

Learn to understand lower back pain and heal it through gentle yoga exercises. Liz Owen, a yoga instructor who specializes in alleviating back pain, describes the anatomy of the sacrum and the region around it, including the hips and lumbar spine. She discusses both the Western and Eastern approaches to understanding back pain-particularly the Eastern medical notion of energy flow and how that relates specifically to the sacrum and the many related muscles and joints, and the chakras, or energetic points, that relate to the area. The sacrum, or lower back, is an incredibly powerful part of the human anatomy. It's what enables you to stand upright and tall, it unites your upper and lower body, it roots you to the earth, it is the foundation from which you reach upward-and it is one of the most common areas where people experience chronic pain and discomfort. It's probably the number one body part that keeps massage therapists, chiropractors, and acupuncturists in business.Owen then provides simple, easy-to-learn sequences of yoga poses for general sacrum health and then for specific problems. The last section looks at strategies for sacrum health related specifically to pregnant women and those with fibromyalgia or arthritis.

In this book, Jack Kornfield presents the heart of Buddhist practice as taught by twelve highly respected masters from Southeast Asia. These renowned teachers offer a rich variety of meditation techniques: the practices include traditional instructions for dissolving the solid sense of self, for awakening insight, for realizing Nirvana, and for cultivating compassion for all beings. Jack Kornfield’s first three chapters give an overview of Buddhist philosophy and, specifically, the meditation practices of Burma, Thailand, and Laos. The teachings in this volume are from Achaan Chaa, Mahasi Sayadaw, Sunlun Sayadaw, Achaan Buddhadasa, Achaan Naeb, Achaan Maha Boowa, Tuangpulu Sayadaw, Mohnyin Sayadaw, Mogok Sayadaw, U Ba Khin, Achaan Dhammadaro, and Achaan Jumnien.

How the mind works according to the ancient yogic traditions, compared and contrasted to the approaches of Western psychology-by one of the greatest yoga scholars of our time. Georg Feuerstein begins the book by establishing the historical context of modern Western psychology and its gradual encounter with Indian thought, then follows this introduction with twenty-three chapters, each of which presents a topic--generally a point of correspondence or distinction--between Western and Eastern paradigms. These are grouped into three general sections: Foundations, Mind and Beyond, and Mind In Transition. The book concludes with a brief epilogue as well as three appendices, adding depth to the discussion of the ancient yoga traditions as well as an informative survey of yoga psychology literature. The Psychology of Yoga is a feast of wisdom and lore, assembled from a perspective possible only for one whose monumental scholarship has been tempered and leavened by practice.

This book teaches us how to fully connect with the visual richness of our ordinary, daily experience. Photography is not just a mechanical process; it requires learning how to see. As you develop your ability to look and see, you will open, more and more, to the natural inspiration of your surroundings. Filled with practical exercises, photographic assignments, and techniques for working with texture, light, and color, this book offers a system of training that draws on both Buddhist mindfulness practice and the insights of master photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

The Bodhicharyavatara, or Way of the Bodhisattva, composed by the eighth-century Indian master Shantideva, has occupied an important place in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition throughout its history. It is a guide to cultivating the mind of enlightenment through generating the qualities of love, compassion, generosity, and patience. In this commentary, Kunzang Pelden has compiled the pith instructions of his teacher Patrul Rinpoche, the celebrated author of The Words of My Perfect Teacher.

Through lively anecdotes and stories this highly revered Buddhist meditation master and scholar tells about his life of study, retreat, and teaching. The formative events of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s life, and those insights and experiences that caused him to mature into the warm, brilliant, and highly realized meditation master and teacher he was, are deeply inspiring. The second half of the book comprises recollections by his wife; his grandson, Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche; Tenga Rinpoche; the Queen Mother of Bhutan; and many prominent teachers.

When we meditate, our minds often want to do something other than the meditation instructions we''ve been taught. When that happens repeatedly, we may feel frustrated to the point of abandoning meditation altogether. Jason Siff invites us to approach meditation in a new way, one that honors the part of us that doesn''t want to do the instructions. He teaches us how to become more tolerant of intense emotions, sleepiness, compelling thoughts, fantasies—the whole array of inner experiences that are usually considered hindrances to meditation. The meditation practice he presents in Unlearning Meditation is gentle, flexible, permissive, and honest, and it''s been wonderfully effective for opening up meditation for people who thought they could never meditate, as well as for injecting a renewed energy for practice into the lives of seasoned practitioners.

Fear and guilt are two of the greatest challenges we face on the spiritual path—but there is a way to transform these painful feelings into courageous self-acceptance. Here Pema Chödrön presents the five aphorisms for developing fearlessness that were given to Machig Lapdronma, one of Tibetan Buddhism''s greatest female teachers. Pema comments on these aphorisms, holds question-and-answer sessions, and leads guided meditations to help us:    •  overcome shame and guilt    •  remain courageous in the face of pain    •  transform our relationships with difficult people    •  increase our feelings of generosity and compassion This program also includes a card with the five aphorisms and study. 5 CDs, 5 hours