The Zen of Eating by R. Kabatznick Average Rating: "Finally a book that makes sense of the compulsion to overeat! In my struggles with my eating disorder, I've read more than three dozen books about the process. While I've gained a lot of help from the writing of Geneen Roth, Judi Hollis, Jane R. Hirschmann, and Carol H. Munter, The Zen of Eating is the absolute best book I've ever read about eating disorders. The Zen of Eating nudges us to look at how we live, not just how we eat. It explains the necessity of treating ourselves with loving kindness as it shows how overeating is not a disorder of will, but a disorder of desire. After I read this book, both my life and my eating suddenly made a lot more sense. This book has indeed changed my life. Although this wonderful book uses Buddha's Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path to show readers how to free themselves from compulsive eating, the book can be appreciated by readers of all faiths (or no faith at all). The author's previous personal experience a! ! s a psychologist with the Weight Watchers program and her work in soup kitchens give her important 'street level" insight into the problems of American overeaters. The book itself is gentle, kind, and affirming. I've read it twice. After each reading,I feel myself glowing, inspired, and in love with the world. The Zen of Eating is written with such compassion, love, and good common sense, I bet even non-dieters will savor it. I plan to read it at least once a year for the rest of my life." Publisher: Perigee Trade | More reviews: amazon.com
Zen Heart: Simple Advice for Living with Mindfulness and Compassion by Ezra Bayda Average Rating: "Zen Heart shares infinite wisdom in a very down-to-earth and accessible way. This book offers tools for those who are ready to do the work, to actually BE with life as it is, to BE with one's self, to BE with all things, including those which are most difficult. I am so grateful for this book and read it at a crucial and challenging time in life. I lost my mom to Cancer ten months ago. I was her primary caregiver for many months before she died and was intimately involved in her dying process. While my grief is still very intense much of the time, my overall feeling is joy and gratitude. There has been a giant shift in the way I relate to myself and the world because of all I've been through this year. There has been a deepening of my own spirituality. Zen Heart and my dad's guidance have been invaluable in helping me through it all." Publisher: Shambhala | More reviews: amazon.com
Zen Meditation Balls (Miniature Editions) by Alison Trulock Average Rating: "I own a pair of these balls in a larger scale, but this kit is perfect for carrying in the purse, the pocket or anywhere you like, thanks to the tiny bag included. They are not heavy at all.
The design of the book and the balls have changed slightly, so maybe the kit you'll buy would be different from the one shown as reference.
When you use the balls, you can actually hear them make a bell-sound like.
Be careful when handling them; if you drop them and they hit the floor, this can cause they lose their round shape or the enamel that covers them." Publisher: Running Press Miniature Editions | More reviews: amazon.com
Zen and the Art of Making a Living: A Practical Guide to Creative Career Design (Arkana) by Laurence G. Boldt Average Rating: "If you're lost in any way this book is a treasure chest
of help, read it all the way though. If you're not it still is because parts of it will keep those who know why they are on the planet reaffirmed.. I was very lost and took three weeks off and read it up to the point
where you go out and test your decision. Best thing I ever did.
Now I'm reading how to best follow through. I plan on keeping
this book around for a long, long time. It's like a manual for life, the game of life.
framed in acts like a play and sprinkled with hundreds of great quotes.
Einstien, to Cambell, to Hui Neng grace it's pages with Boldt
sythesizing it all into a wonderful stream of wise advice.
Life is an art, and a game, and to serve is paramount.
It's one of those books that makes you wish everyone HAD to read it, and what a nice world it would be if they did.
If Quest for the Holy Grail had a manual on how to search and find your own personal Grail, and do it in a honest and healthy way, this is it." Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) | More reviews: amazon.com
Zen and the Art of Poker: Timeless Secrets to Transform Your Game by Larry Phillips Average Rating: "This book sets out to achieve a clear and reasonable goal of applying Zen to help your poker game. It describes the limitations in doing this in a clear and reasonable manner.Many of the concepts set out by the book are very useful. What really marrs the book is the occasionally mention of ways of detecting and leaving a cold table early and like issues. That part of the book is just incorrect.I'd suggest this book for anybody (isn't that all of us) that occasionally or not so occasionally has troubles with emotions coming inbetween plan and execution. Read each section critically and I believe the sum output is well worth the cost." Publisher: Plume | More reviews: amazon.com
The Mini Zen Gardening Kit (Miniature Editions) by Abd Al-hayy Moore Average Rating: "I know the saying you get what you pay for but this is ridiculous. The "kit" comes w/ a small bag of sand and 3 miniature rock chips, they can't be considered rocks in my opinion. They're just too small, they get lost in the sand. The "tray" is nothing more than a cardboard box top! And the miniature rake is so small and delicate that it fell apart the first time I used it. The kit is reasonably priced I guess for what you get, but w/ ... s&h it is not even close to being worth [the price]. If I wouldn't lose money by sending it back I would. Don't waste your time and money w/ this one, you can make your own for about the same price by going to a garden shop and buying a bag of sand and gathering your own choice of rocks. The rakes are harder to come by so I made my own out of old wooden chopsticks and my homemade garden is much nicer than this ..." Publisher: Running Press Miniature Editions | More reviews: amazon.com
The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Digha Nikaya (Teachings of the Buddha) by Maurice Walshe Average Rating: "Superlatives alone serve to describe this great achievement of scholarship, translation and dedication to fundamental Buddhism. Walshe was not only a master of languages but a practicing Buddhist -- and it certainly shows. This particular product of his knowledge and his faith is one of the most inspiring and elucidating volumes of Buddhist text available to the English-speaking reader.I will leave it to others to describe the wonderful prose into which Walshe turns the complexities of the Pali language, and the clarity with which he manages to capture in readable English the most arcane Buddhist concepts. I prefer instead to recommend this book because of my own favorite part: The dozens of witty, insightful notes and asides which Walshe buries throughout, waiting for the reader to stumble upon them and have them explode like intellectual land-mines, bursting with clarity, erudition -- and gentle humor.I find myself turning to this book all the time simply to consult its remarkable introduction and ample appendices. Walshe is consistently the most accurate and reliable source of basic information about tbe Buddha, Buddhism, the Pali language and Pali literature I have encountered. In my awe at his ability to teach, I can only assume that Walshe took as his model the Buddha himself. Deprived of the opportunity to have had first-hand contact as a student of either one, I content myself with the belief that Walshe's book represents the second-best chance to study at the feet of both." Publisher: Wisdom Publications | More reviews: amazon.com
Zen and the Birds of Appetite. by Thomas Merton Average Rating: "Merton felt that his journals contained his best writing. I'll offer a different opinion; I think his essays and book reviews contain much of his best writing. "Zen and the Birds of Appetite" is a collection of essays on what's common to Zen and Christianity, and the book includes a book review and Merton's prefaces to two books by other authors.He seems to write these prefaces not simply because he was asked to. He writes them, I think, because the books really inspire him. (Most of us write these reviews on Amazon.com for the same reason!) His prefaces present his thinking along with the author's thinking in a way that improves the overall publication. Comparing his thinking with another author's thinking seems to make Merton's writing even more succinct and sharply-reasoned than usual. And in "Zen" he's comparing his faith with another faith, so his sensitivity, appreciation, and sharp mind are even more in evidence than usual.These essays don't amount to a textbook on Zen or Zen Buddhism, any more than a collection of short stories adds up to a novel. But together the essays address an overall question: what is it about Christianity that resembles Zen? In the process of approaching the question, Merton gives us some gems. His discussion of paradise, innocence, and knowledge is the best I've read. You may learn more about Christianity than about Zen in this volume. His essays make up the first part of the book. The second part of the book is a "dialogue" between Merton and Diasetz T. Suzuki, a Zen scholar quite accessable to the Western mindset. These dialogue seems to devolve somewhat into a "point-counterpoint" duel, but that's fun and a lot of well-framed truth comes out." Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation | More reviews: amazon.com
Understanding Our Mind: 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology by Thich Nhat Hanh Average Rating: ""Our mind is a field in which every kind of seed is sown--seeds of compassion, joy, and hope, seeds of sorrow, fear, and difficulties," Thich Nhat Hanh writes. "Every day our thoughts, words, and deeds plant new seeds in the field of our consciousness, and what these seeds generate becomes the substance of our life" (p. 21). This book is a compilation of dharma teachings given by Thich Nhat Hanh between 1989 and 1998 on Buddhist psychology. The teachings here are subtle, complex, and look deeply into the nature of consciousness. "One could spend an entire lifetime looking deeply into them," Thay writes in the book's Introduction. "Please do not be daunted by their complexity. Go slowly," he encourages us (p. 4). When put into practice, they point the way to transformation, bringing life into "sharp, clear focus" (p. 141).This book shows we can cultivate paradise or hell in our own minds (p. 54), turning our inner garbage into flowers (p. 218). Thay writes, "when we are able to touch our habit energies and transform the roots of violence, despair, fear, and anger in our store consciousness, transformation occurs. We begin by recognizing the internal knots and latent tendencies in order to transform them. We have to train ourselves in the way of looking with the insights of nonself and interbeing. Day and night we have to water the seeds of understanding in our store consciousness so that it will grow and help us to see the nature of interbeing in every thing we see and touch. We have to bring this understanding into our daily life" (pp. 224-5).Not an easy read, this insightful book is highly recommended for any reader interested in Buddhist transformational psychology or the interdependence of all things.G. Merritt" Publisher: Parallax Press | More reviews: amazon.com
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma: A Bilingual Edition by Bodhidharma Average Rating: "as a Dharma teacher of traditional orthodox Buddhsim and having every book in English on Buddhism this book ranks in the top 5 as being one of the most fantasticly accurate books in English on Buddhism. Ive given endless books bad reviews deservedly and can say from massive experience there is much trash out there written on Zen and or Buddhism as a whole and this book is the die from which all other books (except the holy Sutras) must be judged. One thing about this book is both incredible and hilarious at the same time which is there are many so called Masters of the Buddhist Dharma which have written Blasphemously incorrect and wrong books on Buddhism. When asked NOT A SINGLE SO CALLED ZEN MASTER will ever refute ONE WORD from this book by Bodhidharma and would risk hisses if they even thought to do so BUT their own books have so many full faced contradictions to the glory of the contents of the Dharma of this book that it is a very sad paradox that there are such RARE RARE few jems such as this Book. This book is half english and half chinese and so it can be read 3 times through in one single day and i recommend it. Without a basis of comparison this treasure which is gold can be held up against the trash passing itsself off as the teachings of the Dharma but unquestionably doesnt. Bodhidharma slams to peices charlotaneous Buddhism and trash Buddhism and formalistic ritualism and is as serious as a heart attack regarding the improtance of seeing through all the nonsense calling itsself Buddhism and gets to the point in less than the first paragraph. In a time when Buddhism and political correctness had nothing to do with each other the facts and bold and naked and powerfull and glory of REAL Buddhism is seen through the words of Bodhidharma. This book in expert opinion is prime among prime reading for anyone seeking true Buddhism or someone along the path which has been stumbling upon trash Buddhism along the way. This book is a unquestionable must period.. no ifs ands or buts." Publisher: North Point Press | More reviews: amazon.com
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