The best books on Buddhism

Looking at the history of the world, the violence principle emerges as a key driver. It’s all the same in the economic world: companies run to win market shares, employees jockey to gain better positions, CEO struggle to convince Wall Street that their strategic orientations are the best, and so on. But a closer look at the history of the world reveals three exceptional men who have been involved in immense battles and have been winning amazing victories using the Non-Violence Principle. The purpose of the book is to draw the lesson from those three exceptional men and to establish Non-Violence Principle as a key success factor for tomorrow’s management.

Jesse is a young American sailor who experiences a tragic and life-changing spiritual event during a perilous return home. Following a chance encounter with a mysterious Russian journalist, his quest for inner peace takes a sharp turn as he descends into crippling alcoholism and increasingly reckless behaviors that inevitably lead him on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. From bartending in the gulf of Thailand, to interactions with tribal aborigines in the ancient jungles of Malaysia, to soul-fulfilling romances on the unique islands of Bali and Indonesia, and ultimately, an epic motorcycle expedition and dangerous journey through largely unknown locales seething with tense political strife in the high Himalayas of Northern India, Nepal, and across the Indian subcontinent to the unforgiving dry landscapes of the infamous Thar Desert during a historical heatwave.

Genjo Koan is the most seminal and key writing of Eihei Dogen (1200-1253) who was the most important writer in the Zen tradition in Japan. There are a number of translations into English, but these are mostly by Zen specialists. This book reveals the coherence of Dogen's original vision in its spiritual and historical context and thus provides a doorway into the profundity and range of Japanese Buddhism.

Looking at the history of the world, the violence principle emerges as a key driver. It’s all the same in the economic world: companies run to win market shares, employees jockey to gain better positions, CEO struggle to convince Wall Street that their strategic orientations are the best, and so on. But a closer look at the history of the world reveals three exceptional men who have been involved in immense battles and have been winning amazing victories using the Non-Violence Principle. The purpose of the book is to draw the lesson from those three exceptional men and to establish Non-Violence Principle as a key success factor for tomorrow’s management.

If you have ever desired to become a more attentive, compassionate, and liberated human being...NOW is the time. In the pages of this book you will learn to overcome your egoic mind patterns, and discover the path to finding your True Self. You will develop a practice of mindful driving in the current moment with dynamic awareness, and reveal the Truth of your Higher Self. By applying the techniques and practices illustrated by Solan McClean in "Learning to Drive", you will not only learn to drive with more attention, serenity, and compassion, but you will learn how to use your experiences to transform your life outside of your car. "Learning to Drive into the Now: PRND" is a great program for those who are new to self discovery, meditation, and practicing mindful awareness. If you've ever tried sitting meditation and couldn't put together a meaningful practice because you didn't have the time, were bored, or didn't feel you were getting results...this is the practice for you If you already have a meditation practice, you will find "Learning to Drive" a great addition to your learning library.

My Mom was a church-going Christian, so when she found out I was interested in Buddhism she was quite suspicious. (It was actually an escalation of the suspicion she had felt when I had switched my degree major from chemistry to psychology.) This book started life as my attempt to explain to people like my Mom why Buddhism wasn't scary and weird, but a sensible and positive approach to life and the attempt to get better at it. So it is a down-to-earth introduction, shorn of all the exotic trappings. No saffron robes, no tying your legs in knots, no reincarnation.

Have you ever opened a yoga book intending to do yoga only to end up reading about yoga instead of actually practicing? That’s where Essential Yoga comes in. Designed to get you on the mat, this reference guide features over 100 hatha yoga poses, breathing exercises, and meditations. Detailed illustrations accompany concise, bulleted instructions and descriptions of the many physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits of a regular yoga practice. The interactive book, featuring a lay-flat binding for ease of use, also includes 6 classic yoga routines, 10 yoga sessions, and 48 mini-sequences geared to supporting specific activities and/or alleviating various health conditions. Whether new to yoga or a long-time practitioner, Essential Yoga helps users prevent injury and keep their practice interesting and alive!

When trauma disrupts your foundational beliefs, the journey to a new way of being can be daunting and lonely. In this poetic memoir, Christine brings hope to the possibilities of spiritual healing. During a period of expansive inquiry into a variety of spiritual traditions, her husband’s sudden death created a longing to return to the Christianity of her roots. Finding the patriarchal religion of her upbringing no longer served her, she sought alternative Christian perspectives through a new lens of grief, healing compassion, and the sacred feminine. In Do You Want to Be Well, Christine helps readers courageously explore the spaces where religion fails us, where facing tough realities is necessary, and how self-love is discovered and nurtured.

Compassion is often seen as a distant, altruistic ideal cultivated by saints, or as an unrealistic response of the naively kind-hearted. But by seeing compassion in this way, we lose out on experiencing the transformative potential of one of our most neglected inner resources.

Clinical psychologist and Tibetan Buddhist practitioner Dr. Lorne Ladner rescues compassion from this marginalized view, showing how its practical application in our life can be a powerful force in achieving happiness. Ladner provides a clear explanation of what healthy compassion is and why it is so essential to our lives. Combining the wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism and Western psychology, The Lost Art of Compassion presents clear, effective practices for cultivating compassion in daily living.

Telling the life story of Dorothy Day (1897 – 1980) was like falling down the rabbit hole. How was it possible for a woman born to a conservative, racist, anti-Semitic family with no interest in religion to become America’s staunchest advocate for the homeless, most determined pacifist and critic of capitalism, a supporter of civil rights, a believer in civil disobedience willing to go to jail to protest the arms race – and an orthodox Catholic. The paradoxes of this woman never ceased to intrigue me. Her journey from her hard-drinking, sexually active, unsettled youth in Greenwich Village to her conversion and founding of the radical Catholic Worker movement is the subject of the book I wrote with my co-author, Blythe Randolph. Day is a person who made a mark in her time, as both a critic and champion of her Church, a unique figure in women’s history and religious history in this country, and a charismatic individual too little-known today. She is the anti-Trump of modern America.