About Meditation and Buddhist Practice

Meditation
The Buddhist Way of Tranquillity and Insight

Kamalashila

A clear and comprehensive handbook of Buddhist meditation for both beginners and the more experienced — what it is and where it might take us. This book covers all you need to know on how to establish a meditation practice, as well as helpful advice and greater detail for those wishing to deepen their experience of meditation. Complete with photographs, charts, and diagrams.

ISBN 1 899579 05 2

Living With Kindness
The Buddha’s teaching on metta

Sangharakshita

Kindness is one of the most basic qualities we can possess, and one of the most powerful. In Buddhism it is called metta — an opening of the heart to all that we meet. Any friendly feeling contains the kernel of metta. It is a seed that is waiting to be developed, right here amidst the conditions of our daily life.

Living with Kindness is a pithy commentary on the Buddha's teaching of metta in the Karaniya Metta Sutta. In it, Sangharakshita, a teacher of Buddhism for over fifty years, shows us how to cultivate many of the facets of kindness in ordinary, everyday life. Outlining the nurturing conditions the seed of kindness needs to grow, he encourages us to follow the path that leads to a warm and expansive heart — and beyond. And with that heart, we can be happier and more fulfilled in ourselves and empathise with the joys and sufferings of all living beings.

The complete text is available for free download from <www.sangharakshita.org>.

ISBN 1 899579 64 8

Living With Awareness
A Guide to the Satipatthana Sutta

Sangharakshita

Mindfulness is the means by which our consciousness is transformed, transcended, Enlightened.

The Satipatthana Sutta is one of the Buddha’s foremost discourses on mindfulness. In Living with Awareness, a commentary on this sutta, Sangharakshita counsels against an over-narrow interpretation of mindfulness as being simply about developing a focused attention on the present moment. To be fully mindful, one needs to look further than the end of one’s nose, and integrate even the most rarefied practice into the context of a fully lived human life.

The guiding principle of Buddhism is that things change — we change — and that we have the capacity to direct that change towards spiritual growth and development. In being mindful, therefore, we recollect not only the breadth of our current experience, but also our purpose in attending to it. Living with Awareness explores this principle progressively through the filter of the sutta.

ISBN 1 899579 38 9

Satipatthana
The Direct Path to Realization

Analayo

The Satipatthana Sutta is the teaching on mindfulness and the breath and is the bases of much insight meditation practice today. This book is a thorough and insightful guide to this deceptively simple yet profound teaching.

With painstaking thoroughness, Ven. Analayo marshals the suttas of the Pali canon, works of modem scholarship, and the teachings of present-day meditation masters to make the rich implications of the Satipatthana Sutta, so concise in the original, clear to contemporary students of the Dharma.

Unlike other popular books on the subject, he is not out to establish the exclusive validity of one particular system of meditation as against other’s. Rather, his aim is to explore the sutta as a wide-ranging and multi-faceted source of guidance which allows for alternative interpretations and approaches to practice. His analysis combines the detached objectivity of the academic scholar with the engaged concern of the practitioner for whom meditation is a way of life rather than just a subject of study.

The book should prove to be of value both to scholars of Early Buddhism and to serious meditators alike. Ideally, it will encourage in both types of readers the same wholesome synthesis of scholarship and practice that underlies the author’s own treatment of his subject.

Bhikkhu Bodhi

ISBN 1 899579 54 0

The Breath

Vessantara

In The Breath, Vessantara, who has been meditating on the breath for over 30 years, writes engagingly for both newcomers to meditation and those with some experience, giving us:

• Clear instruction on how to meditate on the breath
• Practical ways to integrate meditation into our lives
• Suggestions for deepening calm and concentration
• Advice on how to let go and dive into experience
• Insights into the lessons of the breath.

The breath is the first volume in The Art of Meditation series.There are a multitude of Buddhist meditation practices. While many books try to describe them all together, each book in this series will provide a more intensive look at an individual meditation.

ISBN 1 899579 69 9

Wildmind
A Step-by-Step Guide to Meditation

Bodhipaksa

A Wildmind is as spacious as a clear blue sky, as still as a lake at dawn; such a mind is a source of richness and fulfillment. It is a mind that is free, spontaneous, and abundantly creative. It is our mind. It is a place we can spend the rest of our lives exploring.

This is a guidebook to that inner wildness. Buddhist meditation teacher Bodhipaksa shows us how we can use simple meditation practices to realize the potential of our minds and hearts, freeing ourselves from the restrictive habits and fears. Using this natural method of working with our minds and emotions, we can learn to benefit others, and ourselves, by developing a more loving heart and a clearer mind.

The Wildmind website: promoting awareness and compassion through the practice of meditation.

ISBN 1 899579 55 9

Change Your Mind
A Practical Guide to Buddhist Meditation

Paramananda

To take up meditation is to introduce a powerful force for change into our lives. If we change our mind the world changes too. Whatever our religious belief, meditation can be the beginning of life’s greatest adventure.

Using the simple traditional practices introduced in Change Your Mind we can learn how to exchange stress and anxiety for calm and clarity of mind, and transform anger and fear into kindness and self confidence. This accessible and thorough guide to meditation is colourfully illustrated with anecdotes and tips from Paramananda’s experience as a meditator and teacher for over 15 years. With over 40,000 copies sold he has become a well-loved and sought-after teacher in Britain and North America.

ISBN 0 904766 81 0

A Deeper Beauty
Buddhist Reflections on Everyday Life

Paramananda

How often do we feel we have no time for reflection? Or little time to care for others, or even ourselves? Adrift in our lives, we are pulled further and further away from a sense of who we are. In A Deeper Beauty, Paramananda speaks directly to our hearts about what is truly important to us, whether we are making a cup of tea or sitting at the bedside of a dying friend. Using simple exercises, reflections, and meditations, we can awaken to the magic of being fully present in each moment of our day-to-day activities.

ISBN 1 899579 44 3

Metta

Nagabodhi (Editor)

Metta, or loving kindness, lies at the heart of Buddhism. It is kindness at its purest and strongest, a loving response to all life. In this book, seven experienced meditators share their reflections on the nature of metta, and give instructions and advice on its cultivation in meditation and in daily life. A little gem of a book.

ISBN 0 904766 99 3

Meditating

Jinananda

Why meditate? To let go of stress? To become more focused? To fathom life’s mysteries?

Whatever our purpose, Jinananda is a clear, experienced and friendly guide who can help us start meditating — right now. Find everything you need to begin your exploration of meditation: how to sit, simple instructions to two traditional practices that develop clarity, peace of mind and positive emotions, troubleshooting tips and ideas on how to take our practice further.

ISBN 1 899579 07 9