If The Buddha Came To Dinner

If the Buddha came to dinner at your home, what would you serve? Fast food? A frozen meal quickly reheated in the microwave? Chances are you'd feed your honored guest a delicious meal prepared with love and care. But the next time you have dinner, what will you eat? With so much processed food in the marketplace, obesity in adults and children dramatically on the rise, and digestive problems increasingly more common, it's clear that we're facing a serious food crisis in this country. The answer, however, isn't just to go on a diet. Reducing the intake of refined and processed foods and increasing whole foods certainly can improve one's health. But we need more. We need to feed ourselves with a sense of purpose, self-respect, love, and passion for our lives. We need to nourish our spirits. Nourishment isn't a fad diet . . . it's a lifelong journey, and Halé Sofia Schatz is the ideal guide. Gentle, wise, and humorous, she shows us the way to the heart of nourishment--our own inner wisdom that knows exactly how to feed our whole self. A perfect blend of inspiration and practical suggestions, If the Buddha Came to Dinner includes guidelines for selecting vital foods, ideas for keeping your energy balanced throughout the day, a cleanse program, and over 60 recipes to awaken your palate. Open this book and nurture yourself as never before. You'll be fed in a whole new way.

A guide to healthy eating through listening to the body identifies the spiritual qualities of food choices, providing practical suggestions, tips on how to balance personal energy, and healthy recipes to awaken the senses.

Divine Nourishment A Woman's Sacred Journey with Food Did you realize that living and eating seasonally is actually a map for transformation that brings health and balance on the physical, emotional AND spiritual levels? Divine Nourishment offers superb support in reclaiming lost and rejected aspects of ourselves. Learn how to recognize your authentic self through the eyes of nature as you deepen your relationship with the natural rhythm and flow of life. Ground and nourish yourself according to the Earth's wisdom while healing the collective wounding of the feminine that perpetuates the imbalance in our culture. Apply practical daily use of healthy organic seasonal foods, recipes, potions, tonics, practices, and cleanses that are nourishing and appropriate for alignment with the seasonal journey. "Mary Lane infuses her cooking, her thinking, her dance on this earth with exquisite feminine grace and wisdom." Gabrielle Roth, author of Sweat Your Prayers & creator of 5RHythms(R) "Mary is a wonderful chef, plant spirit medicine practitioner, lover of nature, and world traveler. Her book is a mystical-made-physical journey into the depths of self, body, and spiritual connection. This long-awaited treasure holds such a simple key to satisfying a deep spiritual connection: nourishing ourselves, body, mind, and spirit, as well as connect with Mother Earth through the sacred act of nourishment. I love, love, love the book, though I have to admit reading of the 'wounding' absolutely tore me apart... truly from the heart." Dianne Seale "Mary's book offers us a brilliantly conceived and richly layered compilation of the wisdom of the ages. Mary's offering draws from her many years of study as well as from her own experience and direct communication with the Divine. Ranging from a profound explanation of the very forces of Creation to practical suggestions for embodying these forces in daily life, Mary's book is a true guide for healing and restoring the Divine Feminine within us and in our world." Katia Wolf "Finally.....I am sitting in my room in Rome and using the extraordinary early awakenings to read Mary's book in total...not just fragments allowed to me over the last few months. I am touched by the passion of her conviction and knowledge and opened to tears of recognition of dynamics long left without words. She has had some amazing journeys that I am thrilled to read about again in book form. It gives outline to a journey that often can be daunting as there is no map for this ride However, she tells it with the grace of hindsight with all of the trials and glory, highs and lows that come with this human form with a desire and commitment to live a spiritual life. Kudos to Mary and the healing for those who come to read her story." Stevie Gayle

There's a lot you probably don't know about the Buddha. For one, the real Buddha was thin. And before he became the "Enlightened One," he was a pampered prince named Siddhartha. He tried dieting once and didn't like it any more than you do. Instead, he sought a "middle way" between unhealthy overindulgence and unrealistic abstinence. The instructions he gave his monks about eating, more than 2,500 years ago, were surprisingly simple. Fast forward to today, and modern science confirms what Buddha knew all along. It's not what you eat that's important, but when you eat. You don't need to follow the latest fads or give up your favorite foods. You just have to remember a few guidelines that Buddha provided-guidelines that, believe it or not, will help you lose weight, feel better, and stop obsessing about food. Sure, Buddha lived before the age of doughnuts and French fries, but his wisdom and teachings endure, providing us with a sane, mindful approach to achieving optimum health.

Winner of the PEN/Jerard Award Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year Kiriyama Notable Book "[A] perfectly pitched and prodigiously detailed memoir." - Boston Globe As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity, and in the pre-PC-era Midwest (where the Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme), the desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food. More exotic- seeming than her Buddhist grandmother's traditional specialties, the campy, preservative-filled "delicacies" of mainstream America capture her imagination. In Stealing Buddha's Dinner, the glossy branded allure of Pringles, Kit Kats, and Toll House Cookies becomes an ingenious metaphor for Nguyen's struggle to become a "real" American, a distinction that brings with it the dream of the perfect school lunch, burgers and Jell- O for dinner, and a visit from the Kool-Aid man. Vivid and viscerally powerful, this remarkable memoir about growing up in the 1980s introduces an original new literary voice and an entirely new spin on the classic assimilation story.

“A fresh approach to aging well . . . the definitive ‘how-to’ book for celebrating the second half of life!” from a top yoga and mindfulness teacher (Darren Main, author of Yoga and the Path of the Urban Mystic). Filled with science, suggestions for gentle daily movement, natural remedies and modern wisdom, Super Ager is a practical and concise guide to optimal aging. Yoga instructor, nutrition expert and healthy living blogger Elise Marie Collins has compiled a comprehensive look at what “Super Agers” are doing to live long and prosper. Learn about movement at any age, brain fitness and memory maintenance, foods, vitamin and mineral content cues and clues, and what they do to promote health, prevent disease, and decrease and reverse symptoms of illness. In her revolutionary book, Collins presents us with a bold new paradigm of aging, showing us how we can increase not only our lifespan but also our health span. Through a journey of cultures that have the distinction of producing some of the world’s healthiest, oldest people, Collins reveals the secrets for living an extended and fulfilling life in which our later years become a period of wisdom, vitality, and happiness. From India to Japan, northern Europe and the Greek Island of Ikaria “where people forgot to die,” she shows how the unique lifestyles of these people can influence and improve our own lives. “A great inspiration to encourage humanity to not only live longer but better . . . Elise Marie Collins, gives us sound information that motivates us to eat a mostly plant-based diet and to move our bodies, even if it’s just walking, in a way that communicates—I AM ALIVE!” —Saeeda Hafiz, author of The Healing

“In today’s over-busy, over-fed, under-rested and competitive world, we all need the clear wisdom we find in Awaken to Joy. Thanks, Laura, for showing the way.” ~ Judith Hanson Lasater, Ph.D, PT What if joy was tangible...with specific, easily defined steps you could take to create it for yourself? It is! What if we could shift our attitude by just making some small changes in what we do in our every day? You can! This book is your guide to helping you move beyond the ordinary and showing you how to bring greater peace into your life, creating more open and loving relationships with your friends and family, finding harmony with your co-workers and joy in your work, and bringing more patience, love, and compassion to your relationship with your spouse and children. Now is the time to feel more joy in your life! Each chapter gives you an area of your life to consider, including ideas for deepening your study and discussion questions to use if you have a group with which you are reading the book. The author also has online assistance for you such as free, weekly quotes and free ebooks to further inspire you. You can also register for the online program and receive a weekly eNewsletter with more ideas for cultivating your joyful nature! Check www.AwakenToJoyProgram.com for more information. To learn more about the author, go to: www.MuseLaura.com

A coming-of-age memoir by a Vietnamese American recounts her struggles for an American identity in the pre-politically correct climate of the Midwest and her passion for American food in the face of her family's Buddhist lifestyle.