The Vow Powered Life

A vow is like a GPS system for your life. When taken on mindfully it can be a source of surprising wisdom and powerful energy, enabling you to accomplish things you never dreamed possible. It can have profound effects even beyond the original intention—and it can even live on after you’re gone. A vow can be as small as the aspiration to smile at someone at least once every day, or it can be as big as marriage; it can be as personal as deciding to be mindful whenever you pick up the phone, or it can be as universal as a commitment to save all sentient beings. But whatever its inspiration, when it’s done with conscious intention a vow becomes a conduit for the energy of your life. In this guide to the vow-directed life, Jan Chozen Bays provides a wealth of practical exercises to use for formulating and implementing vows of your own and for using them to navigate your life with honesty and compassion.

Winner of the 2016 IPPY Gold Medal Award for Self Help How making a vow—consciously setting an intention—can be a powerful tool for achieving all sort of goals, from the author of the best-selling Mindful Eating. Making a vow is a powerful mindfulness practice—and all you have to do to tap into that power is set your intention consciously. A vow can be as "small" as the aspiration to smile at someone at least once every day, or as "big" as marriage; as personal as deciding to be mindful when picking up the phone or as universal as vowing to save all sentient beings. It can be deeply spiritual, utterly ordinary, or both. Zen teacher Jan Chozen Bays looks to traditional Buddhist teachings to show the power of vows—and then applies that teaching broadly to the many vows we make. She shows that if we work with vows consciously, they set us in the direction of achieving our goals, both temporal and spiritual. Bays presents secular and spiritual wisdom from both East and West, highlighting figures such as Martha Graham, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Buckminster Fuller. She helps us examine the vows we have already made for ourselves and the vows we’ve unconsciously inherited. She supports us in repairing broken vows, crafting new intentions, and exploring what’s truly on our bucket lists.

Life as Kim and Krickitt Carpenter knew it was shattered beyond recognition on November 24, 1993. Two months after their marriage, a devastating car wreck left Krickitt with a massive head injury and in a coma for weeks. When she finally awoke, she had no idea who Kim was. With no recollection of their relationship and while Krickitt experienced personality changes common to those who suffer head injuries, Kim realized the woman he had married essentially died in the accident. And yet, against all odds, but through the common faith in Christ that sustained them, Kim and Krickitt fell in love all over again. Even though Kim stood by Krickitt through the darkest times a husband can ever imagine, he insists, “I’m no hero. I made a vow.” Now available in trade paper with a new chapter and photo insert, The Vow is the true story that inspired the major motion picture of the same name starring Rachel McAdams (The Notebook), Channing Tatum (Dear John), Sam Neill (Jurassic Park), and Academy Award winner Jessica Lange.

Mo is not only eighteen-year-old Annie's best friend, he is the one who helps her cope with the loss of her older sister, so when he learns he must leave Kentucky and return to Jordan with his family, Annie suggests a shocking alternative.

In Jizo Bodhisattva, Zen teacher and practicing pediatrician Jan Chozen Bays explores the development of traditional Buddhist practices related to Jizo, as well as the growing interest in Jizo practice in modern American Zen Buddhism. She also shows how you can incorporate this rich tradition into your own life, through meditations, mantras and chanting. In traditional Buddhist belief, a bodhisattva is an enlightened being who has forsaken entry into nirvana until all beings are saved. Jizo, one of the four great bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism, is know as "the Bodhisattva of the Greatest Vows." He is regarded as the protector of travelers—whether their journeys in the physical world, or in the spiritual reams. Jizo also has special significance for pregnant women and parents whose children have died.

When three best friends come together for their sorority sister's tony wedding on New Year's Eve, they make a vow at the stroke of midnight to get married within one year. As the three women embark on their search to find their soul mates, they navigate the full-contact sport known as being a SSBFDLA (successful, single, black, female dating in L.A.) and negotiate the shark-infested waters of making a name for themselves in Hollywood. Can Trista, the hyper-driven celebrity agent, find the time to schedule a meaningful romance? Will Amaya, the sexy starlet, convince the married hip hop–label exec she has been seeing to leave his wife and slip a ring on her finger or will the NBA star steal her heart in the final seconds? After undergoing a complete makeover, will Vivian, the jaded gossip columnist, win back the father of her child? Set against the seductive backdrop of money, power, and sex, The Vow follows these women as they discover that their desire to find a husband isn't as important as finding themselves.

A Sot Zen priest and Dharma successor of Kosho Uchiyama Roshi explores eight of Zen's most essential and universal liturgical texts and explains how the chants in these works support meditation and promote a life of freedom and compassion.

Three stubborn women, each of which made a promise. Who will yield, and who will break? Abigail made a vow to her husband before he passed, one she could not, would not break. But life hasn’t been easy without him by her side, and her children grow more with each passing day. Sometimes it feels like she’ll be alone forever. Amanda is tired of being a mess. She wants to achieve, to impress, to excel. If that means changing who she is, even changing her entire life, then so be it. Donna has learned the truth about the world the hard way. You either attack, or you’re attacked yourself. She doesn’t like being the villain, but she’s done being a patsy. She's determined to carve out a place for herself, no matter what. These women have all returned to Birch Creek with big plans, but the future loves to surprise us. Can their vows keep them on target? Or will they decide it’s more important to follow their hearts, no matter how bad the fallout? kw: romantic women's fiction, women's fiction, family saga, saga, romance, clean romance, contemporary romance, ranch life, small town romance, western romance, cowboy romance, big city girl, bequest, birch creek ranch series, be baker, bridget baker, B. E. Baker, birch creek ranch, hot cowboy, cowboy romance, rock star romance, widow, later in life romance, romance after forty, mature romance, clean and wholesome romance, book club fiction, series, women's fiction series, romantic comedy, beach read, binge book, small town, love story, family drama, virgin river, Virgin River, Robyn carr, virgin river robyn carr, virgin river novel, jan moran, pam kelly, pam kelley, lilly mirren, jessie newton, hope holloway.