The Wakeful Body

Spirituality & Practice "Best Books of 2021" Award Winner A highly practical and approachable guide to somatic meditation with easy practices for accessing the body's inherent mindfulness, from an expert in somatic meditation. Tap into the wisdom of the body with down-to-earth practices like "Surrendering to the Breath" and "Befriending Feelings" that allow the body to become the source of mindfulness. Willa Blythe Baker introduces meditation practice as the cultivation of a way of being, rather than a way of doing. It is a way of being that is self-aware, self-compassionate, and embodied. This way of being is not limited to practice on the cushion or on the yoga mat--somatic mindfulness is available at any moment, activated by attention to the body's wisdom and its teachings. Discover the three layers of embodiment, from the earth body of flesh and blood, the subtle body of sensory experience and emotion, and the awareness body of consciousness. The three parts of this book explore these layers through turning attention to the physical, energetic, and mental dimensions of human experience. By diving deep into the body, readers will find that they already have what they need. Concentration, wisdom, compassion, kindness, and joy are waiting there.

A senior Buddhist teacher offers fundamental body-based meditation practices that prove enlightenment is as close to you as your own body Many of us experience life through so many conceptual filters that we never recognize the freedom and joy that are inherent in us—and are in fact the essence of who we are. We can grow old not realizing that one of the most powerful tools to escape the painful knots we tie ourselves in is, literally, at our fingertips: our body. With The Awakening Body, Reggie Ray cracks open the shell of the mind-body dichotomy and presents six fundamental body-based practices that connect us back to who we really are. These practices cut through the mental fabrications through which we experience our world and lead us directly to the richness of living a fully present, embodied human life. This book includes a link to free downloads of recorded guided practices.

In The Everyday Dharma, Willa Miller, an authorized lama in the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition, reworks ancient Buddhist techniques and adapts them for western readers seeking personal transformation. Becoming a Buddha, Lama Miller explains, means observing the mind and actions and then doing the physical, psychological, and spiritual work to move closer to one’s wisdom nature. Dharma is spiritual practice; it’s what one does every day to make one’s mind and world a better place to live. Each chapter includes a passage to read, an exercise of the day that relates to each week’s topic, a quote from a sage, and tips on how to make daily practice a little easier. The book shows that it’s not necessary to subscribe to a particular — or any — belief system to benefit from this program. "It’s only necessary," says Lama Miller, "to believe one deserves to live a more fulfilling and meaningful life."

A somatic counselor offers tools for developing a deeper, more awakened relationship with your body through sensation, breath, and movement As a foundation for a contemplative life, the body can both literally and metaphorically help us wake up. Breathing, sensing, and moving—the ways we know our body—carry tremendous contemplative potential, and yet, we so often move through our days unaware of or in conflict with our physical selves. In Bodyfulness, renowned somatic counselor Christine Caldwell offers a practical guide for living an embodied contemplative life, embracing whatever body we are in. Each chapter offers insights and practices that help us recover our lost physical wisdom—to integrate our bodies with mindfulness, to deal with emotions, and to develop attuned relationships. Bodyfulness inspires us to reclaim a body-centered contemplative life and challenges us to harness our potential to effect social and personal transformation in this body now.

Over the past few hundred years, animism has been dismissed as a primitive, naive and irrational perspective, relevant perhaps amongst tribal peoples but not within the intellectual arenas of the civilized West. In this book, the author argues that this is based on the misrepresentation that each tree and stone has its own immortal soul.

Powerful and life-affirming, this watershed volume brings together the voices of pioneers in the field of contemplative care--from hospice and hospitals to colleges, prisons, and the military. Illustrating the day-to-day words and actions of pastoral workers, each first-person essay in this collection offers a distillation of the wisdom gained over years of compassionate experience. The stories told here are sure to inspire--whether you are a professional caregiver or simply feel inclined toward guiding, healing, and comforting roles. If you are inspired to read this book, or even one touching story in it, you just might find yourself inspired to change a life.

Emmett has a wife and two children, a cat, and a duck, and he wants to know what life is about. Every day he gets up before dawn, makes a cup of coffee in the dark, lights a fire with one wooden match, and thinks. What Emmett thinks about is the subject of this wise and closely observed novel, which covers vast distances while moving no further than Emmett’s hearth and home. Nicholson Baker’s extraordinary ability to describe and celebrate life in all its rich ordinariness has never been so beautifully achieved.

One of the most beloved and trusted mindfulness teachers in America offers a lifeline for difficult times: the RAIN meditation, which awakens our courage and heart Tara Brach is an in-the-trenches teacher whose work counters today's ever-increasing onslaught of news, conflict, demands, and anxieties--stresses that leave us rushing around on auto-pilot and cut off from the presence and creativity that give our lives meaning. In this heartfelt and deeply practical book, she offers an antidote: an easy-to-learn four-step meditation that quickly loosens the grip of difficult emotions and limiting beliefs. Each step in the meditation practice (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) is brought to life by memorable stories shared by Tara and her students as they deal with feelings of overwhelm, loss, and self-aversion, with painful relationships, and past trauma--and as they discover step-by-step the sources of love, forgiveness, compassion, and deep wisdom alive within all of us.