Touching Enlightenment

What does it mean to "meditate with the body"? Until you answer this question, explains Reggie Ray, meditation may be no more than a mental gymnastic-something you can practice for years without fruitful results. In Touching Enlightenment, the esteemed author of six books on Buddhist history and practice guides you back to the original practice of the Buddha: a systematic process that results in a profound awareness in your body rather than in your head. Combining the scholarship that has earned him international renown with original insights from his many years practicing and teaching, Reggie Ray invites you to explore what it means "to be at one with who we are, in every respect, including our physical being, our emotions, and the totality of our karmic situation."

What does it mean to ''meditate with the body''? Until you answer this question, explains Reggie Ray, meditation may be no more than ''a mental gymnastic'' - something you can practice for years without fruitful results. In Touching Enlightenment, the esteemed author of five books on Buddhist history and practice guides you back to the original practice of the Buddha: a systematic process that results in a profound awareness ''in your body rather than in your head.'' Combining the scholarship that has earned him international renown with original insights from nearly four decades practicing and teaching meditation, Reggie Ray invites you to explore: How to enter fully into communion with your embodied nature? The insights of Tibetan yoga, from guidance on breathing and working with discomfort to its challenge to modern practitioners on the path to realization....Why ''rejected'' experience becomes imprinted in the body-and how to receive it anew to ''reconstitute your human way of being''? Karma of cause and karma of result-taking full responsibility for your life....Your three bodies-the physical, the interpersonal, and the cosmic

The vivid story of a hippie, a carpenter, a Vietnam vet, an alcoholic, a marine engineer, and a great dad who battled his demons on the Buddhist path. From October 16, 1973, to August 17, 1974, Tim Testu walked all the way from San Francisco to Seattle, bowing his head to the ground every three steps. And that’s not even the best part of his story. Tim Testu was one of the very first Americans to take ordination in Chinese Zen Buddhism. His path—from getting kicked out of school to joyriding in stolen boats in the Navy to squatting in an anarchist commune to wholehearted spiritual engagment in a strict Buddhist monastery—is equal parts rollicking adventure and profound spiritual memoir. Touching Ground is simultaneously larger than life and entirely relatable; even as Tim finds his spiritual home with his teacher, the legendary Chan master Hsuan Hua, he nonetheless continues to struggle to overcome his addictions and his very human shortcomings. Tim never did anything halfway, including both drinking and striving for liberation. He died of leukemia in 1998 after packing ten lifetimes into fifty-two years.

An investigative reporter explores an infamous case where an obsessive and unorthodox search for enlightenment went terribly wrong. When thirty-eight-year-old Ian Thorson died from dehydration and dysentery on a remote Arizona mountaintop in 2012, The New York Times reported the story under the headline: "Mysterious Buddhist Retreat in the Desert Ends in a Grisly Death." Scott Carney, a journalist and anthropologist who lived in India for six years, was struck by how Thorson’s death echoed other incidents that reflected the little-talked-about connection between intensive meditation and mental instability. Using these tragedies as a springboard, Carney explores how those who go to extremes to achieve divine revelations—and undertake it in illusory ways—can tangle with madness. He also delves into the unorthodox interpretation of Tibetan Buddhism that attracted Thorson and the bizarre teachings of its chief evangelists: Thorson’s wife, Lama Christie McNally, and her previous husband, Geshe Michael Roach, the supreme spiritual leader of Diamond Mountain University, where Thorson died. Carney unravels how the cultlike practices of McNally and Roach and the questionable circumstances surrounding Thorson’s death illuminate a uniquely American tendency to mix and match eastern religious traditions like LEGO pieces in a quest to reach an enlightened, perfected state, no matter the cost. Aided by Thorson’s private papers, along with cutting-edge neurological research that reveals the profound impact of intensive meditation on the brain and stories of miracles and black magic, sexualized rituals, and tantric rites from former Diamond Mountain acolytes, A Death on Diamond Mountain is a gripping work of investigative journalism that reveals how the path to enlightenment can be riddled with danger.

With all of the changes taking place in the world around us, the need for inner peace is greater than ever before. Learning to live in peace under all circumstances is the secret of a happy life. This powerful collection of spiritual writings will change your life by guiding you through inspiration and new perspectives for facing life’s challenges and finding peace within. Drawing from the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda (author of the classic Autobiography of a Yogi), Touch of Peace shares practical tools, instructive stories, and right attitudes to help you tap the wellsprings of peace inside you. “Who among us has not had to deal with his share of trials? It is worry, even more than the trial itself, that usually does damage to our peace and happiness,” said author, Nayaswami Jyotish. “Raising our consciousness is the true solution” he continues, for facing the battlefield of life—to keep us from sinking into our worries, so we may learn to overcome our trials. In their newest release, Touch of Peace, co-authors Nayaswami Jyotish and Nayaswami Devi, show us the way forward to a brighter future. Since the onset of the global tsunami of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting dramatic changes in people’s lives around the world, the passages within this book offer fresh perspective, practices, and ancient yoga teachings to help individuals deal with the special challenges we face. After the success of their first three books, Touch of Light, Touch of Joy, and Touch of Love, Nayaswami Jyotish and Devi offer a lifeline in a sea of uncertainty within each letter found in Touch of Peace. Based on their famous blog, A Touch of Light, this book is the compilation of profound and practical spiritual teachings faithfully shared in the spirit of their beloved guru, Paramhansa Yogananda and his direct disciple, Swami Kriyananda.