Zen And The Art Of Illness

Zen and the Art of Illness is a collection of gentle and insightful reflections on single days, sometimes single moments, in a year-long journey that began following her husband's cancer diagnosis. In it, Ronna invites us to 'transverse the landscape of life-threatening illness' 'neither in fear nor in hope, and yet not without hope.' Ronna combines the personal and intimate voice of the spouse moving through the days of diagnosis, treatment and recovery, with snapshots, both visual and textual, of moments of stillness or transition. Zen and the Art of Illness offers remarkable insights into times when 'life and death were a possibility, ' when memory making, as a conscious practice, helped provide a life-line into the future. Rarely do we get the opportunity to view philosophy made real through practice, but those familiar with Ronna's teaching on hope will see her match the talk of hope with the walk in hope, and find inspiration in her micro-stories of hope, love, and surrender to the moment. Dr. Jaklin Eliott, Associate Professor, Counselling and Psychotherapy, School of Public Health, University of Adelaide

Zen and the Art of Illness is a collection of gentle and insightful reflections on single days, sometimes single moments, in a year-long journey that began following her husband's cancer diagnosis. In it, Ronna invites us to "transverse the landscape of life-threatening illness, neither in fear nor in hope, and yet not without hope." Ronna combines the personal and intimate voice of the spouse moving through the days of diagnosis, treatment and recovery, with snapshots, both visual and textual, of moments of stillness or transition. Zen and the Art of Illness offers remarkable insights into times when "life and death were a possibility," when memory making, as a conscious practice, helped provide a life-line into the future. Rarely do we get the opportunity to view philosophy made real through practice, but those familiar with Ronna's teaching on hope will see her match the talk of hope with the walk in hope, and find inspiration in her micro-stories of hope, love, and surrender to the moment. Dr. Jaklin Eliott, Associate Professor, Counselling and Psychotherapy, School of Public Health, University of Adelaide

In this bestselling new book, his first in seventeen years, Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, takes us on a poignant and passionate journey as mysterious and compelling as his first life-changing work. Instead of a motorcycle, a sailboat carries his philosopher-narrator Phaedrus down the Hudson River as winter closes in. Along the way he picks up a most unlikely traveling companion: a woman named Lila who in her desperate sexuality, hostility, and oncoming madness threatens to disrupt his life. In Lila Robert M. Pirsig has crafted a unique work of adventure and ideas that examines the essential issues of the nineties as his previous classic did the seventies.

Long ago, the Buddha taught that we create the world with our thoughts; and the more attached we are to things being a certain way, the more we suffer. Nowhere is this clearer than with chronic illness and pain: Our self-blame, anguish, depression, fear, loneliness, anger and embarrassment are the byproducts of denying the reality of illness or pain. If we are courageous enough to set aside our beliefs, hopes, and longings for a former or mythical ideal of health, which pull us out of the present moment, we free ourselves from the hell realm of suffering. Mindfully observing what is right here-and-now enables true healing to take place--healing that moves us beyond our naive ideas of health and illness. After all, we are not brains on a stick. Mind and body are united by spirit and it is spiritual understanding that leads us to the well where wisdom, love and compassion abide--qualities vital to the recovery of wholeness and well-being. SUFFERING BUDDHA points the way to inner healing; it is not a how-to manual or glib prescription for spiritual transcendence, precisely because such are not necessary. In our own wise, awakened hearts lies the key to wellness and ease.

Explains how to apply Zen principles to create and maintain loving relationships, outlining thirteen essential practices that offer advice on how to overcome such challenges as miscommunication, insecurity, and jealousy.

On the Trail of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Zen and Now is the story of a story that will appeal to the 5 million readers of the original and serve as an initiation to a whole new generation. Since its original publication in 1968, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values has touched whole generations of readers with its serious attempt to define “quality” in a world that seems indifferent to the responsibilities that quality brings. Mark Richardson expands that journey with an investigation of his own – to find the enigmatic author of Zen and the Art, ask him a few questions, and place his classic book in context. The result manages to be a biography of Pirsig himself – in the discovery of an unknown life of madness, murder and eventual resolution – and a splendid meditation on creativity and problem-solving, sanity and insanity.

A powerful memoir from Natalie Goldberg—the woman who changed the way writing is taught in this country—sharing her experience with cancer grounded in her practice of writing and Zen Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home begins at the grave of Katagiri Roshi, Natalie’s Zen teacher, in Japan. Twenty years after Katagiri’s death and Natalie’s return to New Mexico, she is permanently settled in Santa Fe with her partner, Yukwan. Except that, as Buddhism teaches us, nothing is permanent. Natalie learns that she has CLL, a potentially fatal form of blood cancer. For two years, Natalie dances with her cancer—visiting doctor after doctor, attempting treatment after treatment. Nothing helps; in fact, one of the treatments only feeds the cancer and encourages its growth. Then Natalie’s partner, Yukwan discovers that she, too, has cancer—breast cancer—as well as an off-the-charts oncotype score that requires her to have surgery immediately. The cancer twins, as Natalie calls herself and Yukwan, now must each navigate her own illness, carve out her own cancer territory. Each can provide only limited emotional and physical energy for the other. And, somehow, they both need to find a way to stay together, to stay in love—and to heal. As the title expresses, Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home is so much more than a cancer memoir. Through a direct and grounded narrative, Natalie illuminates a path through illness: that we need to be in love with the lives we have, to embrace the dark and the light in our lives. For Natalie, writing and painting represent the light, and her cancer takes her deeper into her art practices. Balanced with a Zen practice that helps to her face death, this book is a moving meditation on living life in full bloom.

Heart disease is the number one cause of death and hospitalization in developed countries, and yet it is largely preventable. Think about that for a moment. How is that possible? What is required is good information. Did you know that more than half of those suffering from cardiovascular disease have cholesterol in the normal range? Would it surprise you to learn that the majority of cardiovascular events are attributed to blockages of less than fifty percent? Your arteries are a muscle not a pipe, therefore beating heart disease takes work, but it can be done. Diamond Fernandes is an authority on heart health, and in this book, he shares how you can navigate heart disease along with his five powerful pillars to preventing and reversing heart disease.