Down To Earth Dharma: Insight Meditation to Awaken the Heart by Rebecca Bradshaw
Description
With deeply thoughtful, lyrical prose, this book invites readers to engage with the world from a unique perspective that encourages feeling, intuitive understanding, embodiment, interdependence, and sacredness. Weaving together classical Theravada Buddhist teachings and mindfulness practices, the book teaches us when and how to channel our receptive and active orientations-sometimes called the feminine and masculine paradigms-to feel more at home in ourselves and the world. Rebecca Bradshaw, a respected Buddhist teacher in the Insight Meditation community, offers teachings that are simple yet require us to explore aspects of ourselves that go against much of our social conditioning that values goal-oriented busyness, productivity, independence, outgoing energy, and other "active" qualities. When overemphasized, this orientation can cause destructive emotions and behaviors, but we can counter them by embracing more receptive qualities. The receptive or feminine paradigm takes us deeper into the heart of the classical Buddhist teachings, leading to openness and freedom of the heart-mind. Bradshaw illustrates her own resistance to letting go of her strong active orientation with relatable stories, like her efforts to be a perfect meditator. Drawing on our connectedness to nature, she offers guidance for grounded practices, including: useless gazing, getting lost, sense-based reality, practicing in the wildness, accepting uncertainty, and more. These Buddhist teachings are as comforting as they are thought-provoking. Bradshaw's debut book helps us let go and nurture our ability to receive, listen, embrace vulnerability, and just be. We learn to heal the imbalances within ourselves and in our relationships to all beings and the natural world.
Paperback.
If you like this, you might also like:
Kurukulla (paperback) by Verónica Rivas
£28.99
In Kurukulla: Goddess of Bewitchment, author Verónica Rivas combines academic research with personal experience to offer a theoretical-practical study of Kurukulla, the goddess in Hinduism related to desire, lust, magic, and witchcraft.
Many of these aspects were left aside, however, as her importance and popularity within Tantric Buddhism continued to grow. In Kurukulla, we have a goddess of tribal origins, initially venerated as a protector by various nomadic clans who related her to fertility and material affairs, yet also considered her dangerous and fearsome. Progressively, the goddess was incorporated into the Buddhist pantheon, and during this process, Kurukulla acquired different roles and lost others. Many practices were developed related to issues such as protection against animals and certain diseases, obtaining influential positions in society, love affairs, and even getting rid of one’s enemies.
Kurukulla: Goddess of Bewitchment offers a tantric perspective on a deity considered the goddess of eroticism, the mistress of enchantments and bewitchment, who uses desire as a weapon for transcendence. Practicing with Kurukulla allows us to reach our true nature by making our daily life, our fears and weaknesses, the very source of liberation.
The goddess of the red body represents the pure manifestation of intrinsic wisdom, the primordial energy that nourishes all realms of existence, as well as life and death as complementary opposites.
The rituals and devotionals presented in this book are intended to openly and freely establish a deep connection with the deity. They are shared in a simple and understandable way that will allow practitioners to integrate them into their life easily and completely.
I May Be Wrong by Björn Natthiko Lindeblad
£9.99
We like to think we understand what's happening around us; that we can determine the path our life takes. But often, things don't go that way - in fact, they rarely do.
What helps us respond to life as it unfolds? To live freely, stay humble and find comfort in difficult times?
In the Swedish sensation I May Be Wrong, former forest monk Björn Natthiko Lindeblad shares his advice on how to face the uncertainty and doubt that is a natural part of life. We don't choose our thoughts. We don't control the shape they take, or what pops into our minds. We can only choose whether or not to believe them.
Infusing the everyday with heart, grace and gentle humour, this is a book to help us all navigate the realities of modern life.
Rebirth : A Guide to Mind, Karma, and Cosmos in the Buddhist World by Roger Jackson
£26.00