Meditations of the Pali Tradition, from consummate scholar of Pali Buddhism L. S. Cousins, explores the history of meditation practice in early or Pali Buddhism, which was established in various parts of South and Central Asia from the time of the Buddha and developed until at least the fourteenth century CE. Ranging in discussion of jhana (absorption) meditation in ancient India to the Buddhist practice centers of the Silk Road to the vipassana (insight) practices of our modern world, this rigorous and insightful work of scholarship sheds new light on our understanding of the practices that are today associated with the Theravada school of Buddhism and the insight meditation movement. Cousins demonstrates that there is much more to Buddhist meditation than mindfulness alone--concentration and joy, for example, are equally important.
£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.
£26.00
£45.99
Limited hardback edition
T. Lobsang Rampa’s autobiography, The Third Eye was an international bestseller in 1956, but the author had to face some awkward questions from critics. There were two possibilities; either he really was a Tibetan lama whose third eye had been physically opened (and who could reveal secrets of levitation, invisibility, gilded extraterrestrials, giant temple cats, etc), or he was really the eccentric son of a plumber from Plympton in Devon.
Rampa would explain himself by discussing transmigration, and over the next quarter of a century (and in another eighteen books) he would reveal the secrets of the human aura, astral travel, UFOs, life on Venus, and the hollow Earth (and hollow Moon), among many other alternative, New Age ideas. For Rampa, there was no wild, left-field belief that was not true.
R.B. Russell has written the first definitive biography of Rampa (also known as Cyril Henry Hoskin). The identity of Rampa may have been conclusively debunked by anybody who knew anything about Tibet, Buddhism, or basic scientific principles, but he would always claim that everything he wrote was true, and until his death in 1980 he doesn’t ever seem to have come out of character.
Russell’s biography of Rampa is accompanied in this volume by three further studies of alternative belief systems that have fascinated him over the years.
Following the biography of Rampa, Russell writes about the Millenarian church, the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, who believed their leader was Christ and immortal, and that the world would end in 2000. (Spoiler alert: we are still here, and nobody has seen the leader for several years.)
A further essay is a brief look at one of the Church of Scientology’s techniques for recruiting members, the Oxford Capacity Analysis test. Russell argues that the test is based on a series of small, apparently innocuous lies, but he shows that they are indicative of Scientology’s complete disregard for honesty or integrity.
The final essay looks at the Temple of Psychic Youth, the knowing attempt by Genesis P-Orridge to create a modern cult. Was it exploitative and manipulative, or simply an ironic experiment? And how did it backfire when the 1980s tabloids created the Satanic Panic?
The painting on the boards of this book is by Les Edwards. It was first published on the cover of As It Was!, T. Lobsang Rampa, Corgi, 1976.