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The Benedictine monk John Main was one of the most profoundly influential spiritual teachers of recent times. His belief that the desert tradition of meditative prayer practised by the earliest monastic communities had an immediate and contemporary relevance gave rise to the vision of a totally new kind of community, one made up of men and women scattered throughout the world yet united in their daily practice of Christian meditation. It was to be, literally, a monastery without walls.
“Thubten is able to explain meditation using clear language and an approach which really speaks to our modern tech-infused lives.” —Rami Jawhar, Program Manager at Google Arts & Culture In our never-ending search for happiness we often find ourselves looking to external things for fulfillment, thinking that happiness can be unlocked by buying a bigger house, getting the next promotion, or building a perfect family. In this profound and inspiring book, Gelong Thubten shares a practical and sustainable approach to happiness. Thubten, a Buddhist monk and meditation expert who has worked with everyone from school kids to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and Benedict Cumberbatch, explains how meditation and mindfulness can create a direct path to happiness. A Monk’s Guide to Happiness explores the nature of happiness and helps bust the myth that our lives and minds are too busy for meditation. The book can show you how to: Learn practical methods to help you choose happiness Develop greater compassion for yourself and others Learn to meditate in micro-moments during a busy day Discover that you are naturally ‘hard-wired’ for happiness Reading A Monk’s Guide to Happiness could revolutionize your relationship with your thoughts and emotions, and help you create a life of true happiness and contentment. “His writing is full of inspiration but also the pragmatism needed to form a sustainable practice. His book clearly illustrates why we all need meditation and mindfulness in our lives.” —Benedict Cumberbatch “[A] powerful debut . . . a highly accessible and jargon-free introduction to meditation.” —Publishers Weekly
There is a part of each of us that is a monk or a mystic. We yearn for perfect peace yet live our lives far removed from traditional monasteries--yet most of us would not want to give up our personal and spiritual freedom to join monastic life. We seek wholeness but realize that wholeness is not possible without sacredness. Sacred life takes root in solitude, in the time we take to develop a relationship with our inner life--in the kind of setting a monastery would offer. This book speaks to the monk or mystic within us. It affirms our place in the sacred silence of solitude and inner reflection, showing how even everyday life is filled with opportunities to live fully in the world--as if it were a holy monastery. Here we learn to live within the limits as well as the spirit of everyday life, how to appreciate our most human self as the path to explore the divine.How we encounter a world that is clearly available to us, a world filled with nothing less than the gift of sacred silence within the monastery without walls.
Although the institution of monasticism has existed in the Christian church since the first century, it is often misunderstood. Greg Peters, an expert in monastic studies, reintroduces historic monasticism to the Protestant church, articulating a monastic spirituality for all believers. As Peters explains, what we have known as monasticism for the past 1,500 years is actually a modified version of the earliest monastic life, which was not necessarily characterized by poverty, chastity, and obedience but rather by one's single-minded focus on God--a single-mindedness rooted in one's baptismal vows and the priesthood of all believers. Peters argues that all monks are Christians, but all Christians are also monks. To be a monk, one must first and foremost be singled-minded toward God. This book presents a theology of monasticism for the whole church, offering a vision of Christian spirituality that brings together important elements of history and practice. The author connects monasticism to movements in contemporary spiritual formation, helping readers understand how monastic practices can be a resource for exploring a robust spiritual life.
The late Dr. Nass Cannon Jr. (MD) was a physician for the indigent poor for over forty years and an internationally renowned scholar of the theologian and monk, Thomas Merton. In Search of the Healing Spirit follows a narrative arc across several essays of Dr. Cannon’s analysis and reflections on life and Thomas Merton’s theological contributions. First articulated by Dr. Cannon at the outset of his journey to serve the poor, the guiding principle of the book is an exploration of what it means to be broken and called to heal each other, ourselves, and the world. As Dr. Cannon writes, “I am a physician who views his root identity as one called to heal. Yet, I experience myself as broken, as one admonished by the phrase, ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ Perhaps you, too . . . experience yourself as a broken healer. Let us together explore some notions regarding the healer as broken, examine the nature of healing, and consider the relationship of the healer to one healed.” From this position as a broken healer, which implicitly embodies Merton’s contemplative spirituality, Dr. Cannon’s meditations over the course of his life of service increasingly weave in Merton’s contributions in search of the true self on such pressing—and universal—topics as grief and loss, the eternal nature and healing power of love, and to do what we can for each other with the time we are given. Dr. Cannon’s writings engage a twenty-first-century audience with insights—drawn from fifty years of study—that can aid lay persons, clergy, and academics to better understand what it means to be a broken person and through that brokenness to heal themselves and the world.
In this moving spiritual memoir, Dr. William Thiele shares inspiring stories of the birthing of a monastery without walls among everyday women and men around New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Along the way, core contemplative attitudes, practices, and principles were discovered. He offers these stories of birthing a School for Contemplative Living as a challenging call to a frantic and polarized world. Readers will be drawn toward their own spiritual transformation as they encounter imperfect monks with messy lives who are practicing God's presence and learning to serve the world from that presence. He encourages readers to join these monks in the world by forming contemplative communities who radiate loving-kindness as their first priority.
Jay Shetty, social media superstar and host of the #1 podcast On Purpose, distills the timeless wisdom he learned as a monk into practical steps anyone can take every day to live a less anxious, more meaningful life. When you think like a monk, you’ll understand: -How to overcome negativity -How to stop overthinking -Why comparison kills love -How to use your fear -Why you can’t find happiness by looking for it -How to learn from everyone you meet -Why you are not your thoughts -How to find your purpose -Why kindness is crucial to success -And much more... Shetty grew up in a family where you could become one of three things—a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure. His family was convinced he had chosen option three: instead of attending his college graduation ceremony, he headed to India to become a monk, to meditate every day for four to eight hours, and devote his life to helping others. After three years, one of his teachers told him that he would have more impact on the world if he left the monk’s path to share his experience and wisdom with others. Heavily in debt, and with no recognizable skills on his résumé, he moved back home in north London with his parents. Shetty reconnected with old school friends—many working for some of the world’s largest corporations—who were experiencing tremendous stress, pressure, and unhappiness, and they invited Shetty to coach them on well-being, purpose, and mindfulness. Since then, Shetty has become one of the world’s most popular influencers. In 2017, he was named in the Forbes magazine 30-under-30 for being a game-changer in the world of media. In 2018, he had the #1 video on Facebook with over 360 million views. His social media following totals over 38 million, he has produced over 400 viral videos which have amassed more than 8 billion views, and his podcast, On Purpose, is consistently ranked the world’s #1 Health and Wellness podcast. In this inspiring, empowering book, Shetty draws on his time as a monk to show us how we can clear the roadblocks to our potential and power. Combining ancient wisdom and his own rich experiences in the ashram, Think Like a Monk reveals how to overcome negative thoughts and habits, and access the calm and purpose that lie within all of us. He transforms abstract lessons into advice and exercises we can all apply to reduce stress, improve relationships, and give the gifts we find in ourselves to the world. Shetty proves that everyone can—and should—think like a monk.
Isle of the Saints recreates the harsh yet richly spiritual world of medieval Irish monks on the Christian frontier of barbarian Europe. Lisa Bitel draws on accounts of saints' lives written between 800 and 1200 to explain, from the monks' own perspective, the social networks that bound them to one another and to their secular neighbors.
'What if the suffering that we call depression contains experiences and lessons without which we cannot be fully alive?' This is one of the many startling questions that Giving Up Without Giving Up invites us to ask ourselves. Depression seems to be a contemporary epidemic, a condition understandably feared and avoided by all. Yet this book explores the possibility that we have much to learn from the desert times in our lives, when it feels as though we are losing everything, most of all any sense of who we are. Drawing on his extensive experience of meditation within both the Buddhist and Christian contemplative traditions, as well as his own times of personal loss and bewilderment, Jim Green offers us a moving account of just how this wisdom practice can accompany each of us as we make 'the gentle pilgrimage of recovery' He guides us through 'the invention of depression' in the mid-twentieth century, questioning the increasing tendency to medicalize human suffering. Based on the insight that 'Life is the Treatment', he offers a thorough and practical approach to our times of personal desolation, showing how we can learn to treat ourselves and each other with care and compassion. At the heart of this approach is the practice of meditation, learned from the Buddha, The Desert Fathers and Mothers and from Jesus himself. It's a practice which, this heartfelt book insists, can help you 'to be depressed – which might mean in mourning – for exactly as long as you need to be, no longer and no shorter. Then, changed, you are brought back to life, which is change itself.'
Living the Hours explores what makes the monastic tradition so appealing to ordinary people today who may be discovering a world of spirituality previously hidden from them, or perhaps questioning the balance, priorities and focal points of their lives. Since its beginnings in the fourth century, monasticism's alternative vision for living has, in different ways, always inspired men and women in the secular world to step outside the routine of everyday life and to give time to reflection and exploration. The monastic day is measured in 'hours' with times for prayer, physical work, study and rest all contributing to a balanced, holistic life. This book looks at different expressions of monastic life through history and at the new monastic movements emerging today and asks how they can teach us in today's consumerist world to live more fully, more consciously aware of how we choose to fill our hours and days.