Unitarian Universalist
Buddhist Fellowship of Fayetteville
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Unitarian Universalist
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Awakening the Mind:
Basic Buddhist Meditations
by Geshe Namgyal Wangchen
Awakening the Mind is an introduction to profound meditation methods that for millennia
have helped people transcend their deepest problems. Based on the teaching of the great Tibetan
saint Tsong Khapa, the techniques explained here by Geshe Wangchen counteract depression, anxiety,
low self-esteem, and all other forms of mental suffering. These methods for cultivating inner peace
and wisdom show us how to awaken our mind to its fullest potential.
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
by Sogyal Rinpoche
In 1927, Walter Evans-Wentz published his translation of an obscure Tibetan Nyingma text and called it the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Popular Tibetan teacher Sogyal Rinpoche has transformed that ancient text, conveying a perennial philosophy that is at once religious, scientific, and practical. Through extraordinary anecdotes and stories from religious traditions East and West, Rinpoche introduces the reader to the fundamentals of Tibetan Buddhism, moving gradually to the topics of death and dying. Death turns out to be less of a crisis and more of an opportunity. Concepts such as reincarnation, karma, and bardo and practices such as meditation, tonglen, and phowa teach us how to face death constructively. As a result, life becomes much richer. Like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Sogyal Rinpoche opens the door to a full experience of death. It is up to the reader to walk through. --Brian Bruya
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
by Padmasambhava
This new edition by Graham Coleman and Thupten Jinpa uses a fuller edition of the work for translating, adding new chapters and reflecting the interpretation of contemporary masters and lineage holders of this tradition. In many ways this is the first complete The Tibetan Book of the Dead. In many ways this book is both a guide for living as well as a how to consciously move on after death. The book has been extremely popular in Central Asia among Buddhists. The Tibetan Book of the Dead contains especially written guidance and practices related to transforming our experience of daily life, on how to address the process of dying in the after-death states, and on how to help those who are dying. Some of these teachings include: methods for investigating and cultivating our experience of the ultimate nature of mind in our daily practice, guidance on the recognition of the science of impending death and a detailed description of the mental and physical processes of dying, rituals for the avoidance of premature death, the now famous great liberation by hearing that is read to the dying and the dead, special prayers are read at the time of death, and allegorical masque play that lightheartedly dramatizes the journey through the intermediate state, and a translation of the sacred mantras that are attached to the body after death and are said to bring liberation by wearing. The editors have also included two additional texts are not usually included in the first chapter there is a preliminary meditation and practices related to the cycle of teachings, and in chapter 10, instructions on methods of transforming consciousness at the point of death into a enlightened state and are an essential aspect of the practices related to dying.
The Four Noble Truths
by Ven. Lobsang Gyatso
After his enlightenment, teh Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths,
which became the foundation for all Buddhist practice. The first
truth diagnoses the nature of our existential illnesses and
neuroses. The second explores their causes and conditions for
arising. The third shows that the causes of our problems can
be removed and that we can be free from suffering. The fourth
includes the many paths of practice that Buddhism offers to
realize that goal. The Buddha has shown that the spiritual
path is pragmatic and works directly with everyday experience
to fundamentally transform the practitioner.
Awakening the Buddha Within:
Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World
by Lama Surya Das
Lama Surya Das, the most highly trained American lama in the Tibetan tradition, presents the
definitive book on Western Buddhism for the modern-day spiritual seeker.
The radical and compelling message of Buddhism tells us that each of us has the wisdom, awareness, love, and power of the Buddha within; yet most of us are too often like sleeping Buddhas. In Awakening the Buddha Within, Surya Das shows how we can awaken to who we really are in order to lead a more compassionate, enlightened, and balanced life. It illuminates the guidelines and key principles embodied in the noble Eight-Fold Path and the traditional Three Enlightenment Trainings common to all schools of Buddhism:
With lively stories, meditations, and spiritual practices, Awakening the Buddha Within is an invaluable text for the novice and experienced student of Buddhism alike.
The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching:
Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, & Liberation
by Thich Nhat Hanh
What should we think when on the one hand Buddhism tells us that life is suffering and on the other we are told to enjoy life's every moment? Loved around the world for his simple, straightforward explanations of Buddhism, Thich Nhat Hanh has finally turned his hand to the very core of Buddhism and conundrums such as this. In the traditional way, Thich Nhat Hanh takes up the core teachings one by one--the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Twelve Links of Interdependent Co-Arising--but his approach is as fresh as a soft breeze through a plum orchard. For illustration, he dips into the vast stores of Buddhist literature right alongside contemporary anecdotes, pointing out subtleties that can get glossed over in other popular introductions. He also includes three short but key sutras, essential source teachings from which all Buddhism flows. Studying the basics of Buddhism under Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh is like learning basketball from Michael Jordan. --Brian Bruya
Dhammapada
by Max Muller (Translator), Jack Maguire (Editor)
Nearly every line of the Dhammapada, from the first "All that we are is the result of what we have thought," is quotable and worth ruminating over. Eloquent, insightful, and brief, this Buddhist scripture is the kind of book that finds its way into purses, backpacks, and briefcases for perusal anytime, anywhere. The call of the Dhammapada is to the path of awakening, to undertake the effort of meditation, and to see through the veneer of the suffering life. In this rendition by author and Zen student Jack Maguire, it retains its purity and insight while offering more in the way of textual understanding. Maguire begins with Max Muller's late-19th-century translation, which, although problematic at points, stands the test of time. He then polishes and adds numerous notes on facing pages about the text itself and about Buddhist concepts. A fluid and critical translation of a masterpiece of Buddhist literature, Maguire's Dhammapada is worth taking out of your bag anytime, anywhere. --Brian Bruya
From Library Journal: SkyLight Paths has republished and augmented a classic translation of one of Buddhism's core texts, the Dhammapada, supposed to have been uttered by the Buddha himself. Muller's plain and graceful translation has been lightly amended by Zen student and author Maguire, who provides well-informed and helpful notes. This book offers a welcome reintroduction to the Buddha's teaching: "Hatred ceases by love." Highly recommended.
The Way of the Bodhisattva
by Shantideva
Shantideva was an Indian Buddhist while Buddhism still flourished in India. His great work, the Bodhicharyavatara, or "Entrance to the Path of Awakening," became a major text of Tibetan Buddhism long after it went out of circulation in its homeland. It is a handbook on how to realize the nature of existence and of compassion that arises from such realization. The Dalai Lama said of it, "If I have any understanding of compassion and the practice of the Bodhisattva path, it is entirely on the basis of this text that I possess it." Like the Book of Proverbs, the Bodhicharyavatara is a timeless work of wisdom, the longevity of which is due to the quality of its verse as much as to its wisdom. For the first time, an attempt has been made to recover that poetic immediacy by rendering the text in iambic lines.
Regard your body as a vessel,
A simple boat for going here and there.
Make of it a wish-fulfilling gem
To bring about the benefit of beings.
With this translation, gleaming in its clarity, a Buddhist classic becomes an English classic. Worthy of recitation and committing to memory, Shantideva's words on such topics as doing good, reading sutras, guarding the mind, keeping good company, and on the nature of the mind and reality can take on a life of their own, to grow and blossom in a new native tongue. The text booms, like the voice of a Shakespearean actor, as if it were not the bodhisattva but the book itself that proclaims:
And now as long as space endures,
As long as there are beings to be found,
May I continue likewise to remain
To drive away the sorrows of the world.
Meditation in Action
by Chogyam Trungpa
A concise handbook of Buddhist spiritual practices builds a foundation for compassion, awareness, and creativity in all aspects of a person's mind and behavior, describing the life of the Buddha and explaining what meditation is and how it works. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.
We learn that meditation is based on trying to see what is, rather than trying to achieve a higher state. It's not a retreat from the world but builds a foundation for compassion, awareness, and creativity in all aspects of a person's mind and behavior.
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
by Shunryu Suzuki
A respected Zen master in Japan and founder of the San Francisco Zen Center, Shunryu Suzuki has blazed a path in American Buddhism like few others. He is the master who climbs down from the pages of the koan books and answers your questions face to face. If not face to face, you can at least find the answers as recorded in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a transcription of juicy excerpts from his lectures. From diverse topics such as transience of the world, sudden enlightenment, and the nuts and bolts of meditation, Suzuki always returns to the idea of beginner's mind, a recognition that our original nature is our true nature. With beginner's mind, we dedicate ourselves to sincere practice, without the thought of gaining anything special. Day to day life becomes our Zen training, and we discover that "to study Buddhism is to study ourselves." And to know our true selves is to be enlightened. --Brian Bruya
In one of the best and most succinct introductions to Zen practice, the important teacher Shunryu Suzuki discusses posture and breathing in meditation as well as selflessness, emptiness, and mindfulness.
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
by Chogyam Trungpa
Examines the self-deceptions, distortions, and sidetracks that imperil the spiritual journey as well as awareness and fearlessness of the true path.
In this modern spiritual classic, the Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa highlights the commonest pitfall to which every aspirant on the spiritual path falls prey: What he calls spiritual materialism. The universal human tendency, he shows, is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement -- the impulse to develop and refine the ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty. "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use," he said, "even spirituality." His incisive, compassionate teachings serve to wake us up from this trick we all play on ourselves, and to offer us a far brighter reality: The true and joyous liberation that inevitably involves letting go of the self rather than working to improve it. It is a message that has resonated with students for nearly thirty years, and remains fresh as ever today.
Zen Master Who?:
A Guide to the People and Stories of Zen
by James Ishmael Ford
Surprisingly little has been written about how Zen came to North America. Zen Master Who?
does that and much more. Author James Ishmael Ford, a renowned Unitarian Universalist minister and
Zen master in two lineages, traces the tradition’s history in Asia, looking at some of its most important figures — the Buddha himself, and the handful of Indian, Chinese, and Japanese masters who gave the Zen school its shape. It also outlines the challenges that occurred as Zen became integrated into western consciousness, and the state of Zen in North America today. The author includes profiles of modern Zen teachers and institutions, including D. T. Suzuki and Alan Watts, and such topics as the emergence of liberal Buddhism, and Christians, Jews, and Zen. This engaging, accessible book is aimed at anyone interested in this tradition but who may not know how to start. Most importantly, it clarifies a great and ancient tradition for the contemporary seeker.
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In affiliation with
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fayetteville
901 West Cleveland Street
Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701