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Random Acts of Kindness
This paperback is a revised and updated edition of the 1993 work that engendered a movement, and it includes stories, quotations, and practices to try. The kindness revolution encompasses a wide range of small acts and habits that put others first. Here are a few examples:
• When someone is trying to merge into your lane in traffic, let him in — and smile and wave while doing it!
• Write a card thanking a service person for his or her care and leave it with your tip, including a specific acknowledgement, such as: "I appreciate the careful way you cleaned the room without disturbing my things"; "Your smile as you served me dinner really made my day."
• Put your shopping cart back in its appointed place in the parking lot.
• Order a mail-order gift, anonymously, for someone at work who needs to be cheered up.
• Next time you go through a toll booth, pay the toll for the car behind you and don't forget to thank the toll taker.
• Take an opportunity in conversations with friends to tell them about kindnesses you have experienced and ask about their experiences. Just talking about acts of kindness brings them alive in the world.
A revised and updated edition of the 1993 book that started the random acts of kindness movement.
Essential Spirituality
Roger Walsh is professor of psychiatry, philosophy, and anthropology at the University of California at Irvine. This omnibus work is the capstone of 23 years of research in and practice of the world's spiritual disciplines. The author has studied the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and the Asian religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. He uses the words of Jesus, Mohammed, Lao Tsu, Confucius, and Buddha throughout the book to highlight the wisdom held in common by all of these religions.
The seven perennial practices are: (1) transform your motivation: reduce craving and find your soul's desire; (2) cultivate emotional wisdom: heal your heart and learn to love; (3) live ethically: feel good by doing good; (4) concentrate and calm your mind; (5) awaken your spiritual vision: see clearly and recognize the sacred in all things; (6) cultivate spiritual intelligence: develop wisdom and understand life; and (7) express spirit in action: embrace generosity and the joy of service. Throughout the book, Walsh offers exercises for applying these principles to all arenas of life. He concludes that everyday practice is the key to awakening and to essential spirituality.
Highlights the wisdom held in common by all the world's religions.
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
Maya Angelou reveals how one "tender and tough" woman poet has found fulfillment. She salutes spirit, generosity, the old virtues, and being comfortable in one's skin. This spoken-word audiocassette proves that living well is an art that can be developed and passed on to others.
Reveals how one tender and tough woman poet found fulfillment.
An Introduction to Spiritual Direction
"The present popularity of spiritual direction is part of the whole search for inner meaning and personal fulfillment that our present age finds so attractive," writes Chester P. Michael, a Roman Catholic priest who has served as the pastor of four parishes in Virginia and as a seminary rector. He has devoted a substantial part of his priestly ministry to spiritual direction. Much of the material in this paperback has been adapted from his two-year course of study called the Spiritual Direction Institute. As the subtitle suggests, Michael is convinced that the depth psychology of Carl Jung is very relevant to this ministry of guiding, advising, and listening to those on a spiritual journey.
A good spiritual director is a person who is gifted with discernment, insight, and perception. He or she meets regularly with a directee to deal with the four areas of love: love of God, love of others, a proper love of self, and a love of nature. There is usually discussion of successes and failures in prayer, charity, ministry, discipline and even bodily care. Michael delineates the six steps on the spiritual journey as listening to God's call, experiencing a faith conversion, entering a covenant of faith with the risen Lord Jesus, celebrating in the faith community, receiving the consolations of the Holy Spirit, and receiving a commission to share the faith with others.
In one of the most helpful chapters, the author outlines the signs of spiritual progress, including among them greater gratitude to God, inner peace, a more positive attitude toward everything, self-control, generosity, longing for God, and changing old ways of thinking, acting, judging, and speaking. He also includes edifying material on spiritual direction for different levels of faith, for different temperaments, for contemplative souls, and how to deal with extraordinary spiritual phenomena.
A thoughtful overview of this challenging ministry.
Hasidic Tales
The stories and teachings of the Hasidic masters from Eastern Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries gained widespread attention when Martin Buber translated them in the mid-twentieth century. In this SkyLight Illuminations edition, Rami Shapiro offers his translations and interpretations of these profound stories that are filled with insights into human nature and Divine activity in everyday life. A congregational rabbi for 20 years, Shapiro currently directs the Simply Jewish Foundation. His books include Minyan: 10 Principles for Living a Life of Integrity, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages, Proverbs, and The Way of Solomon.
In a story about a rebbe who travels to a distant hamlet to learn that he must not only be careful about what goes into his mouth but be equally attuned to what comes out, Shapiro offers this commentary: "The Baal Shem Tov taught that every word you overhear, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, is in fact spoken for your ears alone. Every moment, life presents you with another opportunity to look within yourself and see where you can improve the quality of your thought, word, and deed. Do not imagine that the world revolves around you — it doesn't. But know that whatever is in the world is in you as well. Let reality be your rebbe."
This down-to-earth and practical approach shines through in another Hasidic tale where Reb Avraham Yaakov says that it is possible to learn great truths from inanimate things. From a train, for example, we learn that in a single second, we can miss the whole thing. From a telephone, we learn that what we say here can surely be heard there. The Hasidic masters want us to realize that once we see the world as abounding with messages from God. everything can be a spiritual teacher.
A number of the stories deal with the two impulses or inclinations that drive people to action: the selfish and the selfless. We must not put ourselves first, and we must look out for the needs of others. One defining act of faith for the Hasidic masters is generosity. Opening your heart and sharing with others is always the right thing to do.
There is plenty of wise counsel on these pages about listening, hospitality toward strangers, avoiding idle and slanderous speech, becoming a godly vessel, dealing with spiritual pride as a roadblock on the spiritual journey, and surrendering the outcomes of situations to God. One of our favorites is about a rebbe who says goodnight to God. Shapiro's commentary is: "Follow the example of Reb Naftali, and find something to do each day that offers up pure pleasure to God. In this way you will spread joy throughout the world, for the more pleasure the world gives God, the more pleasure the world receives from God."
New translations and interpretations of these stories filled with insights into human nature and Divine activity in everyday life.
The Sacred Art of Bowing
This book marks the debut of a new series from Skylight Paths called "Preparing to Practice," designed to explain little-known or misunderstood spiritual practices from around the world with clear instructions for incorporating them into your daily life. Future volumes will cover chanting, mantra, drawing, prayer tools, and illumination (uses of candles, menorahs, light-sharing ceremonies).
The Sacred Art of Bowing is written by Andi Young, a resident at the New Haven Zen Center and a member of the Kwan Um School of Zen whose founding teacher was Zen Master Seung Sahn. The author begins each day with 108 bows and is very knowledgeable about this spiritual practice, which is found in Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam.
In the Zen tradition, meditation usually begins with a bow. One also bows when entering or leaving a temple, at an altar, or in the presence of a teacher. In Protestant Christian denominations, people bow their heads in prayer or kneel as a sign of submission before God. Eastern Orthodox believers bow when entering a church or during the liturgy while Catholics genuflect when entering or leaving church. Bowing in the Jewish tradition is linked to adoration and reverence for God. Young does a fine job explaining the sequence of bows in the Islamic ritual prayer, called salat, and in the namaskar greeting used by Hindus for teachers, holy places, friends, and strangers.
Although bowing has a particular meaning in each tradition, there is a universal effect of this practice. "Bowing, in its simplest terms, is a change in physical attitude, usually meant to indicate humility and respect," writes Young. "All religions specify moments during formal worship and ritual when we should punctuate our inner state with physical action. Bowing is intimately connected with the ways in which we cultivate our faith and our hearts, because bowing is never meant as an empty gesture, to be done without awareness or intent. Instead, bowing is meant to call us to greater awareness of our thoughts, emotions and intentions."
Bowing as a physical prayer can become part of your private, informal spiritual practice or can be used in sync with others in community worship. The rich meanings that inform this act include devotion, humility, generosity, reverence, gratitude, and joy. The Sacred Art of Bowing is an auspicious start for what promises to be a fascinating, practical, and edifying series.
Presents this sacred art in many different religious traditions.
Beyond the Myth of Marital Happiness
Dr. Blaine J. Fowers, a psychologist who specializes in marital and family therapy research and training, is associate professor in the Counseling Psychology Program at the University of Miami. He believes that it is time to move beyond the myth of marital happiness based on good communication, emotional gratification, and intimacy. This larger-than-life ideal leads to today's high divorce rate. It is nearly impossible for couples to live up to this myth fostered by the media, the therapeutic community, and the general public.
Fowers offers a far more realistic and personally enriching ideal: "The best marriages are partnerships in which spouses are devoted to creating a shared life that is larger than the emotional payoff of the marriage. A couple creates a strong marriage by embracing a set of ideals and goals toward which the partners strive together." By shifting the emphasis from emotional satisfaction to partnership, husbands and wives can create meaningful ties to others and work together to create a better world.
Dr. Fowers believes that couples must cultivate four traits or virtues in order to bring this vision to life: friendship, which deepens and expands the relationship of intimacy; loyalty, which solidifies the commitment that is necessary to sustain the marriage in spite of difficulties; generosity, which heals the wounds and helps each tolerate the other's foibles; and justice, which paves a way to share the burdens and blessings of the relationship.
"Marriage" concludes the author, "offers one of the best opportunities we have to develop character. Its importance and centrality make it a crucible where our mettle is continually tested and refined. . . . Marriage is one of the most intense and enduring settings for us to become the best people we can be." Dr. Fowers has forged a viable and substantive alternative to the inadequate present-day myth of marital happiness. Those who cultivate this partnership model will reap the benefits.
Moves beyond the myth of marital happiness based on good communication, emotional gratification, and intimacy.
Essential Sufism
"Dear Friend, Your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets," al-Ghazzoli has written. This is one of the many gems of wisdom in Essential Sufism edited by James Fadiman and Roger Frager. This mystical branch of Islam is "a way of love, a way of devotion and a way of knowledge."
Here in one volume are Sufi aphorisms, prayers, poems, stories, meditations, and commentary. For all those who have thrilled to Rumi's ecstatic poetry, this will seem like a spiritual warehouse of insights into the Sufi path of opening the heart and practicing remembrance of God. As the editors note, "God has placed the seeds of all wisdom within humanity. We can find within ourselves all that we want or need."
Fadiman and Frager shed light on various Sufi practices and virtues including faith, humility, gratitude, patience, and generosity. They discuss the meaning of the veils between ourselves and God, true wealth and spiritual poverty, the three blessings given to those who love God, service as a form of worship, teachers as physicians of the soul, the world as a mirror of the Divine, and pathways to self-transformation. Essential Sufism is an awesome compendium of spiritual wisdom that is eminently profound and practical.
Try a Spiritual Practice on Kindness
Try a Spiritual Practice on Peace
A collection of gems of wisdom from the mystical branch of Islam.
A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life
This is a Buddhist classic written by Santideva, an eighth century Indian monk. This translation from the Sanskrit and Tibetan is by Vesna A. Wallace and B. Alan Wallace. Santideva celebrates the spirit of awakening and the cultivation of the six perfections-generosity, ethical discipline, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom. Walking in the way of the Bodhisattva means working for the benefit of all sentient beings. At one point, Santideva counsels us, "Be a friend to the world." At another, he writes, "O mind, make this resolve: I am bound to others." "A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life" concludes with a poetic prayer that captures the compassion at the heart of Buddhism: "For as long as space endures and for as long as the world lasts, may I live dispelling the miseries of the world. Whatever suffering there is for the world, may it all ripen upon me."
A fine rendition of this Buddhlist classic.
The Taste of Hidden Things
Sara Sviri studied Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and currently holds the Catherine Lewis Lectureship in medieval studies at University College, London. In this accessible and illuminating overview of Sufism, she delivers many insights into some of the major emphases of the Naqshbandi order — namely psychology, dreams, ethics, and etiquette.
Sufis characterize themselves as children of the moment able to taste all the treats of the banquet that is set before them right now. They also see the heart as "that organ in which the Divine mysteries are hidden, and where the mystical journey takes place." Sviri reveals that discipline and effort are important qualities on the Sufi path as the individual actualizes the different "stages" and "stations" of the spiritual journey. She quotes Abu Ali ad-Daqqaq: "He who embellishes his exterior with effort, God graces his interior with vision."
The author presents her special take on adab — Sufi prescriptions for the right conduct in various situations. This civil way of living includes generosity, putting others first, being hospitable, refraining from passing harsh judgment on others, service, and perseverance. The practice of adab can lead to rida, a state of "contented resignation." This paperback presents a cogent and most wondrous interpretation of Sufi mysticism.
Insights into Sufism, especially some of the major emphases of the Naqshbandi order; namely psychology, dreams, ethics and etiquette.