Download or read book The Modern Monk written by Hindol Sengupta and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2016-12-16 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He loved French cookbooks, invented a new way of making khichdi, was interested in the engineering behind ship-building and the technology that makes ammunition. More than 100 years after his death, do we really know or understand the bewildering, fascinating, complex man Swami Vivekananda was? Vivekananda is one of the most important figures in the modern imagination of India. He is also an utterly modern man, consistently challenging his own views, and embracing diverse, even conflicting arguments. It is his modernity that appeals to us today. He is unlike any monk we have known. He is confined neither by history nor by ritual, and is constantly questioning everything around him, including himself. It is in Vivekananda’s contradictions, his doubts, his fears and his failings that he recognise his profoundly compelling divinity—he teaches us that to try and understand God, first one must truly comprehend one’s own self. This book is an argument that it is not just because he is close to God but also because he is so tantalisingly immersed in being human that keeps us returning to Vivekananda and his immortal wisdom.
Download or read book How to Live Like a Monk Medieval Wisdom for Modern Life written by Danièle Cybulskie and published by WW Norton. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How medieval monastic practices—with their emphasis on a healthy soul, mind, and body—can inspire us to live fuller lives today We know that they prayed, sang, and wore long robes, but what was it really like to be a monk? Though monastic living may seem unimaginable to us moderns, it has relevance for today. This book illuminates the day-to-day of medieval European monasticism, showing how you can apply the principles of monastic living, like finding balance and peace, to your life. With wit and insight, medievalist and podcaster Daniele Cybulskie dives into the history of monasticism in each chapter and then reveals applications for today, such as the benefits of healthy eating, streamlining routines, gardening, and helping others. She shares how monks authentically embraced their spiritual calling, and were also down to earth: they wrote complaints about being cold in the manuscripts they copied, made beer and wine, and even kept bees. How to Live Like a Monk features original illustrations by Anna Lobanova, as well as more than eighty color reproductions from medieval manuscripts. It is for anyone interested in the Middle Ages and those seeking inspiration for how to live a full life, even when we’re confined to the cloister of our homes.
Download or read book Think Like a Monk written by Jay Shetty and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book A Monk s Guide to Happiness written by Gelong Thubten and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness for the Modern Day 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.
Download or read book The Urban Monk written by Pedram Shojai and published by Rodale. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this New York Times bestseller, you will discover how the calmness of Zen masters can help you stop time, refuel, and focus on the things that really matter. Our world is an overwhelming place. Each day’s commitments to career and family take everything we’ve got, and we struggle to focus on our health, relationships, and purpose in life. Technology brings endless information to our fingertips, but the one thing we really want—a sense of satisfaction and contentment—remains out of reach. Pedram Shojai is here to change all of that. With practice, you can stop time, refuel, and focus on the things that really matter, even among the chaos that constantly surrounds us. His no-nonsense life mastery program brings together clear tools to elevate your existence. He guides you in learning to honor the body and mind, discharge stuck energy, and shake free from toxicity and excess stress. The world needs you to step up and live your life to the fullest. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk who can show you how to drink from infinity, find peace and prosperity, and thrive.
Download or read book The Birth of Insight written by Erik Braun and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Insight meditation, which claims to offer practitioners a chance to escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality, is one of the most popular forms of meditation today. The Theravada Buddhist cultures of South and Southeast Asia often see it as the Buddha’s most important gift to humanity. In the first book to examine how this practice came to play such a dominant—and relatively recent—role in Buddhism, Erik Braun takes readers to Burma, revealing that Burmese Buddhists in the colonial period were pioneers in making insight meditation indispensable to modern Buddhism. Braun focuses on the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw, a pivotal architect of modern insight meditation, and explores Ledi’s popularization of the study of crucial Buddhist philosophical texts in the early twentieth century. By promoting the study of such abstruse texts, Braun shows, Ledi was able to standardize and simplify meditation methods and make them widely accessible—in part to protect Buddhism in Burma after the British takeover in 1885. Braun also addresses the question of what really constitutes the “modern” in colonial and postcolonial forms of Buddhism, arguing that the emergence of this type of meditation was caused by precolonial factors in Burmese culture as well as the disruptive forces of the colonial era. Offering a readable narrative of the life and legacy of one of modern Buddhism’s most important figures, The Birth of Insight provides an original account of the development of mass meditation.
Download or read book The Monk and the Book written by Megan Hale Williams and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the West, monastic ideals and scholastic pursuits are complementary; monks are popularly imagined copying classics, preserving learning through the Middle Ages, and establishing the first universities. But this dual identity is not without its contradictions. While monasticism emphasizes the virtues of poverty, chastity, and humility, the scholar, by contrast, requires expensive infrastructure—a library, a workplace, and the means of disseminating his work. In The Monk and the Book, Megan Hale Williams argues that Saint Jerome was the first to represent biblical study as a mode of asceticism appropriate for an inhabitant of a Christian monastery, thus pioneering the enduring linkage of monastic identities and institutions with scholarship. Revisiting Jerome with the analytical tools of recent cultural history—including the work of Bourdieu, Foucault, and Roger Chartier—Williams proposes new interpretations that remove obstacles to understanding the life and legacy of the saint. Examining issues such as the construction of Jerome’s literary persona, the form and contents of his library, and the intellectual framework of his commentaries, Williams shows that Jerome’s textual and exegetical work on the Hebrew scriptures helped to construct a new culture of learning. This fusion of the identities of scholar and monk, Williams shows, continues to reverberate in the culture of the modern university. "[Williams] has written a fascinating study, which provides a series of striking insights into the career of one of the most colorful and influential figures in Christian antiquity. Jerome's Latin Bible would become the foundational text for the intellectual development of the West, providing words for the deepest aspirations and most intensely held convictions of an entire civilization. Williams's book does much to illumine the circumstances in which that fundamental text was produced, and reminds us that great ideas, like great people, have particular origins, and their own complex settings."—Eamon Duffy, New York Review of Books
Download or read book Punk Monk written by Pete Greig and published by Gospel Light Publications. This book was released on 2007-06-05 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fleeing the compromises of the 4th century church, the Desert Fathers founded monasticism. In reaction to a Christianity they scarcely recognized, these radicals fled to the Egyptian desert to model a different, radical style of discipleship, filled with sacrifice and continual prayer. Who are the new monks, the new punks, the new revolutionaries? The answer lies in an upsurge of 24-7 monastic communities around the world. Punk Monk combines a narrative journey through the beginnings of 24-7 Prayer Boiler Rooms with a discussion on the roots of monasticism, particularly its ethos and values, and how it can be applied in the third millennium. Drawing influences from the Franciscans, the Celts and the Moravians, the book highlights the counter-cultural and revolutionary force of monasticism and asks whether it is time for a new monastic movement. It also takes punk as a contemporary expression of monastic spirit and asks whether a “silent revolution” is coming.
Download or read book In Love with the World written by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rare, intimate account of a world-renowned Buddhist monk’s near-death experience and the life-changing wisdom he gained from it “One of the most inspiring books I have ever read.”—Pema Chödrön, author of When Things Fall Apart “This book has the potential to change the reader’s life forever.”—George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo At thirty-six years old, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche was a rising star within his generation of Tibetan masters and the respected abbot of three monasteries. Then one night, telling no one, he slipped out of his monastery in India with the intention of spending the next four years on a wandering retreat, following the ancient practice of holy mendicants. His goal was to throw off his titles and roles in order to explore the deepest aspects of his being. He immediately discovered that a lifetime of Buddhist education and practice had not prepared him to deal with dirty fellow travelers or the screeching of a railway car. He found he was too attached to his identity as a monk to remove his robes right away or to sleep on the Varanasi station floor, and instead paid for a bed in a cheap hostel. But when he ran out of money, he began his life as an itinerant beggar in earnest. Soon he became deathly ill from food poisoning—and his journey took a startling turn. His meditation practice had prepared him to face death, and now he had the opportunity to test the strength of his training. In this powerful and unusually candid account of the inner life of a Buddhist master, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche offers us the invaluable lessons he learned from his near-death experience. By sharing with readers the meditation practices that sustain him, he shows us how we can transform our fear of dying into joyful living. Praise for In Love with the World “Vivid, compelling . . . This book is a rarity in spiritual literature: Reading the intimate story of this wise and devoted Buddhist monk directly infuses our own transformational journey with fresh meaning, luminosity, and life.”—Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge “In Love with the World is a magnificent story—moving and inspiring, profound and utterly human. It will certainly be a dharma classic.”—Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart “This book makes me think enlightenment is possible.”—Russell Brand
Download or read book Thelonious Monk written by Robin D. G. Kelley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-11-02 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full biography of Thelonious Monk, written by a brilliant historian, with full access to the family's archives and with dozens of interviews.
Download or read book The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk written by Justin Thomas McDaniel and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on representations of a famous ghost and monk from the late eighteenth century to today, Justin Thomas McDaniel builds a case for interpreting modern Thai Buddhist practice through the movements of these transformative figures. He follows embodiments of the ghost and monk in a variety of genres and media, including biography, drama, ritual, art, liturgy, film, television, and the Internet. Sourcing nuns, monks, laypeople, and royalty, McDaniel shows how relations with these figures have been instrumental in crafting histories and modernities, particularly local conceptions of being "Buddhist," and the formation and transmission of such identities across different venues and technologies.
Download or read book Mr Monk Gets on Board written by Hy Conrad and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Obsessive. Compulsive. Detective. An all-new original mystery starring Adrian Monk, the brilliant investigator who always knows when something’s out of place... Of all the things that make Adrian Monk uneasy, change ranks high on the list. So when Natalie completes her P.I. license—and technically becomes Monk’s boss—it’s not easy for him to accept. Nor can he accept Natalie attending a business seminar at sea without him, even if it means spending a week with her on a cruise ship. Between choppy waters and obnoxious kids, Monk finds himself in a perfect storm of anxiety. Luckily, Mariah, the cruise director, is always able to smooth things over…until someone pulls the man overboard alarm, the ship drops anchor—and the crew fishes Mariah’s dead body out of the water. Finding alcohol in Mariah’s system, the ship’s doctor declares her death an accident, but Monk isn’t convinced. He knows that Mariah and the captain were having an affair. Could someone have pushed her overboard? When the captain hires Monk and Natalie to look into a mysterious rash of vandalism onboard, Monk steers the investigation toward murder…
Download or read book Neither Monk nor Layman written by Richard M. Jaffe and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhism comes in many forms, but in Japan it stands apart from all the rest in one most striking way--the monks get married. In Neither Monk nor Layman, the most comprehensive study of this topic in any language, Richard Jaffe addresses the emergence of an openly married clergy as a momentous change in the history of modern Japanese Buddhism. He demonstrates, in clear and engaging prose, that this shift was not an easy one for Japanese Buddhists. Yet the transformation that began in the early Meiji period (1868-1912)--when monks were ordered by government authorities to adopt common surnames and allowed to marry, to have children, and to eat meat--today extends to all the country's Buddhist denominations. Jaffe traces the gradual acceptance of clerical marriage by Japanese Buddhists from the premodern emergence of the "clerical marriage problem" in the Edo period to its widespread practice by the start of the Second World War. In doing so he considers related issues such as the dissolution of clerical status and the growing domestication of Japanese temple life. This book reveals the deep contradictions between sectarian teachings that continue to idealize renunciation and a clergy whose lives closely resemble those of their parishioners in modern Japanese society. It will attract not only scholars of religion and of Japanese history, but all those interested in the encounter-conflict between regimes of modernization and religious institutions and the fate of celibate religious practices in the twentieth century.
Download or read book The Monk of Mokha written by Dave Eggers and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Monk of Mokha is the exhilarating true story of a young Yemeni American man, raised in San Francisco, who dreams of resurrecting the ancient art of Yemeni coffee but finds himself trapped in Sana’a by civil war. Mokhtar Alkhanshali is twenty-four and working as a doorman when he discovers the astonishing history of coffee and Yemen’s central place in it. He leaves San Francisco and travels deep into his ancestral homeland to tour terraced farms high in the country’s rugged mountains and meet beleagured but determined farmers. But when war engulfs the country and Saudi bombs rain down, Mokhtar has to find a way out of Yemen without sacrificing his dreams or abandoning his people.
Download or read book The Prince and the Monk written by Kenneth Doo Young Lee and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Prince and the Monk addresses the historical development of the political and religious myths surrounding Shōtoku Taishi and their influence on Shinran, the founder of the Jōdo-Shinshū school of Pure Land Buddhism. Shōtoku Taishi (574–622) was a prince who led the campaign to unify Japan, wrote the imperial constitution, and promoted Buddhism as a religion of peace and prosperity. Shinran's Buddhism developed centuries later during the Kamakura period, which began in the late twelfth century. Kenneth Doo Young Lee discusses Shinran's liturgical text, his dream of Shōtoku's manifestation as Kannon (the world-saving Bodhisattva of Compassion), and other relevant events during his life. In addition, this book shows that Shinran's Buddhism was consistent with honji suijaku culture—the synthesis of the Shinto and Buddhist pantheons—prevalent during the Kamakura period.
Download or read book Finding the Monk Within written by Edward Cletus Sellner and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finding the Monk Within is written with the conviction that lying deep within every person and underlying much of contemporary western and eastern cultures is an ancient memory, a vital archetypal energy related to monasticism and its spirituality. This book recovers that monastic memory, the living presence of the past, for those who desire to name and incorporate monastic values: values of solitude and silence, faith and compassion, friendship and mentoring, contemplation and leadership itself. The author examines the social and religious dimensions in the fourth century that gave rise to monasticism, then looks at Christian leaders from late antiquity to the medieval period associated with monasticism in both East and West who have much to teach about monastic values and their relevance for today, among them Antony, the "first monk," Augustine and Jerome, John Cassian, Brigit of Kildare and early Celtic monasticism, Gregory the Great, Benedict and Scholastica and, finally, Bernard of Clairvaux. "By studying the history of monasticism and its great heroes we come to realize that, for the Christian, much of what we call 'monastic' is purely and simply what being a follower of Christ is all about, and that being a monk, whether inside monastic enclosures or outside 'in the world, ' is simply becoming the sort of person everyone ought to be, a person who unites action and contemplation in the care of souls," writes the author. By becoming familiar with the stories and thought of these inspirational figures, readers will be inspired to incorporate monastic perspectives and values into their own lives. +
Download or read book Monastic Education in Korea written by Uri Kaplan and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do Buddhist monks learn about Buddhism? Which part of their enormous canonical and non-canonical literature do they choose to focus on as the required curriculum in their training, and what do they elect to leave out? The cultural depository of Buddhism includes some four thousand canonical texts, hundreds of other historical works, modern textbooks, oral traditions, and more recently, an increasingly growing body of online material. The sheer diversity of this mass of information makes the pedagogical choices of monastics worthy of close study. Monastic Education in Korea is essentially a biography of the Korean Buddhist monastic curriculum over the past five centuries. Based on extensive ethnographic work and archival research in Korean monasteries, it illustrates how a particular premodern syllabus was reimagined in the twentieth century to become the sole national Korean monastic pedagogical program—only to be criticized and completely restructured in recent years. Through a detailed analysis of these modifications, the work demonstrates how Korean Buddhist reformers today tend to imitate the educational practices and canonize the textual totems of the contemporary international discipline of Buddhist studies, and how, by doing so, they ultimately transform the local Korean tradition from a particular brand of Chinese-centered scholastic Chan into the inclusive, pluralistic, Indian-focused Buddhism common in English-language introductions to the religion. The book further examines the proliferation of diverse graduate schools for the sangha, as well as the creation of a novel examination system for all monastics. It reveals some of the realities of operating large monastic organizations in contemporary Asia and portrays a living, vibrant Buddhist community that is constantly negotiating with modern values and reformulating its core orthodoxies.
