Download or read book The Selfless Bliss of the Body written by Gayle Brandeis and published by . This book was released on 2017-05-26 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praised by US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera as "a monumental achievement," The Selfless Bliss of The Body is award-winning novelist Gayle Brandeis' first full-length poetry collection. Poems from the book have been honored by the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Competition and the US Department of the Interior, which installed one of the poems at the Visitor Center in Joshua Tree National Park. These poems reach deeply into the body to reach beyond the body; Fresno Poet Laureate Lee Herrick writes "These tender and fierce poems are breathtaking gifts from a writer whose love for the world knows no bounds."
Download or read book Self Storage written by Gayle Brandeis and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2008-02-12 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flan Parker has always had an inquisitive mind, searching for what's hidden below the surface and behind the door. Her curious nature and enthusiastic probing have translated into a thriving resale business in the university housing complex where she lives with her husband and two young children. Flan's venture helps pay the bills while her husband works on his dissertation, work that lately seems to involve more loafing on the sofa watching soap operas than reading or writing. The secret of her enterprising success: unique and everyday treasures bought from the auctions of forgotten and abandoned storage units. When Flan secures the winning bid on a box filled only with an address and a note bearing the word "yes," she sets out to discover the source of this mysterious message and its meaning. Armed with a well-worn copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass that she turns to for guidance and solace, Flan becomes determined to find the "yes" in her own life. This search inward only strengthens her desire to unearth the hidden stories of those around her-in particular, her burqa-clad Afghan neighbor. Flan's interest in this intriguing and secretive woman, however, comes at a formidable price for Flan and her family. Set during the year following the September 11 attacks, Self Storage explores the raw insecurities of a changed society. With lush writing, great humor, and a genuine heart, Gayle Brandeis takes a peek into the souls of a woman and a community-and reveals that it is not our differences that drive us apart but our willful concealment of the qualities that connect us.
Download or read book My Life with the Lincolns written by Gayle Brandeis and published by Henry Holt and Company (BYR). This book was released on 2010-03-16 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My dad used to be Abraham Lincoln. When I was six and learning to read, I saw his initials were A. B. E., Albert Baruch Edelman. ABE. That's when I knew. Mina Edelman believes that she and her family are the Lincolns reincarnated. Her main task for the next three months: to protect her father from assassination, her mother from insanity, and herself—Willie Lincoln incarnate—from death at age twelve. Apart from that, the summer of 1966 should be like any other. But Mina's dad begins taking Mina along to hear speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr in Chicago. And soon he brings the freedom movement to their own small town, with consequences for everyone, in Gayle Brandeis's My Life with the Lincolns.
Download or read book Fruitflesh written by Gayle Brandeis and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Fruitflesh calls for some very juicy feasting!” — Sark, author of Succulent Wild Woman “Anyone immersing herself in Fruitflesh is sure to find her writing liberated, and enriched by the many stimulating exercises.” — Susan Perry, Ph.D., author of Writing in Flow "Gayle Brandeis shows us how to write sense-soaked prose and poetry that celebrates the embodiment of the life!" — Oriah Mountain Dreamer, author of The Invitation and The Dance “Beautifully written, with gorgeous usage of language and metaphor.” — Publishers Weekly “Lyrical, imaginative, beautifully crafted, and deeply intelligent. Before anything else, its characters take you by the heart.” — --Barbara Kingsolver on The Book of Dead Birds “[It] has an edgy beauty that enhances perfectly the seriousness of its contents.” — --Toni Morrison on The Book of Dead Birds “THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS is a story of healing--a skillful, textured weaving of dark and light.” — --Donna M. Gershten, author of Kissing the Virgin's Mouth, on The Book of Dead Birds “A moving and perceptive first novel.” — -- O magazine on The Book of Dead Birds
Download or read book The Art of Misdiagnosis written by Gayle Brandeis and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning novelist and poet Gayle Brandeis’s wrenching memoir of her complicated family history and her mother’s suicide Gayle Brandeis’s mother disappeared just after Gayle gave birth to her youngest child. Several days later, her body was found: she had hanged herself in the utility closet of a Pasadena parking garage. In this searing, formally inventive memoir, Gayle describes the dissonance between being a new mother, a sweet-smelling infant at her chest, and a grieving daughter trying to piece together what happened, who her mother was, and all she had and hadn’t understood about her. Around the time of her suicide, Gayle’s mother had been working on a documentary about the rare illnesses she thought ravaged her family: porphyria and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. In The Art of Misdiagnosis, taking its title from her mother’s documentary, Gayle braids together her own narration of the charged weeks surrounding her mother’s suicide, transcripts of her mother’s documentary, research into delusional and factitious disorders, and Gayle’s own experience with misdiagnosis and illness (both fabricated and real). Slowly and expertly, The Art of Misdiagnosis peels back the complicated layers of deception and complicity, of physical and mental illness in Gayle’s family, to show how she and her mother had misdiagnosed one another. Gayle’s memoir is both a compelling search into the mystery of one’s own family and a life-affirming story of the relief discovered through breaking familial and personal silences. Written by a gifted stylist, The Art of Misdiagnosis delves into the tangled mysteries of disease, mental illness, and suicide and comes out the other side with grace.
Download or read book The Selfless Mind written by Peter Harvey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This careful analysis of early Buddhist thought opens out a perspective in which no permanent Self is accepted, but a rich analysis of changing and potent mental processes is developed. It explores issues relating to the not-Self teaching: self-development, moral responsibility, the between-lives period, and the 'undetermined questions' on the world, on the 'life principle' and on the liberated one after death. It examines the 'person' as a flowing continuity centred on consciousness or discernment (vinnana) configured in changing minds-sets (cittas). The resting state of this is seen as 'brightly shining' - like the 'Buddha nature' of Mahayana thought - so as to represent the potential for Nirvana. Nirvana is then shown to be a state in which consciousness transcends all objects, and thus participates in a timeless, unconditioned realm.
Download or read book Delta Girls written by Gayle Brandeis and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2010-06-22 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The disparate lives of two women—a single mother working hard to make ends meet and a young figure skater at the top of her game—entwine in an unforgettable novel of warmth, depth, and wisdom. Izzy and her daughter, Quinn, have been on the move for all of Quinn’s nine years. Izzy works the fields as a fruit picker, following the produce north and south through the growing season. When they reach a struggling pear orchard in the Sacramento River Delta, Izzy intends it to be just another way station in their nomadic lives. But the orchard and its kindly owners capture Quinn’s heart, and Izzy briefly forgets that she’s running from a past that still haunts her—until a strange incident brings national media attention to the Delta. Seemingly a world away, Karen is a rising young star in figure skating with an edgy, daring new partner. Nathan is everything her old teammate wasn’t: sexy, dangerous, and extremely headstrong. As Karen nears her eighteenth birthday, the partners find themselves on the world stage—and the simmering intensity between them finally erupts. As each woman struggles with a sudden thrust into the spotlight, their narratives become more intertwined—until Izzy’s past and Karen’s future finally collide.
Download or read book Essence of Vajrayana written by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and published by Tharpa Publications US. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 649 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With this book, Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche explains with clarity and precision how we can practice the sublime meditations of Heruka body mandala, and thereby gradually transform our ordinary world and experiences into those of a Buddha, a fully enlightened being. He follows this with definitive instructions on the completion stage practices that can lead directly to the supreme bliss of full enlightenment in this one lifetime. This is a treasury of practical instructions for those seriously interested in following the Tantric path. • The first complete explanation in English of the Highest Yoga Tantra practice of Heruka body mandala • Sublime methods for transforming our ordinary minds and attaining pure selfless joy • The actual method to accomplish the supreme bliss of full enlightenment in this lifetime
Download or read book Wired For God written by Charles Foster and published by Hodder. This book was released on 2011-12-08 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human religious experiences are remarkably uniform; many can be pharmacologically induced. Recent research into the neurology of religious experience has shown that, when worshipping or praying, a certain part of the brain, apparently dormant during other activities, becomes active. What does all this mean for those of faith and those with none? In this fascinating book barrister Charles Foster takes a survey of the evidence - from shamans to medieval mystics, to out-of-body experiences and epilepsy, via Jerusalem and middle-class Christianity - and assesses its significance. Written in short, accessible chapters, this is a fascinating tour of religious and mystical experiences and their relation to human physiology.
Download or read book The Book of Dead Birds written by Gayle Brandeis and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ava Sing Lo has been accidentally killing her mother's birds since she was a little girl. Now in her twenties, Ava leaves her native San Diego for the Salton Sea, where she volunteers to help environmental activists save thousands of birds poisoned by agricultural runoff. Helen, her mother, has been haunted by her past for decades. As a young girl in Korea, Helen was drawn into prostitution on a segregated American army base. Several brutal years passed before a young white American soldier married her and brought her to California. When she gave birth to a black baby, her new husband quickly abandoned her, and she was left to fend for herself and her daughter in a foreign country. With great beauty and lyricism, The Book of Dead Birds captures a young woman's struggle to come to terms with her mother's terrible past while she searches for her own place in the world.
Download or read book Many Restless Concerns written by Gayle Brandeis and published by Black Lawrence Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Although MANY RESTLESS CONCERNS illuminates the horror of absolute control over others, it also shines a beacon on the strength of women sharing their truths one by one, of spirits joining together to topple the seemingly untouchable. This work speaks to our own times, to our #metoo reckoning, to our power as survivors to take back our stories and reclaim the darkness. Oppression of any kind never holds, even if it takes the dead to bring it down. This book is a haunting, essential read for all uneasy souls."-Laraine Herring "'Just know we all have stories worth your time. Just know we're just starting to understand our own worth.' This is how Gayle Brandeis opens MANY RESTLESS CONCERNS. Countess Bathory of Hungary allegedly killed up to 650 girls and women between the years 1585 and 1609, in a variety of cruel, heartless ways. Brandeis brings these words to our attention-stab, strangle, pummel, hack, burn, drown, freeze, scald. 'Your body remembers even when you no longer have a body, some tender part of you still flinches; some immaterial nerves still flare, ' she writes. 'We want you to bear witness, ' voices the chorus. I urge you, the reader, to bear witness to these centuries of silent voices rising up clearly, often beautifully, more often tragically. Bear witness."-Alma Luz Villanueva "Feels like a terrifying and gorgeously lyric fairy tale but never once does the author let us forget that the pain is real and the point is empathy, understanding and protecting the ones who come after. Ethereal and beautiful as its ghostly chorus, but with 'muscle and scent, ' 'meat' and 'bone, ' MANY RESTLESS CONCERNS is quickened with the blood of the victims, the essential, and ultimately healing, blood of story."-Francesca Lia Block "If all the women and girls who have been murdered, tortured, abused and disappeared were to raise their voices, they would create a song that would drown the world. In Gayle Brandeis' haunting and haunted novel-in-poems, MANY RESTLESS CONCERNS, she invokes such a chorus, the true story of hundreds of young women tortured to death by the Countess Bathory. Brandeis presents their gifts, their dreams, as well as the ways they died, and demonstrates that it is through collective action that they ultimately find justice. You will never un-hear their mournful, defiant and triumphal song."-Terry Wolverton "Gayle Brandeis is a miracle. From the forgotten memories of murdered women, she's created a monument of hope, pain, and demands for the justice of recognition. This is a startling, glorious, gorgeous book. What a vision. Read this book and be transformed."-Rene Denfeld
Download or read book The Selfless Constitution written by Stu Woolman and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2021-07-28 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you possess 'freedom'-the will to do as you choose-as an individual, as a participant in social affairs or as a citizen in the political realm? Well, no. Not really. At least not as most of us understand a term loaded down with metaphysical baggage. Don't worry. You've got something better: a neurological system capable of carrying out the most complex analytical and computational tasks; membership in innumerable communities that provide you with huge stores of knowledge and wisdom; and a politico-constitutional order that ought to provide the material and the immaterial conditions that will enable you to pursue a life worth valuing. Drop the simplistic folk-psychology of unfettered freedom, whilst holding on to intentionality, and you might be inclined to adopt a set of social practices and political arrangements that enhance the chances that you and your compatriots will flourish. As many recent studies of consciousness reveal our neurological systems are complex feedback mechanisms designed to create myriad for trial and error and (if you survive) the production of new stores of knowledge. Individuals-comprised of numerous radically heterogeneous, naturally and socially determined selves-are always experimenting, attempting to divine through reflection and action, what 'works' best: even when 'best' means fully embracing who we already are. Choice architects, those persons charged with constructing the environments within which we operate daily, should (if responsible) regularly run experiments that attempt to eliminate biases, and ultimately, deliver norms that nudge us away from negative defaults toward more optimal ends. A constitutional democracy, made up of millions of radically heterogeneous, densely populated individuals, constantly strives to determine what works best for most of its many constituents. Because South Africa's Constitution states (at an extremely high level of generality) only some of the norms that govern our lives, it remains for citizens, representatives and judges to create doctrines and institutions that serve its capaciously framed ends best. After canvassing the relevant literature in neuroscience, empirical philosophy, behavioural psychology, social capital theory, development economics, and emergent experimental governance, this work suggests that manifold experiments in living that fall within the accepted parameters of our shared constitutional norms are likely, over time, to produce more optimal ways of being that can be replicated by other members of our polity. Our reflexive stance toward best practices-a linchpin of this book's take on experimental governance-when inextricably linked to a commitment to flourishing and to the expansion of individual capabilities, should cause us to alter the content of the fundamental norms that shape our lives and bind us to one another. A political order founded upon experimental constitutionalism and flourishing promises an egalitarian pluralist reformation of South African society. The book spins out its novel thesis against the concrete backdrop of political arrangements and judicial doctrines that have emerged during the first 20 years of our truly vibrant constitutional democracy. Its trenchant analysis of political institutions and constitutional case law shows us how far we have come, and how far we still have to go.
Download or read book UNVEILING ETERNAL BLISS written by Harsha Rao and published by Notion Press. This book was released on 2024-05-15 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is enduring happiness? Is it the same as joy or bliss? Is it possible to sustainably achieve this? What is the purpose of this life? Where can I find answers to dealing with constant stress and unhappiness? Philosophers, religions, and psychologists have grappled with these questions since humanity started and humans started to think. This book gives a high-level introductory glance at some of the answers to these questions from the lens of the ancient Hindu scriptures (Vedas) written thousands of years ago and what modern scientists are discovering about happiness in the present. Engage in a fascinating discovery of methods to achieve eternal bliss and enduring happiness. This book starts off by uncovering the principles to achieve eternal bliss through the lens of one of the oldest Hindu scriptures in the world, the Vedas. It then dives deep into Vedanta, which is the most prominent Hindu philosophical and metaphysical teaching of the Vedas. The book then deals with the fusion of Eastern and Western philosophy to uncover secrets for enduring happiness. The book then delves into the subject of enduring happiness from the perspective of Western psychologists and bridges the gap with ancient Hindu Vedic knowledge. The book concludes with the authors' personal and practical insights on striving toward enduring happiness.
Download or read book Bliss is Within written by Swami Chidananda and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Zen and the Brain written by James H. Austin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1999-06-04 with total page 876 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A neuroscientist and Zen practitioner interweaves the latest research on the brain with his personal narrative of Zen. Aldous Huxley called humankind's basic trend toward spiritual growth the "perennial philosophy." In the view of James Austin, the trend implies a "perennial psychophysiology"—because awakening, or enlightenment, occurs only when the human brain undergoes substantial changes. What are the peak experiences of enlightenment? How could these states profoundly enhance, and yet simplify, the workings of the brain? Zen and the Brain presents the latest evidence. In this book Zen Buddhism becomes the opening wedge for an extraordinarily wide-ranging exploration of consciousness. In order to understand which brain mechanisms produce Zen states, one needs some understanding of the anatomy, physiology, and chemistry of the brain. Austin, both a neurologist and a Zen practitioner, interweaves the most recent brain research with the personal narrative of his Zen experiences. The science is both inclusive and rigorous; the Zen sections are clear and evocative. Along the way, Austin examines such topics as similar states in other disciplines and religions, sleep and dreams, mental illness, consciousness-altering drugs, and the social consequences of the advanced stage of ongoing enlightenment.
Download or read book I Love Jesus But I Want to Die written by Sarah J. Robinson and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.
Download or read book From Poverty to Power Or The Realization Of Prosperity And Peace written by James Allen and published by Oregan Publishing. This book was released on 2018-09-16 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
