Download or read book Meditations for Mediocre Mystics written by Tom Stella and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2023-10-11 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term "mediocre mystics" seems a fitting way to refer to those who yearn for the nameless but do not qualify as full-blown mystics. I realize that because there is nothing middling about mystics, "mediocre mystics" may appear to be an oxymoron, but the root meaning of "mediocre" is not second-rate. From the Latin mediocris, the word means moderate or ordinary and has been used figuratively to refer to one who is halfway up a mountain. Unlike ordinary folks, sainted mystics have reached the mountaintop; they are on a first-name basis with the nameless! But just because we haven't arrived at the heights, just because our lives unfold in the valley of ordinary, everyday life doesn't mean that we cannot or do not experience the desire that has fueled the mystic's climb.
Download or read book Family Instructions for the Yan Clan and Other Works by Yan Zhitui 531 590s written by Xiaofei Tian and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-03-08 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yan Zhitui (531–590s) was a courtier and cultural luminary who lived a colourful life during one of the most chaotic periods, known as the Northern and Southern Dynasties, in Chinese history. Beginning his career in the southern Liang court, he was taken captive to the north after the Liang capital fell, and served several northern dynasties. Today he remains one of the best-known medieval writers for his book-length “family instructions” (jiaxun), the earliest surviving and the most influential of its kind. Completed in his last years, the work resembles a long letter addressed to his sons, in which he discusses a wide range of topics from family relations and remarriage to religious faith, philology, cultural arts, and codes of conduct in public and private life. It is filled with vivid details of contemporary social life, and with the author’s keen observations of the mores of north and south China. This is a new, complete translation into English, with critical notes and introduction, and based on recent scholarship, of Yan Zhitui’s Family Instructions, and of all of his extant literary works, including his self-annotated poetic autobiography and a never-before-translated fragmentary rhapsody, as well as of his biographies in dynastic histories.
Download or read book Spirituality written by Kees Waaijman and published by Peeters Publishers. This book was released on 2002 with total page 986 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook is a systematic guide to the extensive field of spirituality. Kees Waaijman charts the multiform phenomenon of spirituality: the spirituality of ordinary people, the great spiritual traditions and the force of counter-movements. From the foundation of this survey he answers questions like: What exactly is spirituality? What forms can a scholarly approach take? Finally, the book provides methodic access to the study of spirituality, focusing on the following questions: Which are the different forms of spirituality and how can we describe them? How can spiritual texts be given a reliable reading? Which themes can be distinguished in the field of spirituality and what would be a meaningful way to address them? What do we mean by spiritual guidance and what can we learn from it? This textbook has no equal. It is indispensable to scholars wishing to study the subject, but also to others who want to learn about spirituality.
Download or read book Darkling I Listen written by David Fiore and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2002-03-29 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Darkling I Listen analyzes the foundational moment in a young man's life, made possible by and later dealt with through the use of Dial-a-M8, a Montreal talk-personals system. It is a novel about first love, academic masturbation, and the bankruptcy of the 'coming-of-age' formula."
Download or read book Mediocre Monk written by Grant Lindsley and published by . This book was released on 2023-04-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Funny, perceptive, and deeply personal, Mediocre Monk follows Grant Lindsley's rocky journey toward spiritual growth--one that ultimately leads him to places he never expected. After the sudden death of a friend, Grant Lindsley abandons his corporate job to train as a monk in one of the strictest Buddhist traditions on earth. Lost and bereft, he believes he can find answers in the mountains of Thailand. He shaves his head and eyebrows, eats one bowl of food a day, and lives in a cave, his solitude punctuated by brushes with snakes, scorpions, and drug smugglers. But Lindsley can't transform himself into the profound guru he envisions--he's hungry, restless, and lacking in the humility that monkhood requires. Eventually, he exhausts himself into moments of genuine growth, but in the opposite way from what he expects. Rather than transcending grief and becoming entirely self-reliant, he is surprised to find solace in allowing pain and reopening himself to community. For anyone who has nurtured a fantasy of dropping out in search of answers, Mediocre Monk suggests a reality that is far more complicated--and rewarding.
Download or read book Buddhism and Society written by Melford E. Spiro and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1982-05-27 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The current Western interest in Buddhism and other Eastern religions is--among other reasons--both the result of and the stimulation for an entire library of books purporting to bring the Wisdom of the East to an audience for whom the wisdom of the West has failed. This book is not an example of that genre. It is an attempt to interpret Buddhism in the light of some current theories about religion. As a work of scholarship, rather than a homiletic tract or an apologetic treatise, its aim is to understand Buddhism as one historical variant of the generic human attempt to find meaning and hope in a sacred order that transcends the mundane order of existence; its aime is not to encourage or discourage either a devotional or a soteriological interest in Buddhism.
Download or read book A Little Life written by Hanya Yanagihara and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.
Download or read book Things Revealed written by Michael Edward Stone and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2004 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of articles dedicated to Michael E. Stone contains cutting-edge studies on apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, early Judaism, and early Christianity.
Download or read book Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition written by Kyoko Motomuchi Nakamura and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first collection of Buddhist legends in Japan, and these stories form the repertoire of miraculous events and moral examples that later Buddhist priests used for preaching to the people. As Kyokai describes his own intentions, "By editing these stories of miraculous events I want to pull the people forward by the ears, offer my hand to lead them to good, and show them how to cleanse their feet of evil" (p.222). Nakamura's book is actually two works in one: first an introduction to the Nihon ryoiki, and then an annotated translation. The introduction analyzes the life of the author and the influence of earlier writings, and provides a valuable synthesis of the world view reflected in the work. The annotated translation renders the more than one hundred stories into English narrative, with copious notes. Difficult terms are identified in the text with the original Chinese characters, while historical matters and Buddhist technical terms are explained in the footnotes.
Download or read book Mr Monk and the New Lieutenant written by Hy Conrad and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An all-new story starring Adrian Monk by Edgar® Award–nominated Monk screenwriter and coexecutive producer Hy Conrad. It’s compulsive, page-turning fun. Monk and Natalie have finally settled into a new office routine. Now they just need to work things out with their neighbors—a print shop run by hippies whose music leaks through the walls, driving Monk nuts. But the detectives soon have a more serious conflict to deal with: Captain Stottlemeyer’s new lieutenant, A.J. Cartledge—a man of limited skills whom Monk finds insufferable. Even the presence of Lieutenant Cartledge won’t keep Monk and Natalie from attending the funeral of Judge Oberlin, and it’s a good thing. In typical fashion, Monk examines the body in the casket—and finds evidence of poison. The judge was murdered. While there are no traces of the poison at the judge’s house, Monk detects that there had been an intruder. The next rainy day, when Captain Stottlemeyer begins to show the same symptoms, Monk deduces that there’s a diabolical killer at work, someone who wanted both the judge and the captain dead. Monk and Natalie turn to the captain’s ex-lieutenant in Summit, New Jersey for help, but even that might not be enough to solve this crime. With his friend in danger and an enemy close, Monk will have to put his reservations aside to crack the case in time.
Download or read book And You Are Christ s written by Thomas Dubay and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2011-06-21 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Father Thomas Dubay, one of the foremost authorities on the religious life, discusses one of the most important but not fully appreciated or understood charisms of the consecrated life, the charism of virginity. Although the idea of virginity is unpopular and even despised in modern society, Dubay emphasizes that the importance of evangelical virginity is rooted in its Biblical foundation, both in the Old and New Testaments. Examining in detail what the call to virginity is and how it is integrated into the whole of consecrated life, Dubay presents his study in such a way as to be of importance to men as well. Noting that a woman, because of her feminine nature and traits, can image and live the Church's wedded relationship to Christ more realistically, Dubay points out that men with the celibate charism are also members of the virgin Church that is wedded to Christ, just as in the Old Testament the People of God was a virgin bride wedded to Yahweh. The common and distinct elements of male and female consecrated love are fully captured in these pages.
Download or read book The Boulevards of Extinction written by A. Brunneis and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2015-11-20 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Championing diversity has never been so entertaining. In over 600 aphorisms, essays, parables, and dialogues, such themes as God, politics, and love are explored with a view to the range of humanity's possible fates. Every negative philosophy is bled dry, every positive philosophy made negative, every relevant theology revived and twisted to bear witness. For societies sightseeing over the abyss, a tour guide is needed. This is a self-help book for the endangered species swinging on the top of the food chain. Suicide or conservation? Genes versus environment: saving one entails the abandonment of the other, and throwing yourself under a whaling boat may be the most minimal extinction event possible.
Download or read book Martial Arts Collection Hero s Blood written by Zhixin Lin and published by Zhixin Lin. This book was released on with total page 1118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Buddhist Monks and Business Matters written by Gregory Schopen and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2004-01-31 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second in a series of collected essays by one of today’s most distinguished scholars of Indian Buddhism. (Publication of a third collection is planned in early 2005.) In these articles, all save one published in various places from 1994 through 2001, Gregory Schopen once again displays the erudition and originality that have contributed to a major shift in the way that Indian Buddhism is perceived, understood, and studied.
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 Monks of the West from St Benedict to St Bernard written by Charles Forbes comte de Montalembert and published by . This book was released on 1896 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Chinese Landscapes written by Ruqi Xu and published by LONG RIVER PRESS. This book was released on 2005 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
