It's one thing to lead a focused and peaceful life in the quiet seclusion of an ashram or monastery, but what about where most of us actually live--in a noisy metropolis or bustling suburb, constantly inundated with the world's latest disturbing news? Hip, helpful, and humorous, City Dharma teaches you how to keep your cool even when the road to enlightenment leads you straight through downtown at rush hour. When we're cut off in traffic, crammed on the subway, or elbowed aside on a crowded street, such thoughtless or aggressive behavior can make our blood pressure rise and our serenity disappear. But it doesn't have to be this way. In City Dharma, Arthur Jeon suggests that it’s not what happens to us, but how we react to events and thoughts that causes most of our suffering. City Dharma is the essential guide for everyone living in the accelerated world most of us call home. Offering smart, practical ways to overcome daily stresses and the crazy-making reactivity of our own minds, Jeon explores the most challenging aspects of modern urban and suburban life, including: Another Day, Another Dollar Avoid Working Stiffness Walking Down a Dark Alley Awareness and Violence Sex and the City Dharma Seeking Love vs. Expressing Love Scaring Ourselves to Death Transcending Media Negativity Road Rage Dealing with Mad Max Within and Without Drawing wisdom from the ancient Eastern teachings of Advaita Vedanta and filled with engaging stories, City Dharma offers a new way of seeing the world--one that is based on connection rather than separation, direct experience rather than belief, and love instead of fear. From the Hardcover edition.

A humorous survival guide to overcoming stress for readers living in urban and suburban areas focuses on nine aspects of city life, including road rage and status envy, suggesting practical methods to finding inner peace. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

A powerful collection of essays on race and gender in contemporary Buddhist practice by one of the leading thinkers in the area. Jan Willis was among the first Westerners to encounter exiled Tibetan teachers abroad in the late sixties, instantly finding her spiritual and academic home. TIME Magazine named her one of six “spiritual innovators for the new millennium,” both for her considerable academic accomplishments and for her cultural relevance. Her writing engages head-on with issues current to Buddhist practitioners in America, including dual-faith practitioners and those from marginalized groups. This collection of eighteen scholarly and popular essays spans a lifetime of reflection and teaching by Willis. Grouped in four sections—Women and Buddhism, Buddhism and Race, Tantric Buddhism and Saints’ Lives, and Buddhist-Christian Reflections—the essays provide timeless wisdom for all who are interested in contemporary Buddhism and its interface with ancient tradition. “This collection of essays by Jan Willis, penned over thirty years of study, teaching, and practice, is destined to become an authoritative resource in Buddhist scholarship and thought. Willis challenges many of our preconceptions, but asks no more and no less than what the Buddha asked: come, see, and experience for yourselves.” —Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Happiness “From Birmingham to Bodhgaya, Jan bridges worlds like no other. Her essays are treasures of wisdom born from a remarkable life richly lived.” —Matthew T. Kapstein, author of Reason’s Traces: Identity and Interpretation in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist Thought “This book is a blessing for us all—across cultures, across genders, across traditions.” —Larry Yang, author of Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community

This memoir and spiritual guide from an Austin, Texas cab driver is “the real deal: good taxi and straight dharma” (Jack Kornfield, bestselling author of The Wise Heart). Brian Haycock was a cabdriver—who happened to be a Buddhist. During the course of his career, he learned that each fare provided an opportunity to learn the life lessons of the Buddha. So, hop in and buckle up; we’re off on our journey to self-discovery, passing through the precepts, the four noble truths, taking a hard left to stop and get coffee—where we’ll learn a few breathing techniques to bolster our patience—all the while watching for ambulances and bikers, focusing our attention and awareness so that we can arrive at our destination in good time and in one piece. Here are stories from everyday life that demonstrate how we can all benefit from a little Buddhist philosophy. With each chapter focusing on a specific topic, readers will learn to coast their way to building a life routine, focusing the mind, calming themselves with breathing exercises, and much more. “Engagingly written.” —Stephen Batchelor, national bestselling author of Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist “Compassionate and entertaining.” —David Brazier (aka Dharmavidya), author of The Feeling Buddha “Amusing and wise.” —Arthur Jeon, author of City Dharma and Sex, Love, and Dharma: Finding Love Without Losing Your Way “Wise and witty and direct: very Zen. Also, fun to read.” —Sylvia Boorstein, national bestselling author of Happiness is an Inside Job and That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Buddhist

Written during a critical period of his life, Some of the Dharma is a key volume for understanding Kerouac and the spiritual underpinnings of his work While his future masterpiece, On the Road, languished on the desks of unresponsive editors, Kerouac turned to Buddhist practice, and in 1953 began compiling reading notes on the subject intended for his friend Allen Ginsberg. As Kerouac's Buddhist meditation practice intensified, what had begun as notes evolved into a vast and all-encompassing work of nonfiction into which he poured his life, incorporating poems, haiku, prayers, journal entries, meditations, fragments of letters, ideas about writing, overheard conversations, sketches, blues, and more. The final manuscript, completed in 1956, was as visually complex as the writing: each page was unique, typed in patterns and interlocking shapes. The elaborate form that Kerouac so painstakingly gave the book on his manual typewriter is re-created in this typeset facsimile. Passionate and playful, filled with humor, insight, sorrow, and struggle, Some of the Dharma is one of Kerouac's most profound and original works.

Still, in the City is a collection of stories about the practice of urban Buddhism—when a New York City subway becomes a mobile temple, when Los Angeles traffic becomes a vehicle for awakening, when a Fifth Avenue sidewalk offers a spiritual path through craving, generosity, and sorrow. The instructions offered here for exploring mindfulness in and around our cities are written to be accessible, whether you’ve practiced a lot or a little. Perhaps you’ve returned home from a retreat and want to hold the attention and intention gained from pausing and experiencing the silence. Or perhaps you practice mindfulness and don’t call it Buddhism, or you are just curious about what mindfulness is all about. Still, in the City will speak to you. Practicing in the city comes with its own set of challenges and opportunities, and this book is attuned to both, offering guidance by teachers who see mindfulness not only as an intention for self-acceptance and relief of stress, but also as awareness that leads to dissatisfaction and that inspires our desire for deeper understanding and change. Dedicated to using their practice to make a difference not only in their own lives but also those of others, the authors speak of their involvement with their cities’ diverse communities, and their experience belies the notion that western Buddhists are of an age and race and class. There is amazing clarity in stillness, and the opportunity for a skillful response rather than a reaction, even to injustice. And there is the possibility of equanimity and of freedom, everywhere and for all.

"Empire of the Dharma explores the dynamic relationship between Korean and Japanese Buddhists in the years leading up to the Japanese annexation of Korea. Conventional narratives cast this relationship in politicized terms, with Korean Buddhists portrayed as complicit in the “religious annexation” of the peninsula. However, this view fails to account for the diverse visions, interests, and strategies that drove both sides. Hwansoo Ilmee Kim complicates this politicized account of religious interchange by reexamining the “alliance” forged in 1910 between the Japanese Soto sect and the Korean Wonjong order. The author argues that their ties involved not so much political ideology as mutual benefit. Both wished to strengthen Buddhism’s precarious position within Korean society and curb Christianity’s growing influence. Korean Buddhist monastics sought to leverage Japanese resources as a way of advancing themselves and their temples, and missionaries of Japanese Buddhist sects competed with one another to dominate Buddhism on the peninsula. This strategic alliance pushed both sides to confront new ideas about the place of religion in modern society and framed the way that many Korean and Japanese Buddhists came to think about the future of their shared religion."

Fueled by the music of revolution, anger, fear, and despair, we dyed our hair or shaved our heads ... Eating acid like it was candy and chasing speed with cheap vodka, smoking truckloads of weed, all in a vain attempt to get numb and stay numb. This is the story of a young man and a generation of angry youths who rebelled against their parents and the unfulfilled promise of the sixties. As with many self-destructive kids, Noah Levine's search for meaning led him first to punk rock, drugs, drinking, and dissatisfaction. But the search didn't end there. Having clearly seen the uselessness of drugs and violence, Noah looked for positive ways to channel his rebellion against what he saw as the lies of society. Fueled by his anger at so much injustice and suffering, Levine now uses that energy and the practice of Buddhism to awaken his natural wisdom and compassion. While Levine comes to embrace the same spiritual tradition as his father, bestselling author Stephen Levine, he finds his most authentic expression in connecting the seemingly opposed worlds of punk and Buddhism. As Noah Levine delved deeper into Buddhism, he chose not to reject the punk scene, instead integrating the two worlds as a catalyst for transformation. Ultimately, this is an inspiring story about maturing, and how a hostile and lost generation is finally finding its footing. This provocative report takes us deep inside the punk scene and moves from anger, rebellion, and self-destruction, to health, service to others, and genuine spiritual growth.

In this book, Shlomo Biderman examines the views, outlooks, and attitudes of two distinct cultures: the West and classical India. He turns to a rich and varied collection of primary sources: the Rg Veda, the Upanishads, and texts by the Buddhist philosophers Någårjuna and Vasubandhu, among others. In studying the West, Biderman considers the Bible and its commentaries, the writings of such philosophers as Plato, Descartes, Berkeley, Kant, and Derrida, and the literature of Kafka, Melville, and Orwell. Additional sources are Mozart's Don Giovanni and seminal films like Ingmar Bergman's Persona. Biderman uses concrete examples from religion and literature to illustrate the formal aspects of the philosophical problems of transcendence, language, selfhood, and the external world and then demonstrates their plausibility in actual situations. Though his method of analysis is comparative, Biderman does not adopt the disinterested stance of an "ideal" spectator. Rather, Biderman approaches ancient Indian thought and culture from a Western philosophical standpoint to uncover cultural presuppositions that can be difficult to expose from within the culture in question. The result is a fascinating landmark in the study of Indian and Western thought. Through his comparative prism, Biderman explores the most basic ideas underlying human culture, and his investigation not only sheds light on India's philosophical traditions but also facilitates a deeper understanding of our own.

Buddhism in the United States is often viewed in connection with practitioners in the Northeast and on the West Coast, but in fact, it has been spreading and evolving throughout the United States since the mid-nineteenth century. In Dixie Dharma, Jeff Wilson argues that region is crucial to understanding American Buddhism. Through the lens of a multidenominational Buddhist temple in Richmond, Virginia, Wilson explores how Buddhists are adapting to life in the conservative evangelical Christian culture of the South, and how traditional Southerners are adjusting to these newer members on the religious landscape. Introducing a host of overlooked characters, including Buddhist circuit riders, modernist Pure Land priests, and pluralistic Buddhists, Wilson shows how regional specificity manifests itself through such practices as meditation vigils to heal the wounds of the slave trade. He argues that southern Buddhists at once use bodily practices, iconography, and meditation tools to enact distinct sectarian identities even as they enjoy a creative hybridity.