Zen is famous for koans (called kong-ans in Korean, and in this book), those bizarre and seemingly unanswerable questions Zen masters pose to their students to check their realization (such as “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”). Fear of koans keeps some people from ever giving Zen practice a try. But here, through the experience of seeing a modern Zen master work with his students, you can see what koan training is really like: It’s a skillful, lively practice for attaining wisdom. This book presents the system of ten koans that Zen Master Seung Sahn came to call the “Ten Gates.” These koans represent the basic types one will encounter in any course of study. Each of the ten gates, or koans, is illuminated by actual interchanges between Zen Master Seung Sahn and his students that show what the practice is all about: it is above all a process of coming to trust one’s own wisdom, and of manifesting that wisdom in every koan-like situation life presents us with. For more information on the author, Zen Master Seung Sahn, visit his website at www.kwanumzen.com.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.

In Nothing To It, Brother Phap Hai brings his characteristic warmth and humor to explore the many different gates to transformation offered by Buddhism. A gate is a teaching, practice, or way of looking at things. Each gate is an invitation to consider a new frame of reference through which we can consider our situation, an opportunity to look at things differently. Readers who enjoyed Bhante Gunaratana's Mindfulness in Plain English will delight in this new explanation from the Australian-born senior monk of Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, California. There are fifty-eight gates explored in Nothing To It, arranged in ten traditional groups, with one chapter exploring each gate. Based on a series of talks given by Phap Hai in 2013, the book is designed to be equally valuable when read through at leisure or used as the text for a ten week self-guided course. Each chapter includes questions for reflection, additional reading suggestions on the topic, and writing exercises. The gates can be explored in order or investigated at random. Phap Hai’s charming blend of ancient wisdom, Dharma scholarship, and contemporary applications will offer all who read Nothing To It a new way of seeing the extraordinary opportunities for transformation in everyday life.

'If you're thinking about trying mindfulness, this is the perfect introduction....I'm grateful to Andy for helping me on this journey.' BILL GATES 'It's kind of genius' EMMA WATSON Feeling stressed about Christmas/Brexit/everthing? Try this... Demystifying meditation for the modern world: an accessible and practical route to improved health, happiness and well being, in as little as 10 minutes. Andy Puddicombe, founder of the celebrated Headspace, is on a mission: to get people to take 10 minutes out of their day to sit in the now. Here he shares his simple to learn, but highly effective techniques of meditation. * Rest an anxious, busy mind * Find greater ease when faced with difficult emotions, thoughts, circumstances * Improve focus and concentration * Sleep better * Achieve new levels of calm and fulfilment. The benefits of mindfulness and meditation are well documented and here Andy brings this ancient practice into the modern world, tailor made for the most time starved among us. First published as Get Some Headspace, this reissue shows you how just 10 minutes of mediation per day can bring about life changing results.

In this clear-eyed, candid, and ultimately reassuring

A Gate Enables passage between what is inside and what is outside, and the connection poetry forges between inner and outer lives is the fundamental theme of these nine essays. Nine Gates begins with a close examination of the roots of poetic craft in "the mind of concentration" and concludes by exploring the writer's role in creating a sense of community that is open, inclusive and able to bind the individual and the whole in a way that allows each full self-expression. in between, Nine Gates illumines the nature of originality, translation, the various strategies by which meaning unfolds itself in language, poetry's roots in oral memory and the importance of the shadow to good art. A person who enters completely into the experience of a poem is initiated into a deeper intimacy with life. Delving into the nature of poetry, Jane Hirshfield also writes on the nature of the human mind, perception and experience. Nine Gates is about the underpinnings of poetic craft, but it is also about a way of being alive in the world -- alertly, musically, intelligently, passionately, permeably. In part a primer for the general reader, Nine Gates is also a manual for the working writer, with each "gate" exploring particular strategies of language and thought that allow a poem to convey meaning and emotion with clarity and force. Above all, Nine Gates is an insightful guide to the way the mind of poetry awakens our fundamental consciousness of what can be known when a person is most fully alive.

In a fragile alliance, the natives are stirring uneasily under their foreign rulers. Rebellion is brewing, and at the heart of the conflict lies the bloody and powerful cult of the god Aoun, whose followers will stop at nothing to rid their land of alien domination. So civil servant Renille vo Chaumelle, scion of a proud, conquering line mingled with native blood, is conscripted as a spy and ordered to penetrate the fortress-temple known as the Fastness of the Gods. There he is to discover the secrets of the priests of Aoun and - if the chance presents itself - assassinate the lead priest, named in legend as the god's own son. But in the holiest depths of the temple, Renille finds there is more to the cult than his superiors suspect - far more than they will ever believe. What he learns leads him to the beautiful princess Jathondi, daughter of the native ruler, who is fated to be the crux of a violent confrontation between the fanatic followers of a flesh-hungry god and their arrogant overlords. Together, Jathondi and Renille must brave a whirlwind of revolution and apocalyptic magic that could shatter a nation, and open the long-sealed portal between heaven and earth.

Rabbi Shoni Labowitz unlocks the secrets of ancient Jewish mystical traditions in an inspiring, enlightening book that will appeal to Jews seeking to rediscover their spiritual roots, and to people of all faiths searching for a way of life that celebrates the sacredness of all things.

Take a dazzling journey through time with Tim Power’s classic, Philip K. Dick Award-winning tale... “There have been other novels in the genre about time travel, but none with The Anubis Gates’ unique slant on the material, nor its bottomless well of inventiveness. It’s literally in a class by itself, a model for others to follow, and it's easy to see how it put Powers on the map.”—SF Reviews Brendan Doyle, a specialist in the work of the early-nineteenth century poet William Ashbless, reluctantly accepts an invitation from a millionaire to act as a guide to time-travelling tourists. But while attending a lecture given by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1810, he becomes marooned in Regency London, where dark and dangerous forces know about the gates in time. Caught up in the intrigue between rival bands of beggars, pursued by Egyptian sorcerers, and befriended by Coleridge, Doyle somehow survives and learns more about the mysterious Ashbless than he could ever have imagined possible...

A simple, exhaustive—and often hilarious—presentation of the essence of Zen by a modern Zen Master of considerable renown In his many years of teaching throughout the world, the Korean-born Zen Master Seung Sahn has become known for his ability to cut to the heart of Buddhist teaching in a way that is strikingly clear, yet free of esoteric and academic language. In this book, based largely on his talks, he presents the basic teachings of Buddhism and Zen in a way that is wonderfully accessible for beginners—yet so rich with stories, insights, and personal experiences that long-time meditation students will also find it a source of inspiration and a resource for study.