When Daniel Sheppard entered the priesthood, he thought he finally found the peace he had sought his entire life. His thirst for knowledge and his desire to question everything sometimes ruffled feathers within the church, but his passion and inspiration stimulated his parishioners. His peace became short lived when he uncovered a conspiracy within the church. Daniel was resistant to become swept into these events, focusing instead on his work in the church. It wasn't until a curious child came into his life that he began to question everything. Going against the will of the Archbishop, Daniel joined Isis-a group of religious scholars. Together they sought answers--they sought a Golden Thread; a commonality which linked all religions together. Along the way, they discovered that their spiritual progression was tied to their overlapping beliefs. But Daniel would never have expected this new path to have led him toward one of the most amazing and wondrous spiritual revelations of the modern era.

Originally published in 1986. In this study of initiation in the Nikayas (Discourses of the Buddha), the author presents evidence which makes it clear that salvation in early Buddhism depended upon the intervention of the Buddha’s grace. Contrary to the view of Buddhism as a philosophy of self-endeavour, the picture that emerges from examination of the canonical texts is one of Buddhism as a revealed religion in every sense of the term.

Like a spontaneous cascade of wisdom nectar, the open and natural words of Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, uncomplicated by scholarly elaboration, flow here in the tradition of the direct transmissions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the past. Through commentary on the Preliminary Practices (Ngöndrö) prayer from the treasure text of the great master Tragtung Düdjom Lingpa, insights into many central practices emerge in order to deepen understanding of the foundations of Vajrayana Buddhism. Also included in the book is a commentary on Tsok Khang Dechen (Assembly Palace of Great Exaltation), the root text prayer of the second Kyabje Düdjom Rinpoche, Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje.

In straightforward, non-technical language, Tarthang Tulku guides the reader on an ever deepening inquiry into the workings of his or her own mind. Accessible to anyone, Revelations of Mind bears repeated reading as it exposes the limits of our current mental operations and shifts our attention to new horizons of understanding and meaning. This book also has special relevance for experienced practitioners of meditation or those interested in Buddhist Psychology.

The sequel to the bestseller The Great Work of Your Life shows us the way through our darkest times to our truest calling. How do we make sense of our lives when our world seems to be falling apart? This beautifully written guide from scholar and teacher Stephen Cope shows that crises don’t have to derail us from our purpose—they can actually help us to find our purpose and step forward as our best selves. In this sequel to his best-loved book, The Great Work of Your Life, Cope again takes the ancient yogic text the Bhagavad Gita—the epic narrative of the warrior Arjuna’s odyssey of self-discovery—as a roadmap for our journey to our own true calling. Then he builds on that foundation using the stories and teachings of famous figures, as well as stories of ordinary people and his own rich personal experience. Along the way, we find striking examples for finding meaning and purpose in our lives: Gandhi shows how to tap our spiritual resources and listen for our inner voice Sojourner Truth and Henry David Thoreau inspire us to seek out the unmistakable signs of dharma in the midst of chaos Marian Anderson and Ruby Sales shed light on dharma’s mystic power and how we learn to trust in it And more In the spirit of Pema Chödrön’s When Things Fall Apart, this book is required reading when you find yourself forging a path through crisis—or seeking a way through your darkest times to your truest self.

Dancing the Dharma examines the theory and practice of allegory by exploring a select group of medieval Japanese noh plays and treatises. Susan Blakeley Klein demonstrates how medieval esoteric commentaries on the tenth-century poem-tale Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise) and the first imperial waka poetry anthology Kokin wakashū influenced the plots, characters, imagery, and rhetorical structure of seven plays (Maiguruma, Kuzu no hakama, Unrin’in, Oshio, Kakitsubata, Ominameshi, and Haku Rakuten) and two treatises (Zeami’s Rikugi and Zenchiku’s Meishukushū). In so doing, she shows that it was precisely the allegorical mode—vital to medieval Japanese culture as a whole—that enabled the complex layering of character and poetic landscape we typically associate with noh. Klein argues that understanding noh’s allegorical structure and paying attention to the localized historical context for individual plays are key to recovering their original function as political and religious allegories. Now viewed in the context of contemporaneous beliefs and practices of the medieval period, noh plays take on a greater range and depth of meaning and offer new insights to readers today into medieval Japan.

These fascinating discussions between 11th century court ladies and the great master Padmasambhava, available for the first time in English, weave intriguing issues of gender into Buddhist teachings. The women's doubts and hesitations are masterfully resolved in these impassioned exchanges. The wonderful material in this book is part of a terma (treasure) revealed by Pema Lingpa (1450–1521), the greatest terton (treasure-revealer) of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. The pithy collection is rounded out by Pema Lingpa's astonishing life story.

This volume consists of eight studies, each one bringing to light new material of use to comparative religionists and historians of religion, as well as to students of Tibetan Buddhism. These studies are based on critical scrutiny of indigenous sources and, in many cases, the learned opinion of native Tibetan scholars. The studies are organized around two dominant themes in Tibetan religious life -- the quest for clarity and insight via visionary exploration and philosophical exploration.

The human reception of divine messages, known as revelation, has often played a central role in world religions. This study explores how spirituality and the personal experience of the divine has been expressed and preserved in various religious traditions. The phenomenon of revelation is explored and interpreted through examples from across the religious spectrum, and six different types of revelation are posited: visions and voices, divination, spirit journey, spirit mediation, mystical union, and divine incarnation.

This book presents basic postulates concerning many esoteric concepts. These include the concept of ‘God’, what constitutes evil, the nature and function of karma, the manifestation of energy from the subtle planes of perception, the nature of manifest Divinity, as veiled by the concept of the Christ in the Bible, and the mysteries of Being. The analysis moves from my earlier Buddhist writings to focus upon the information in the Bible, especially in relation to the nature of the reappearance of the Christ, which here is equated with the externalisation process of the Hierarchy of Enlightened Being. This doctrine concerns the mode of the evolution of transcendent perception by humanity. The awakening of higher spiritual perceptions via the enlightenment path, and the understanding of the psychic constitution of the nāḍīs and chakras are also explained. A syncretic approach is therefore espoused through the comparison between Eastern doctrines and the presented esoteric Christianity. In doing so many of the veiled, hidden mysteries in the Gospel story and the book of Genesis are revealed. The text shows how these religions are but aspects of one fundamental religious evolution, of the historical development of what is known in the East as the dharma, and in the Western tradition as the ‘Law of God’.