Awakening the Buddha Within:
Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World
by Lama Surya Das
Lama Surya Das, the most highly trained American lama in the Tibetan tradition, presents the
definitive book on Western Buddhism for the modern-day spiritual seeker. In Awakening the Buddha
Within, Surya Das shows how we can awaken to who we really
are in order to lead a more compassionate, enlightened, and balanced life.
The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching:
Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, & Liberation
by Thich Nhat Hanh
What should we think when on the one hand Buddhism tells us that life is suffering
and on the other we are told to enjoy life's every moment? Loved around the world for
his simple, straightforward explanations of Buddhism, Thich Nhat Hanh has finally turned
his hand to the very core of Buddhism and conundrums such as this. In the traditional way,
Thich Nhat Hanh takes up the core teachings one by one--the Four Noble Truths, the Noble
Eightfold Path, the Twelve Links of Interdependent Co-Arising -- but his approach is as fresh
as a soft breeze through a plum orchard.
Dhammapada
by Max Muller (Translator), Jack Maguire (Editor)
Nearly every line of the Dhammapada, from the first "All that we are is the result of what we
have thought," is quotable and worth ruminating over. Eloquent, insightful, and brief, this
Buddhist scripture is the kind of book that finds its way into purses, backpacks, and
briefcases for perusal anytime, anywhere. The call of the Dhammapada is to the path of
awakening, to undertake the effort of meditation, and to see through the veneer of the
suffering life.
The Way of the Bodhisattva (Bodhicharyavatara)
by Shantideva
Shantideva was an Indian Buddhist while Buddhism still flourished in India. His great work, the
Bodhicharyavatara, or "Entrance to the Path of Awakening," became a major text of Tibetan Buddhism
long after it went out of circulation in its homeland. It is a handbook on how to realize the nature
of existence and of compassion that arises from such realization. The Dalai Lama said of it, "If
I have any understanding of compassion and the practice of the Bodhisattva path, it is entirely
on the basis of this text that I possess it."
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
by Chogyam Trungpa
Examines the self-deceptions, distortions, and sidetracks that imperil the spiritual journey as well as awareness and fearlessness of the true path.
In this modern spiritual classic, the Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa highlights the commonest pitfall
to which every aspirant on the spiritual path falls prey: What he calls spiritual materialism. The universal human
tendency, he shows, is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement -- the impulse to develop and refine the
ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty.
