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Spirituality and Religion September 2020
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Next level thinking : 10 powerful thoughts for a successful and abundant life by Joel OsteenMany of us have let our minds become conditioned to thinking we've reached our limited, we've made too many mistakes, we'll never do anything great. What's happened? Instead of moving forward, we've adapted to our environment. Instead of pushing beyond our bounds, we've allowed a bad break, how we were raised, living with insecurity, or what someone did or didn't do to hold us back. The good news is that people don't determine our destiny--God does. And He has already taken into account every detail of our lives and factored them all into His plan. In his new book, Next Level Thinking, Joel Osteen writes that we weren't created to go through life weighed down by the past. God has destined us to rise higher--to the next level. When we leave behind the negative mind-sets, the scarcity mentality, and the limits others have put on us, we'll experience the life of victory, favor, and abundance tht was meant for us all along.
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In Sacred Rest, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, a board-certified internal medicine doctor and Bible teacher, reveals why rest can no longer remain optional for those desiring their best life. Written for those who go to bed tired and wake up still exhausted, Sacred Rest helps the overwhelmed identify what kind of rest they have been missing. Dr. Dalton-Smith shares seven unique types of rest she has found lacking in the lives of those she encounters in her clinical practice and research - physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, sensory, social, creative - and why a deficiency in any one of these types of rest can have unfavourable effects on your happiness, relationships, creativity, and productivity.
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Elegant Simplicity : The Art of Living Well by Satish KumarElegant Simplicity provides a philosophy of life that weaves together simplicity of material life, thought, and spirit and distills Satish Kumar's five decades of wisdom into a guide for pursuing a life that prioritizes the ecological integrity of Earth, social equity, and personal happiness.
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Hillbilly elegy : a memoir of a family and culture in crisis
by J. D. Vance
Vance, a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, provides an account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class. The decline of this group, a demographic of our countrythat has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance's grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and traumaso characteristic of their part of America
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The art of simple living : 100 daily practices from a Japanese Zen monk for a lifetime of calm and joy by Shunmy MasunoRelax and find happiness amid the swirl of the modern world with this internationally bestselling guide to simplifying your life by a Japanese monk who embodies the wisdom of Zen. Drawing on centuries of wisdom, renowned Zen Buddhist priest Shunmyo Masuno applies the essence of Zen to modern life in clear, practical, easily adopted lessons--one a day for 100 days. Discover how:* lining up your shoes after you take them off can bring order to your life * putting down your fork after every bite can help you feel more grateful for what you have * spending time barefoot can strengthen your body * planting a flower and watching it grow can teach you to embrace change * going outside to watch the sunset can make every day feel celebratory. In Zen: The Art of Simple Living, you will learn to find happiness not by seeking out extraordinary experiences but by making small changes--to what you do, how you think, how you interact with others, and how you appreciate the present moment. With each task, you will open yourself up to a renewed sense of peace and inner calm.
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Why Buddhism is true : the science and philosophy of meditation and enlightenment by Robert Wright At the heart of Buddhism is a simple claim: The reason we suffer -- and the reason we make other people suffer -- is that we don't see the world clearly. At the heart of Buddhist meditative practice is a radical promise: we can learn to see the world, including ourselves, more clearly, and so gain a deep and morally valid happiness. Robert Wright not only shows how taking this promise seriously can change your life -- how it can loosen the grip of anxiety, regret, and hatred -- but also how it can deepen your appreciation of beauty and of other people. Drawing on the latest in neuroscience and psychology, Wright explains why the path toward truth and the path toward happiness are the same path. In the light of modern science, both the Buddhist diagnosis and the Buddhist prescription make a whole new kind of sense. This book is the culmination of a personal journey that began with Wright's book on evolutionary psychology, The Moral Animal, and deepened as he immersed himself in meditative practice and conversed with some of the world's most skilled meditators. It shows how, in a time of technological distraction and social division, we can save ourselves from ourselves, both as individuals and as a species.
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The Buddha before Buddhism : wisdom from the early teachings by Gil Fronsdal ... a translation with commentary of one of the earliest of the surviving Buddhist texts, which reveals the teachings to be remarkably simple and free of religious trappings. One of the earliest of all Buddhist texts, the Atthakavagga, or Book of Eights, is a remarkable document, not only because it comes from the earliest strain of the literature--before the Buddha, as the title suggests, came to be thought of as a Buddhist --but also because its approach to awakening is so simple and free of adherence to any kind of ideology. Instead the Atthakavagga points to a direct and simple approach for attaining peace without requiring the adherence to doctrine. The value of the teachings it contains is not in the profundity of their philosophy or in their authority as scripture; rather, the value is found in the results they bring to those who live by them. Instead of doctrines to be believed, the Book of Eights describes means or practices for realizing peace. Gil Fronsdal's rigorous translation with commentary reveals the text to be of interest not only to Buddhists, but also to the ever-growing demographic of spiritual-but-not-religious, who seek a spiritual life outside the structures of religion.
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| The Art of Living: Peace and Freedom in the Here and Now by Thích Nhất HạnhWhat it is: an inspiring and thought-provoking guide to mindful living from one of the world's foremost Buddhist figures, peace activist and monk Thich Nhat Hanh.
Why you should read it: With new books about mindfulness published every day that increasingly remove meditation from its traditional context, The Art of Living is refreshingly grounded in Buddhist thought and practice. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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