Once again, time to shovel your spiritual path. Whether you meditate, paint, or snowboard your way to enlightenment, let your New Year’s resolutions include reading more books about mind and spirit.
Finding the Still Point:
A Beginner’s Guide to Zen Meditation
John Daido Loori
Shambhala, 2007, $14
Compact and clear as a bell, this book and CD set (from a series that also includes Pema Chödrön’s Always Maintain a Joyful Mind) contains a practical introduction to zazen—sitting meditation practice—and a dharma discourse by the founder and abbot of Mount Tremper’s Zen Mountain Monastery.
The Painting Path:
Embodying Spiritual Discovery Through Yoga, Brush, and Color
Linda Novick
SkyLight Paths, 2007, $18.99
Kingston gallery owner and Kripalu yoga teacher Novick invites beginning and experienced painters to touch the divine through their art. Each chapter explores a spiritual theme and a different artistic medium, with guided art projects and yoga exercises to free the mind, body, and breath.
The Inner Glide:
The Tao of Skiing, Snowboarding, and
Skwalling
Patrick Thias Balmain
Destiny Books/Inner Traditions, 2007, $14.95
Inspiration for those who experience satori on top of Bellayre. The inventor of the skwal (front-facing snowboard) goes deep into the mind-body connection in search of “the inner glide” that creates true balance and harmony in motion.
Awakening Through Love:
Unveiling Your Deepest Goodness
John Makransky, foreword by Lama Surya Das
Wisdom Publications, 2007, $16.95
This accessible guide for Westerners of all faiths applies Tibetan Buddhist meditation practices to everyday life, in order to increase compassion and all forms of love. Boston-based professor and lama Makransky led a winter retreat at Garrison’s Dzogchen Center in late December.
Spirituality and Religion:
Psychoanalytic Perspectives
edited by Jerome A. Winer and James William Anderson
Mental Health Resources, 2007, $39.95
A thought-provoking collection of 19 essays on various facets of Judeo-Christian and Eastern religions as seen through the lens of psychoanalysis. Ana-Maria Rizzuto, W. W. Meissner, and James W. Jones are among the distinguished contributors.
The Empathic Ground:
Intersubjectivity and Nonduality in the Psychotherapeutic Process
Judith Blackstone
SUNY Press, 2007, $19.95
The director of Woodstock’s Realization Center explores the frontiers between psychotherapy and Asian religious philosophy in this dense, heady volume. The concept of nondual awareness—wholeness—is presented along with 10 “realization processes” to integrate healing.
