New Books in Spiritual Practice and Mindfulness

In her first book, How to Do Nothing, artist Jenny Odell examined the power of quiet contemplation in a world where our attention is bought and sold. Now, she takes up the question of how to find space for silence when we feel like we don’t have enough time to spend. In her new book, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock (Random House, 2023), Odell traces the history behind our relation...

In 2016, poet Ross Gay set out to document a delight each day for a year. After he published The Book of Delights, his friend asked him if he planned to continue his practice. Five years later, he began The Book of (More) Delights (Algonquin Books, 2023) demonstrating that the sources of delight are indeed endless—and that they multiply when attended to and shared. For Gay, delight serves as evide...

The Indian sage Ramana Maharshi (1879- 1950) is perhaps the most widely known Indian spiritual figure of the last century, second only to Gandhi. Patrick Laude's book Surrendering to the Self: Ramana Maharshi's Message for the Present (Hurst, 2021) offers a fresh introduction to the Maharshi's life and teachings, intending to situate him within the non-dualistic traditions of Hinduism. It also del...

Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has already raised more than $27,000,000. In this interview, Andy Hunter, founder and CEO discusses his journey to creating one of the most revolutionary new organizations in the book world. Bookshop has found a way to retain the convenience of online book sho...

When Anne C. Klein (Rigzin Drolma) first read that everyone, including her, was already a buddha, she was so shocked that she put down the book she was reading. Now, as a professor of religious studies at Rice University and a teacher at Dawn Mountain Center for Tibetan Buddhism in Houston, she continues to grapple with the relationship between our buddhahood and our humanity. In her new book, Bei...

After a month or two of absence, the podcast returns for a new season, beginning with an unexpectedly wide ranging conversation with Dr. Richard Dixey. Richard holds a Ph. D. from London University, an M.A. with distinction in the history and philosophy of science from London University, and a B.A. Hons from Oxford. He has been a student of Buddhism since 1972 and has travelled extensively in the...

Tony Nader, MD, PhD, a medical doctor trained at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD in neuroscience) and globally recognized expert in the science of consciousness and human development. His training includes internal medicine, psychiatry, and neurology. He's the successor to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the head of the Transcendental Meditation organization globally. H...

Today I talked to Yael Schonbrun about her book Work, Parent, Thrive: 12 Science-Backed Strategies to Ditch Guilt, Manage Overwhelm, and Grow Connection (Shambala, 2022). The positive psychology movement and Buddhism have more than a little in common, as confirmed by Yael Schonbrun during this discussion of how to find synergy and richness in what might seem at times to be the utterly conflicting...

Find the answers to all your important, real-world questions by connecting with your spirit guides. Erin Newman teaches you how to safely work with them in a non-appropriative way, regardless of your background or belief system. These guides help you make money doing what you love, relieve physical pain, cultivate kindness, heal ancestral patterns, and more. Erin presents nearly thirty hands-on pr...

Disrupting White Mindfulness: Race and Racism in the Wellbeing Industry (Manchester UP, 2023) offers a timely commentary on the dominant narratives that shape the mindfulness industry - whiteness, postracialism and neoliberalism. Its positioning as ‘apolitical’ forges institutions that fit comfortably into increasingly divided societies. The race-gender profile of these institutions reveals a Whit...

Dr Pierce Salguero sits down with Willa Blythe Baker, a writer, translator, and teacher of meditation based on Himalayan Buddhist tradition. We talk about Willa’s early discovery of Buddhism with her mother, her time living as a nun, and our shared experience in graduate school at UVa. We then do a deep-dive into Buddhist tantra and the alchemical transformations of the body-mind that led to Willa...

In the newly revised Rewire Your Brain 2.0: Five Healthy Factors to a Better Life ( Jossey-Bass, 2023), distinguished psychologist Dr. John Arden delivers an essential discussion of how to apply the latest developments in neuroscience, epigenetics, and immunology to help improve your mood, memory, relationships and longevity. You’ll learn to overcome mild depression and anxiety, procrastination, b...

Geared toward modern Westerners and presented in the original poetic rhythm, Hearing the Song of Your Soul is an approachable, beautiful new translation of the Bhagavad Gita that can be powerfully shared aloud. Author Laura Atmadarshan Santoro studied in Indian ashrams and lived each verse of the Bhagavad Gita for a day as part of a decades-long sadhana (special practice). This experience allows h...

This episode is a continuation of our conversation with ACTS student Devdip Ganguli. We discuss principals and politics of spiritual anarchy and Devdip speaks about Peter Heehs’ controversial book “The Lives of Sri Aurobindo”. Devdip discusses a new book he edited called “Reading Sri Aurobindo”, and also shares his academic projects related to Sri Aurobindo with universities in India, China, and n...

Feeling worn out by the work of resistance? How do you persevere? Why is so challenging to find wholeness? Kaitlin Curtice joins us to share: The four realms of resistance. Why they are all needed for our liberation. How resistance is a basic human calling. The anxiety and fatigue that will set in if you don’t seek wholeness. Why time in nature, ritual, rest, community, and journaling may help you...

In this episode, we meet ACTS student Devdip Ganguli and learn about his upbringing in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Devdip discusses his experiences growing up in an intentional yogic community and shares his perspectives on integral education, as both a student growing up in the ashram school, and as a teacher in the school for over a decade . This episode, which is the first part of our conversatio...

This episode is a recording of a conversation with author, Nadia Davis, about parenting and mindfulness. Last month I had the pleasure of talking with Nadia about her new book  Home Is Within You: A Memoir of Recovery and Redemption (Girl Friday Books, 2021). In the interview, we talked a lot about Nadia’s experiences with trauma, her struggles with addiction, and her transformational healing. We...

Are science and spirituality incompatible? From the acclaimed author of Einstein’s Dreams comes a rich, fascinating answer to that question... Gazing at the stars, falling in love, or listening to music, we sometimes feel a transcendent connection with a cosmic unity and things larger than ourselves. But these experiences are not easily understood by science, which holds that all things can be exp...

Home Is Within You As a young Latina and Native American lawyer and former wife of California’s attorney general and treasurer, Nadia Davis has long been subjected to public scrutiny. In this powerful ah-mage homage to finding one’s worth in the face of mental health struggles, addiction, and public shaming, Davis shares her remarkable story. She reveals the depths of the darkness she went through...

Rick Repetti's Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation (Routledge, 2022) provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of the state of the field of the philosophy of meditation and engages primarily in the philosophical assessment of the merits of meditation practices. This Handbook unites novel and original scholarship from 28 leading Asian and Western philosophers, scientists, theolo...

Today I talked to Jerry Pannone about his new book Survive: Why We Do What We Do (John Hunt, 2022) Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs model is famous, but more so the 5-layer model than the 8-layer model he eventually arrived at. Why the later addition of knowledge and understanding, aesthetics and transcendence as needs in Maslow’s model? The answer is that balanced out the 4 of the 5 original n...

Are you so busy fulfilling everyone else’s expectations that you’ve lost touch with yourself? Do you find yourself filling up your “free” hours with mundane tasks, soaking up podcasts to improve yourself, and rushing around, never getting it all done? For many women, it’s the same kind of story—we hustle to overachieve at work and at home, all in the hopes that we can “crush it” until we finally f...

Dr Pierce Salguero sits down with Venerable Soorākkulame Pemaratana, chief abbot at the Pittsburgh Buddhist Center and a scholar of modern Buddhism in Sri Lanka. We talk about his role in adapting Buddhist practices to address social and mental health needs during the Covid-19 pandemic. We also compare Buddhist responses to Covid in Pittsburgh and Sri Lanka. Along the way, we talk about how he bec...

In this episode of the Blue Beryl Podcast, Pierce Salguero sits down with Wakoh Shannon Hickey, who is a Soto Zen priest, hospice chaplain, scholar, and activist. She talks about her early experiences with social violence in the 1980s, her work as a hospital chaplain, and her 2019 book Mind Cure, which is a groundbreaking social history of religion and mindfulness in the U.S. Resources: Wakoh's Ac...

Peter Fenner, Ph. D, is an adapter and teacher of non-duality, and an author. His two books, Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditioned Awareness (Sounds True, 2007) and Natural Awakening: An Advanced Guide for Sharing Nondual Awareness (Sumeru Press, 2015), draw on a dialectical method adapted from his monastic training with the Gelugpa School of Tibetan Buddhism. We discuss philosophical psychology,...