New Books in Spiritual Practice and Mindfulness

Kile M. Ortigo's Beyond the Narrow Life: A Guide to Psychedelic Integration and Existential Exploration (Synergetic Press, 2021) addresses major issues that arise from the psychospiritual and therapeutic use of psychedelics. It describes a core structure that psychedelic journeys exhibit, and share, with classic mythologies; religious traditions; and spiritual practices. Its method is to integrate...

As we venture into the New Year, many of us are striving to reach new goals and maintain resolutions. It’s easy to default to focusing solely on succeeding or attaining those goals, striving to feel the “high” that accompanies that success. But this kind of approach can unwittingly interfere with healthy and sustainable success. Brad Stulberg, author of The Practice of Groundedness: A Transformati...

A timely essay collection on the development and influence of secular expressions of Buddhism in the West and beyond. How do secular values impact Buddhism in the modern world? What versions of Buddhism are being transmitted to the West? Is it possible to know whether an interpretation of the Buddha’s words is correct? In this new essay collection, opposing ideas that often define Buddhist communi...

Today I talked to Martin Wells about his new book No One Playing: The Essence of Mindfulness in Golf and in Life (John Hunt, 2022).  To imagine you’re in control, on a golf course or otherwise in life, is “absurd” explains Martin Wells. It’s not that one gets into the zone; instead, the zone finds you. In those and other ways, this delightful book and author both honor golf as a sport and find muc...

Gitte Bechsgaard and Gillian McCann's book Yoga and Alignment: From the Upanishads to B. K. S. Iyengar (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021) offers an accessible and lively look at yoga philosophy and psychology. Following the model of the eight limbs of yoga the authors engage the tradition from its foundational ethics to the highest states of consciousness. Based on 30 years of research and prac...

Be, Become, Bless: Jewish Spirituality Between East and West (Maggid, 2019) presents a Jewish approach to transforming the way we see and live our lives. Join us as we speak with Rabbi Yakov Nagen about how he uses the weekly parasha as a springboard to converse with both Eastern spirituality and Western thinking, creating a synthesis that unifies "being" and "doing." Thought-provoking and origina...

Facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, Karen Derris—professor, mother, and Buddhist practitioner—instinctually turned to books. By rereading ancient Buddhist stories with fresh questions and a new purpose in mind, she discovered evolving ways to make them immediate and real. Storied Companions interweaves Karen’s memoir of her lived experiences of trauma and terminal illness with stories from Buddhis...

In the practising life, choices must be made. Those choices occur at all levels from big picture views of the world, a whole life, and society, to the everyday choice of how to be in the world, how to act, and what to commit to. In this three part series on Secular Buddhism, we find figures who have made a specific choice to stick with Buddhism and attempt to change it. Winton Higgins notes that t...

Take a trip to the Great Feast in this first in a series of posts on the practising life. Non-Buddhism meets post-traditional slants on practice, whilst tackling complexity, doubt, and ecological thought. Practise questions and suggestions are woven throughout as a response to all you who desire practical things and have asked for them. This might just be a revolution in rethinking meditation and...

In Elizabeth J. Harris' Buddhism in Five Minutes (Equinox Publishing, 2021), academic specialists offer answers to 75 questions about Buddhism that people curious about Buddhism might ask. The questions cover the Buddha, what the Buddha taught, Buddhist monasticism and the role of lay people, the historical development of Buddhism, Buddhist art, Buddhist ethics, Buddhist responses to other religio...

Today I speak to Stephen Batchelor, figurehead for Secular Buddhism, well known author, and Scot. I present the lovely man some of the critique aimed at his work in the book Secularizing Buddhism, and from my previous interview with Richard K. Payne. We also discuss some of his intellectual influences, touch on phenomenology, Gianni Vattimo, and whether Stephen is fixated on the past in his relati...

Meaningfulness is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Susan Wolf, the Edna J. Koury Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This fascinating conversation explores what it is to live an ethical, meaningful life in keeping with her book, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, the role that love, fulfillment, self-interest and happiness...

Welcome to the Queer Voices of the South podcast on the New Books Network. In this episode, host John Marszalek interviews Richard Harrold about his book My Buddha Is Pink: Buddhism from a LGBTQI Perspective (Sumeru Press, 2019) Although today’s podcast doesn’t focus on the Queer South per se, it continues a series of interviews Marszalek has conducted from time to time on our podcast with authors...

This podcast interviews Kusumita Pedersen on the first book-length study of the thought of Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007) and his teaching of a dynamic spirituality of integral transformation. The Philosophy of Sri Chinmoy: Love and Transformation (Lexington, 2021) is a straightforward and unembroidered account of his philosophy, allowing Sri Chinmoy to speak for himself in his own words, in poetry as mu...

Today I interview Stephen Jenkinson. Jenkinson has a new book. It's entitled A Generation's Worth: Spirit Work While the Crisis Reigns (Orphan Wisdom, 2021) and it's a rarity among books and, to my mind, authors. Jenkinson not only attempts to reckon with our current crisis in the midst of it, which would be challenge enough, but he also attempts to reckon with his previous work, asking the ballsy...

This podcast features the wisdom and work of Mark Van Buren, Bergen County's go-to guide for all meditation and mindfulness-based training. With well over a decade of experience in the field, Mark instructs meditation workshops, lectures, professional development days, corporate wellness classes, and silent retreats in a practical, yet accessible way. He offers simple tools and practices that can...

What does it mean to be black and Buddhist, and what does that have to do with Life Wisdom? This episode of Life Wisdom features the dynamic work of Pamela Ayo Yetunde, Pastoral Counsellor, Co-Founder of Centre of the Heart, Buddhist Justice Reporter and co-editor of Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us about Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom. Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educa...

Rewriting Our Stories: Education, Empowerment, and Well-Being (Atrium, 2020) harnesses the therapeutic power of storytelling to convert feelings of fear and powerlessness into affirmative life narratives. Rather than seeing fear as an outcome, we can view it as a feeling in the moment largely governed by narratives. Many of our fears are stories we tell ourselves, even if they are largely fictiona...

Today I talked to David Birch about his new book Pandora's Book: 401 Philosophical Questions to Help You Lose Your Mind (with Answers) (Iff Books, 2021). We were joined by Fred Matser, author of Beyond Us: A Humanitarian’s Perspective on Our Values, Beliefs and Way of Life (Iff Books, 2021) “Is perfume art?” That might not be the kind of philosophical inquiry you expect! Just a sign of how innovat...

Grief is a long-misunderstood experience that many people believe proceeds according to predictable steps ending in ‘closure.’ According to Hope Edelman, however, grief is a long-term process that can actually enhance rather than constrict our lives. She debunks many myths about grief and loss in her new book, The AfterGrief: Finding Your Way Along the Long Arc of Loss (Ballantine Books, 2020). In...

Jainism evokes images of monks wearing face-masks to protect insects and mico-organisms from being inhaled. Or of Jains sweeping the ground in front of them to ensure that living creatures are not inadvertently crushed: a practice of non-violence so radical as to defy easy comprehension. Yet for all its apparent exoticism, Jainism is still little understood in the West. What is this mysterious phi...

Raj Balkaran speaks with Jacob Kyle about the genesis and vision of the online educational platform Embodied Philosophy. Over the course of their rich conversation, they touch on contemplative studies, the journal Tarka, yoga in the West, the scholar-practitioner, the state of online education, the ethics of entrepreneurship and the integration of spiritual and scholarly paradigms. Raj Balkaran is...

Hello, this is Eric LeMay, a host on the New Books Network. Today I interview Martín Prechtel, who's written a book about horses called The Mare and the Mouse (North Start Press of Saint Cloud, 2021). Actually, he's written three books about horses. The subtitle of this one is called Stories of My Horses, Volume 1, and there are two more volumes to come. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "I'm...

Today I interview Martín Prechtel, who's an author and so much more than an author. He's a teacher, a musician, a farmer, a cook, a silversmith, a horseman, and...and...and... so much more, including a guiding light for many of us hoping to live as true human beings. He's got a new book called Rescuing the Light: Quotes from the Oral Teachings of Martín Prechtel (North Atlantic Books, 2021). His t...

An inspiring new voice in resiliency, Dr. Robyne Hanley-DaFoe believes that our modern conception of resiliency as "fighting" or being "tougher" is misguided. Learning happens when we are able to trust and feel safe; fear and shame are barriers, not facilitators, for authentic growth, acceptance, and change. In Calm Within the Storm: Resiliency for Today, Tomorrow, and Always (Page Two, 2021), Dr....