Giving and receiving affection is the key to happiness, and compassion is the key that opens our hearts to affection. Illuminating themes touched upon in The Good Heart The Art of Happiness, this generous and gentle book contains some of the most beloved teachings on compassion that the Dalai Lama has ever offered. Touching and transformative, The Compassionate Life is a personal invitation from one of the world's most gifted teachers to live a life of happiness, joy, true prosperity.

Collected here for the first time are four of the Dalai Lama's most accessible and inspiring teachings on compassion. The purpose of life is to be happy, His Holiness reminds us. To be happy, we should devote ourselves to developing our own peace of mind; the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own peace of mind. Therefore, we must develop compassion for others in order to be truly happy.

In these four teachings—mbued with the gentle humor and extraordinary kindness of this incomparable teacher—His Holiness explores altruism and the need for compassion on an individual as well as a global scale. He offers specific practices for developing loving-kindness and compassion in even the most difficult situations.

ISBN:0-86171-378-8_|_128 pp_|_Our Price: $11.96 (20% OFF)_|_More Info

Covered are a wide spectrum of topics—;political, social, personal and spiritual—;including the media and education, marriage and sex, and disarmament and compassion. Blessed by His Holiness' buoyant and insightful thoughts, Imagine All the People allows readers to glimpse the spontaneous workings of an extraordinary mind at once of—;and above—;this world.

Includes the full text of The Global Community and the Need for Universal Responsibility.

ISBN:0-86171-150-5_|_192 pp_|_Our Price: $11.96 (20% OFF)_|_More Info

Through detailed discussion and lively questions-and-answers, the teachings of The Meaning of Life address the myriad challenges we meet daily-dealing with aggression from both within and without; facing illness and helping someone who is dying; expanding our capacity to feel love for all beings; and reconciling personal responsibility with the doctrine of selflessness-all suffused with the Dalai Lama's incomparable intelligence, wit, and kindess. Useful attention is given to our understanding of dependent arising, and the meaning of the Wheel of Life.

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Wheel of Life Mandala Image

ISBN:0-86171-173-4_|_160 pp_|_Our Price: $12.76 (20% OFF)_|_More Info

At the heart of this book is The Wish-Fulfilling Jewel of the Oral Tradition, an accessible and nonsectarian treatise on penetrating the nature of mind by Khöntön Peljor Lhündrub, a teacher of the Fifth Dalai Lama. His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s broad-ranging overview of this work insightfully distills some of the most central themes of Buddhism: why the mind is so essential to the tradition, what distinguishes the levels of consciousness, and how different schools of Tibetan Buddhism elaborate those distinctions. Profound and erudite, it brings the reader closer to a fresh and direct experience of Buddhism’s central truths.

Along with his lucid translations, José Cabezón provides an introduction to the root text and presentations of the life and works of Khöntön Rinpoché, all richly annotated.

To download a pdf of Khonton Peljor Lhundrup's text in the original Tibetan click here.

"It is vital for us to obtain genuine confidence in the nature of mind and reality, grounded in understanding and reason. What we need is a skeptical curiosity and constant inquiry, a curious mind, drawn toward all possibilities; and when we cultivate that, the desire to deeply investigate naturally arises.”—The Dalai Lama, in The Middle Way

ISBN:0-86171-552-7_|_200 pages_|_Our Price: $15.96 (20% OFF)_|_More Info

In these teachings, His Holiness set out the key principles of Buddhism, showing how the mind can be transformed, and suffering overcome, through love, compassion, and a true understanding of the nature of reality. Illustrating his brilliant overview of the path with his own personal experiences and advice on how to integrate practice into our lives, the Dalai Lama is at his best here, bringing Buddhist teachings, especially those of the Great Perfection, or Dzogchen, to life.

"Like an expert jeweller," as Sogyal Rinpoche writes in his foreword, the Dalai Lama "set the teaching of Dzogchen within the context of the other traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, highlighting their parallels and their common ultimate aim of realizing the clear light nature of the mind."

Mind in Comfort and Ease was not drawn from the oral translation of the event but is instead a re-translation of His Holiness’s original Tibetan. Thus it captures a deeper fidelity and nuance than other such works, and will stand the test of time as a remarkable record of the Dalai Lama’s great erudition, compassion, humor, and insight.

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ISBN:0-86171-493-8_|_352 pages_|_Our Price: $19.96 (20% OFF)_|_More Info

What is the subtle relationship between mind and body? What can today's scientists learn about this relationship from masters of Buddhist thought? Is it possible that by combining Western and Eastern approaches, we can reach a new understanding of the nature of the mind, the human potential for growth, the possibilities for mental and physical health?

MindScience explores these and other questions as it documents the beginning of an historic dialogue between modern science and Buddhism.The Harvard Mind Science Symposium brought together the Dalai Lama and authorities from the fields of psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, and education. Here, they examine myriad questions concerning the nature of the mind and its relationship to the body.

Written for both Tibetan and Western readers, OPENING THE EYE OF NEW AWARENESS is the Dalai Lama's first religious work. It is not an edited transcript of public lectures, but is His Holliness' own summation of Buddhist doctrine and practice. Completed in 1963, just four years after his escape from Tibet and four years after completing his religious education, it is a work of consummate scholarship by a 27 year-old geshe, wise beyond his years. Nowhere in his many subsequent works does one find a more clear and concise exposition of the essentials of Buddhist thought. Indeed, all of His Holiness' many publications are in some sense commentaries on this first book.

ISBN:0-86171-155-6_|_160 pp_|_Our Price: $11.96 (20% OFF)_|_More Info

Shantideva says at the beginning of the final chapter of his Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life: "All branches of the Buddha's teachings are taught for the sake of wisdom. If you wish to bring an end to suffering, you must develop wisdom." Shantideva's ninth chapter is revered in Tibetan Buddhist circles as one of the most authoritative expositions of the Buddha's core insight, and all other Buddhist practices are means to support the generation of this wisdom within the practitioner. In Practicing Wisdom, the Dalai Lama reaffirms his reputation as a great scholar, communicator, and embodiment of the Buddha's Way by illuminating Shantideva's verses, drawing on contrasting commentaries from the Nyingma and Gelug lineages, and leading the reader through the stages of insight up to the highest view of emptiness. These teachings, delivered in southern France in 1993, have been masterfully translated, edited, and annotated by Geshe Thupten Jinpa, the Dalai Lama's primary translator and founder of the Institute of Tibetan Classics.

ISBN:0-86171-182-3_|_192 pp_|_Our Price: $11.96 (20% OFF)_|_More Info

For modern science, the transitional states of consciousness lie at the forefront of research in many fields. For a Buddhist practitioner these same states present crucial opportunities to explore and transform consciousness itself. This book is the account of a historic dialogue between leading Western scientists and the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Revolving around three key moments of consciousness—sleep, dreams, and death—the conversations recorded here are both engrossing and highly readable. Whether the topic is lucid dreaming, near-death experiences, or the very structure of consciousness itself, the reader is continually surprised and delighted.

Narrated by Francisco Varela, an internationally recognized neuroscientist, the book begins with insightful remarks on the notion of personal identity by noted philosopher Charles Taylor, author of the acclaimed Sources of Self. This sets the stage for Dr. Jerome Engel, Dr. Joyce MacDougal, and others to engage in extraordinary exchanges with the Dalai Lama on topics ranging from the neurology of sleep to the yoga of dreams.

Remarkable convergences between the Western scientific tradition and the Buddhist contemplative sciences are revealed. Dr. Jayne Gackenbach's discussion of lucid dreaming, for example, prompts a detailed and fascinating response from the Dalai Lama on the manipulation of dreams by Buddhist meditators. The conversations also reveal provocative divergences of opinion, as when the Dalai Lama expresses skepticism about "Near-Death Experiences" as presented by Joan Halifax. The conversations are engrossing and highly readable. Any reader interested in psychology, neuroscience, Buddhism, or the alternative worlds of dreams will surely enjoy Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying.

Download two pages of illustrations from the first edition:

Sleeping, Dreaming and Dying Illustrations

ISBN:0-86171-123-8_|_264 pages_|_Our Price: $13.56 (20% OFF)_|_More Info