Awakening to the Sacred: Creating a Personal Spiritual Life - Softcover

Das, Lama Surya

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0767902750 ISBN 13: 9780767902755

Publisher: Harmony/Rodale/Convergent, 2000

Synopsis

Lama Surya Das, author of the bestselling Awakening the Buddha Within, is the most highly trained American lama in the Tibetan tradition. In this elegant, inspiring book, he integrates essential Buddhist practices with a variety of other spiritual philosophies and wisdom traditions, to show you how to create a personalized spiritual practice based on your own individual beliefs, aspirations, and needs. Through reflections on his own life quest, thoughtful essays, and entertaining stories, Surya Das examines the common themes at the heart of any spiritual path, including faith, doubt, love, compassion, creativity, self-inquiry, and transformation. He then explores prayer, yoga, chanting, guided meditations, breathing exercises, and myriad other rituals, providing practical examples of each that we can use day-to-day to nurture our inner spirit.

About this title

Review

Surya Das is like a Buddhist Johnny Appleseed, galavanting across the countryside, planting seeds of spirituality in bare patches of ground. He believes that we are all fertile soil for cultivating the sacred in everyday life. "We all have spiritual DNA," he says. In Awakening to the Sacred, Surya Das heightens his efforts to increase the planet's spirituality quotient by teaching people how to take advantage of their own spiritual resources. Whether Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, or atheist, we can all enhance our spiritual side. Certainly meditating is a good way, and there's no one better to teach us than this limpid lama. But even more familiar activities can help, like praying, creating a spiritual notebook, or reading spiritual books--even gardening and walking count. Surya Das excels at demystifying the mystical and urges the reader to capitalize on resources closest at hand. No need to look too far when we can draw inspiration and practices from our own traditions. So take that apple seed, thumb through Awakening to the Sacred, and nourish those precious roots of spirituality. --Brian Bruya

From the Back Cover

"Awakening to the Sacred is filled with beautiful teachings, gracious stories, dozens of practices, humorous tales and wise, practical ways to invite our hearts to awaken to the highest wisdom in every part of our lives."
--Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart

"Awakening to the Sacred is a feast for the soul. Lama Surya Das gives us the benefit of nearly thirty years of seeking, practice, and study. His vision is our opportunity."
--Mark Epstein, author of Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart

"Written with tenderness and warmth, Awakening to the Sacred invites all beings to begin the never-ending process of their own spiritual unfolding, and is a wonderful companion on the way of the sacred in everyday life."
--Ken Wilber, author of The Eye of Spirit and The Marriage of Sense and Soul

"Surya Das brings a reader the how and why, the tools and the inspiration, to live one's life with spiritual practice as the priority. With clarity and humor, through stories and practice, this book welcomes those of all spiritual traditions to the process of becoming fully alive."
--Sharon Salzberg, author of A Heart As Wide As the World and Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

Edition details

• Publisher: Harmony/Rodale/Convergent
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0767902750
• ISBN 13: 9780767902755
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 400