Transcending Hell,Manifesting a Zen Spiritual Path in Recovery from Addiction and Alcoholism


Book Description

Long term recovery from alcoholism and addiction isn't easy. While many find initial success in sobriety, securing ongoing happiness, peace of mind, and a meaningful life often seems maddeningly illusive. Transcending Hell offers an approach to sustained recovery that incorporates a Zen sitting practice with more traditional avenues of sobriety.




Recovery


Book Description

A guide to all kinds of addiction from a star who has struggled with heroin, alcohol, sex, fame, food and eBay, that will help addicts and their loved ones make the first steps into recovery “This manual for self-realization comes not from a mountain but from the mud...My qualification is not that I am better than you but I am worse.” —Russell Brand With a rare mix of honesty, humor, and compassion, comedian and movie star Russell Brand mines his own wild story and shares the advice and wisdom he has gained through his fourteen years of recovery. Brand speaks to those suffering along the full spectrum of addiction—from drugs, alcohol, caffeine, and sugar addictions to addictions to work, stress, bad relationships, digital media, and fame. Brand understands that addiction can take many shapes and sizes and how the process of staying clean, sane, and unhooked is a daily activity. He believes that the question is not “Why are you addicted?” but "What pain is your addiction masking? Why are you running—into the wrong job, the wrong life, the wrong person’s arms?" Russell has been in all the twelve-step fellowships going, he’s started his own men’s group, he’s a therapy regular and a practiced yogi—and while he’s worked on this material as part of his comedy and previous bestsellers, he’s never before shared the tools that really took him out of it, that keep him clean and clear. Here he provides not only a recovery plan, but an attempt to make sense of the ailing world.




How to Change Your Mind


Book Description

Now on Netflix as a 4-part documentary series! “Pollan keeps you turning the pages . . . cleareyed and assured.” —New York Times A #1 New York Times Bestseller, New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018, and New York Times Notable Book A brilliant and brave investigation into the medical and scientific revolution taking place around psychedelic drugs--and the spellbinding story of his own life-changing psychedelic experiences When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such as depression, addiction and anxiety, he did not intend to write what is undoubtedly his most personal book. But upon discovering how these remarkable substances are improving the lives not only of the mentally ill but also of healthy people coming to grips with the challenges of everyday life, he decided to explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third. Thus began a singular adventure into various altered states of consciousness, along with a dive deep into both the latest brain science and the thriving underground community of psychedelic therapists. Pollan sifts the historical record to separate the truth about these mysterious drugs from the myths that have surrounded them since the 1960s, when a handful of psychedelic evangelists inadvertently catalyzed a powerful backlash against what was then a promising field of research. A unique and elegant blend of science, memoir, travel writing, history, and medicine, How to Change Your Mind is a triumph of participatory journalism. By turns dazzling and edifying, it is the gripping account of a journey to an exciting and unexpected new frontier in our understanding of the mind, the self, and our place in the world. The true subject of Pollan's "mental travelogue" is not just psychedelic drugs but also the eternal puzzle of human consciousness and how, in a world that offers us both suffering and joy, we can do our best to be fully present and find meaning in our lives.




Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record


Book Description

The Blue Cliff Record is a classic text of Zen Buddhism, designed to assist in the activation of dormant human potential. The core of this extraordinary work is a collection of one hundred traditional citations and stories, selected for their ability to bring about insight and enlightenment. These vignettes are known as gongan in Chinese and koan in Japanese. Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record is a fresh translation featuring newly translated commentary from two of the greatest Zen masters of early modern Japan, Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1768) of the Rinzai sect of Zen and Tenkei Denson (1648–1735) of the Soto sect of Zen. This translation and commentary on The Blue Cliff Record sheds new light on the meaning of this central Zen text.




Passion of the Western Mind


Book Description

"[This] magnificent critical survey, with its inherent respect for both the 'Westt's mainstream high culture' and the 'radically changing world' of the 1990s, offers a new breakthrough for lay and scholarly readers alike....Allows readers to grasp the big picture of Western culture for the first time." SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Here are the great minds of Western civilization and their pivotal ideas, from Plato to Hegel, from Augustine to Nietzsche, from Copernicus to Freud. Richard Tarnas performs the near-miracle of describing profound philosophical concepts simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, THE PASSION OF THE WESERN MIND is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.




The Hunger Fix


Book Description

The body’s built-in reward system, driven by the chemical dopamine, tells us to do more of the things that give us pleasure: Creative energy, falling in love, entrepreneurship, and even the continued propagation of the human race are driven by this system. Unfortunately, so is the urge to overeat. In The Hunger Fix, Dr. Pam Peeke uses the latest neuroscience to explain how unhealthy food and behavioral "fixes" have gotten us ensnared in a vicious cycle of overeating and addiction. She even shows that dopamine rushes in the body work exactly the same way with food as with cocaine. Luckily, we are all capable of rewiring, and the very same dopamine-driven system can be used to reward us for healthful, exciting, and fulfilling activities. The Hunger Fix lays out a science-based, three-stage plan to break the addiction to false fixes and replace them with healthier actions. Fitness guides, meal plans, and recipes are constructed to bolster the growth of new neurons and stimulate the body’s reward system. Gradually, healthy fixes like meditating, going for a run, laughing, and learning a new language will replace the junk food, couch time, and other bad habits that leave us unhappy and overweight. Packed with practical tips, useful advice, and plenty of wit, wisdom, and inspiring stories of those who have successfully transformed their bodies, The Hunger Fix is a life-changing program for anyone (of any size) trapped by food obsession and the urge to overeat.




The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind


Book Description

National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry




The Way of the Alcoholic


Book Description

The Way of the Alcoholic is a journey into addiction. But this painful and dispiriting trial can also lead to recovery, awakening a rebirth of the spirit. Alcoholics lose their way so that they might find The Way. The progression is from self-destruction to self-discovery: which is the ultimate creative act. Through expanded consciousness and spiritual transformation The Way leads Home. This little gem, penned anonymously, chronicles the journey that lies at the heart of all spiritual traditions - putting it in the context of addiction as a pathway to awakening and self-discovery. The Way of the Alcoholic explores many spiritual paths - Mysticism, Buddhism, Non-Duality, Taoism, Sufism and more ... finding the most common stumbling block for seekers on The Way is the notion of a separate self-hood: the ego-driven 'I'.Ultimately The Way of the Alcoholic offers hope, arguing that there's a purpose to alcoholism: to provide a path to higher consciousness.




Callings


Book Description

How do we know if we're following our true callings? How do we sharpen our senses to cut through the distractions of everyday reality and hear the calls that are beckoning us? is the first book to examine the many kinds of calls we receive and the great variety of channels through which they come to us. A calling may be to do something (change careers, go back to school, have a child) or to be something (more creative, less judgmental, more loving). While honoring a calling's essential mystery, this book also guides readers to ask and answer the fundamental questions that arise from any calling: How do we recognize it? How do we distinguish the true call from the siren song? How do we handle our resistance to a call? What happens when we say yes? What happens when we say no? Drawing on the hard-won wisdom and powerful stories of people who have followed their own calls, Gregg Levoy shows us the many ways to translate a calling into action. In a style that is poetic, exuberant, and keenly insightful, he presents an illuminating and ultimately practical inquiry into how we listen and respond to our calls, whether at work or at home, in our relationships or in service. Callings is a compassionate guide to discovering your own callings and negotiating the tight passages to personal power and authenticity.




The Disease of Addiction


Book Description

Joseph Caravella, MA LADC currently practices as an addiction therapist for the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation at their campus in Center City, Minnesota. As an educator he's known for his high energy, breathtaking lectures (on addiction, forgiveness, and love). In "The Disease of Addiction," he masterfully unravels the complexities of the addicted brain, breaks down the fundamental components of addiction in easy-to-understand terms, and paints a detailed clinical picture with color sourced from his own harrowing experiences with addiction, mental illness, and early recovery. Foreword by the author: I've been formally studying addiction since 2011 while also walking my own path in recovery that began in 2008. Even after years of self-study, thousands of twelve-step meetings, graduate school, and professional experience treating the illness, my experience shows that this disease is not the easiest subject to grasp. But knowledge truly is power. And after studying the best textbooks and reports on the neurobiology of addiction, I believe the information in them is sound and of the utmost importance. That said, I also think the packaging and delivery of the material should be more accessible to addicted people, their family and friends, and anyone curious to learn more about the disease. I've been privileged to lecture on the disease of addiction to large treatment populations for years. Inspired by requests for written material beyond my lectures and by my personal mission to improve addiction education, this short book is a meditation on the evolutionary perspective of chemical use, the origins of the Alcoholics Anonymous program, our present understanding of the neurobiology of addiction, and how the twelve-step solution is well supported by scientific evidence. I also describe the correlation between physiological stress response in early recovery and a spirituality-based approach to recovery in a manner that I haven't seen in the literature. In this book, I'm specifically speaking to the person unsure about addiction as a disease but also pained by the consequences of their chemical use. To me, this person is the newcomer to recovery, and they are the most important person about whom I should be concerned when discussing addiction and recovery. Special thanks to my clients, family, teachers, guides, mentors, colleagues, bosses, and especially my wife for making this possible. I was taught that I can only keep what peace and love I have by freely giving it away. In part, this is my love to you.