Excerpt from Four Men Shaking: Searching for Sanity with Samuel Beckett, Norman Mailer, and My Perfect Zen Teacher I go to sleep early but wake in a panic, realizing at once that Roshi’s talk is simmering in my mind. No label—not “anxiety,” not “terror,” not even “panic”—seems right for my condition until it occurs to

Inspirations and Invitations for Writers, Artists, and Other Creative Minds Three Creativity Exercises from the Authors of Deep Creativity Grounded in Jungian psychology, Deep Creativity offers practical guidance for getting in touch with your own unconscious reservoir as well as engaging your everyday world to deepen the source of creative expression. Wherever one is on the creative

Theme: Stories that Teach Foundational Buddhist Topics After a successful competition in 2017, Khyentse Foundation and Bala Kids are once again teaming up to offer the Khyentse Foundation Children’s Book Prize for best Buddhist children’s manuscript. Khyentse Foundation and Bala Kids have the shared vision to inspire and educate future generations about Buddhism and to

The Ekphrastic Response An Excerpt from Deep Creativity Excerpt by Jennifer Leigh Selig EKPHRASIS When I was preparing to teach a class to my Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life master’s degree students titled the Complex Nature of Inspiration, I came across a word I had never heard that perfectly described that week’s subject matter.

Death A Long Distance Call On a Wednesday morning, sitting in my old blue Volvo in a parking lot after just getting a facial—my cheeks redolent with cream, all pores clean—I called the Cancer Center in Santa Fe, persuaded an oncologist to look up my chart. The oncologist I was assigned to was on vacation,

Meditations on the Roof of the World It was while I was living in England, in the jostle and drizzle of London, that I remembered the Himalayas at their most vivid. I had grown up amongst those great blue and brown mountains; they had nourished my blood; and though I was separated from them by

Hermann Hesse’s Southeast Asian Travels In the morning I had chased butterflies on the byways, overgrown with grass and overhung with foliage, that run among the European gardens. In the white heat of noon I returned to the city on foot, and I passed the afternoon walking about, visiting shops, and doing my shopping in

Each month, the Shambhala employees gather to discuss a new book as part of our Shambhala Publications Book Club. After each meeting, we will be sharing the notes from our discussion with you to spark your own thoughts and conversations, which you can share in the comments below. Our January pick was The Wave in

by Rebecca Hazell The Buddha is well known in popular culture. He is seen as wise, benign, friendly, and peaceful. You can find commercialized representations of him in images ranging from good luck Ho Tai figures to garden statues of him sitting and typing on a laptop. Imagine what a ruckus would ensue if Jesus

Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing The many fans of Thomas Merton's writing may be unaware that the famous Trappist monk had much to say about the writing process itself. And his advice is much worth listening to. This volume gathers together much of what he has to say on the subject.