Occupy the Moment: A Mindful Path to a New Economy

Occupy the Moment: A Mindful Path to a New Economy, by Rick Heller. A 99 cent book for the 99%! The Occupy Wall Street movement has arisen to give voice to the large number of Americans who are dissatisfied with the growing inequality in wealth and opportunity in the United States. Change is needed, and not just trimming around the edges.

Occupy the Moment lays out a path to a new economy based on the principles of Buddhist Economics pioneered by E. F. Schumacher in his book Small is Beautiful a generation ago. The new Buddhist economics is informed by neuroscience and behavioral economics, and is integrated with the practice of attention to the present moment known as mindfulness.

The current economic crisis is the result of the growth of a culture of greed over the last 30 years. While political action can help, greed is essentially a spiritual problem. In the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha described the causes of greed and a way to heal it through practices like mindfulness.

Occupy the Moment presents a set of meditation practices to show how to become mindful of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. Mindfulness helps overcome greed by quieting the inner voice that tells us that what we have is not enough. When mindful, you find the present moment to be fresh and engaging. Happiness is within your reach right now.

Mindfulness as presented in Occupy the Moment is a secular practice suitable for people of all religious orientations, and is entirely consistent with mainstream academic science. By being more mindful, the 99% can change the culture from one that promotes greed to one that honors compassion. Occupy the Moment shows us how to do it.

Click here to instantly download this Kindle e-book for just 99 cents!

Waking From Sleep: Why Awakening Experiences Occur and How to Make Them Permanent

Waking From Sleep: Why Awakening Experiences Occur and How to Make Them Permanent, by Steve Taylor. How much of your waking time are you fully awake? On the other hand, how often do you stumble through the day on autopilot, half-asleep and out of contact with yourself, instead of feeling connected and alive?

In this astounding book, Steve Taylor suggests that our normal consciousness is really a kind of “sleep” from which we sometimes “wake up” into a more intense and complete reality. He provides what is perhaps the first-ever clear explanation of higher states of consciousness, or “awakening experiences.”

This work delves into: the methods we human beings have used throughout history to induce awakening experiences, including meditation, sex, sports, psychedelic drugs, and sleep deprivation; how higher states of consciousness were normal and natural to some of the world’s peoples (and still are, in some cases); and how we can make “wakefulness” our normal state again.

By fully explaining awakening experiences, the author makes them much more accessible, which may lead to a revolution in our psychological development as human beings!

Steve Taylor, the author of The Fall and Making Time, is a teacher whose main interests are spirituality and psychology. He taught courses on personal development at the University of Manchester in the UK for several years, and is now a researcher in transpersonal psychology at Liverpool John Moores University. Click here for more information or to order.

Mindfulness for Beginners

Mindfulness for Beginners, by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Unabridged Audio CD. Perhaps no other person in America has done more to bring mindfulness meditation into the mainstream than Jon Kabat-Zinn. Through many research studies and his pioneering work at the University of Massachusetts where he is founder of its world renowned Stress Reduction Clinic, Kabat-Zinn has served as a recognized bridge between science and meditation. With Mindfulness for Beginners, he offers the definitive course designed specifically to introduce new students to the proven benefits of mindfulness practice, including: stress reduction, alleviation of depression, chronic pain relief, and more.

On CD 1, Kabat-Zinn presents "Mindfulness 101"—an accessible, comprehensive tutorial that addresses the basics of mindfulness meditation and explores the spacious, luminous, and mysterious qualities of awareness itself. CD 2 guides listeners through a series of five meditations meant to be used at home, at work, or while traveling. Includes Eating Meditation, Mindfulness of Breathing, and Mindfulness of the Body. Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way—on purpose, in the present moment, and without judgment. This special kind of attention nurtures greater awareness, and is a simple yet powerful route for getting ourselves back in touch with our own wisdom and vitality. Now, Jon Kabat-Zinn brings the practice of meditation to the widest possible audience with Mindfulness for Beginners.

Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness

Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Ten years ago, Jon Kabat-Zinn changed the way we thought about awareness in everyday life with his now-classic introduction to mindfulness, Wherever You Go, There You Are. Now, with Coming to Our Senses, he provides the definitive book for our time on the connection between mindfulness and our physical and spiritual wellbeing. With scientific rigor, poetic deftness, and compelling personal stories, Jon Kabat-Zinn examines the mysteries and marvels of our minds and bodies, describing simple, intuitive ways in which we can come to a deeper understanding, through our senses, of our beauty, our genius, and our life path in a complicated, fear-driven, and rapidly changing world. In each of the book’s eight parts, Jon Kabat-Zinn explores another facet of the great adventure of healing ourselves -- and our world -- through mindful awareness, with a focus on the "sensescapes" of our lives and how a more intentional awareness of the senses, including the human mind itself, allows us to live more fully and more authentically. By "coming to our senses" -- both literally and metaphorically by opening to our innate connectedness with the world around us and within us -- we can become more compassionate, more embodied, more aware human beings, and in the process, contribute to the healing of the body politic as well as our own lives in ways both little and big.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, as well as Professor of Medicine emeritus. He leads workshops on stress reduction and mindfulness for doctors and other health professionals and for lay audiences worldwide. He is the bestselling author of Wherever You Go, There You Are and Full Catastrophe Living, and, with his wife Myla Kabat-Zinn, a book on mindful parenting, Everyday Blessings. He was featured in the PBS series Healing and the Mind with Bill Moyers, as well as on Oprah. He lives in Massachusetts.