Archives de catégorie : Nonfiction

THE POWER OF MANTRA de Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the respected and beloved cofounder of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, offers us a significant book that is both a beautiful tool for experienced practitioners and a how-to for beginners.

THE POWER OF MANTRA:
Vital Practices for Transformation
by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
‎ Wisdom Publications, February 2022

Revitalize your practice with the potent energy of mantra. In this book, beloved teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche guides us through the most popular mantras in Tibetan Buddhism: Shakyamuni Buddha, Chenrezig, Manjushri, Tara, Medicine Buddha, Vajrasattva, and more. A mantra—literally “that which protects the mind”—is a series of Sanskrit syllables that evoke the energy of a particular buddha or bodhisattva. It works as a sacred sound that brings blessings to ourself and others, and as a tool to transform our mind into one that is more compassionate and wise. In clear and succinct teachings, Lama Zopa shows us why we need different mantras and how each mantra works. He also explains their importance and power, giving specific instructions for practicing them. The exquisite, full-color illustrations of the deities that accompany the text make this book a beautiful guide, one suitable for both beginners and experienced practitioners.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is one of the most internationally renowned masters of Tibetan Buddhism, working and teaching ceaselessly on almost every continent. He is the spiritual director and cofounder of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an international network of Buddhist projects, including monasteries in six countries and meditation centers in over thirty; health and nutrition clinics, and clinics specializing in the treatment of leprosy and polio; as well as hospices, schools, publishing activities, and prison outreach projects worldwide.

DIGITAL MADNESS de Nicholas Kardaras

From the author of the provocative and influential Glow Kids, this is revolutionary research that reveals technology’s damaging effect on mental illness and suicide rates—and offers a way out.

DIGITAL MADNESS:
How Big Tech Is Driving Our Mental Health Pandemic—and the Ancient Prescription for Sanity
by Nicholas Kardaras
St. Martin’s Press, September 2022

Dr. Nicholas Kardaras is at the forefront of researchers sounding the alarm about the impact of excessive technology on younger brains. In Glow Kids, he described what screen time does to children, calling it “digital heroin”. Now, in DIGITAL MADNESS, Dr. Kardaras turns his attention to our teens and young adults.
For them, the digital world is a bubble of content you’re meant to “like” or “dislike.” Two choices might be considered easy, but just how detrimental is this binary thinking to mental health? From body image to politics to personal relationships to decisions, the world doesn’t exist in an “up or down,” “black or white,” “good or bad” dynamic, and social media shouldn’t either. DIGITAL MADNESS explores how technology promotes sedentary isolation, polarization, rewards extremes on both sides, and has spawned a mental health and suicide pandemic from which enormous corporations profit.
Dr. Kardaras offers a path out of our crisis, using examples from classical philosophy that encourage resilience, critical thinking, concentration, and other beneficial habits of mind. DIGITAL MADNESS is a crucial book for parents, educators, therapists, public health professionals, and policy makers who are searching for ways to restore our young people’s mental and physical health.

Dr. Nicholas Kardaras is one of the country’s foremost addiction experts. He was a professor at Stony Brook Medicine and has developed clinical treatment programs all over the country. He is the founder and Chief Clinical Officer of Maui Recovery in Hawaii, Omega Recovery in Austin and the Launch House in New York. He is also a frequent contributor to Psychology Today and FOX News, and has appeared on Good Morning America, ABC’s 20/20, CNN, the CBS Evening News, PBS, NPR and FOX & Friends.

THE CASE FOR CANCEL CULTURE d’Ernest Owens

From a Forbes 30 Under 30 award-winning journalist comes a critical and nuanced look at the topic of cancel culture, arguing that cancel culture has been a fundamental means of democratic expression throughout history and is a timely necessity aimed at combating systems of oppression.

THE CASE FOR CANCEL CULTURE:
Why Uncensored Accountability Liberates
by Ernest Owens
‎ St. Martin’s Press, February 2023

Cancel culture. Chances are you’ve heard about this a lot lately, but what really is it? Blacklisting celebrities? Censorship? Up until this point, this has been the general consensus in the media. But it’s time to raise the bar on our definition—to think of cancel culture less as scandal or suppression and more as an essential means of democratic expression and accountability. THE CASE FOR CANCEL CULTURE offers a fresh progressive lens in favor of cancel culture as a tool for activism and change. It will help readers reflect on and learn the long history of canceling (the Boston Tea Party was cancel culture); how the left and right uniquely equip it as part of their political toolkits; how intersections of society wield it for justice; and ultimately how it levels the playing field for the everyday person’s voice to matter. Why should we care? Because in a world where protest and free speech are being challenged by the most powerful institutions, those without power deserve to understand the nuance and importance of this democratic tool available to them. Rather than seeing cancel culture as a nasty byproduct of the digital age, it should be seen as a powerful instrument for change. Ernest Owens shows readers exactly how with examples from politics, pop culture, and his own personal experience. Readers will walk away from this first-of-its-kind exploration not despising cancel culture but embracing it as a form of democratic expression that’s always been leading the charge in liberating us all.

Ernest Owens is an award-winning journalist and CEO of Ernest Media Empire, LLC. He is the Editor at Large for Philadelphia Magazine and President of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. He hosts the hit podcast « Ernestly Speaking! ». As an openly Black gay journalist, he has made headlines for speaking frankly about intersectional issues in society regarding race, LGBTQ, and pop culture. In 2018, he launched his growing media company that specializes in multimedia production, consulting, and communications. His versatile talent has taken him from Ghana to the White House, where he’s interviewed countless political leaders (such as Vice President Kamala Harris) to Hollywood where he’s interviewed industry heavyweights (such as Oprah Winfrey and Academy Award winning screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney). His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, MTV, NBC, NPR, and other prominent media outlets.

POSSIBLE de William Ury

According to the Pew Research Center, in the US alone, the share of Americans who say having conversations with those they disagree with politically is “stressful and frustrating” has increased dramatically in recent years. POSSIBLE is for all of us who feel that frustration and seek to uncover new possibilities for the challenges in which we find ourselves. It offers a way out of the seemingly impossible, no-win conflicts of our time, a creative and collaborative method that can transform even our toughest conflicts.

POSSIBLE:
Transforming Our Toughest Conflicts
by William Ury
‎ HarperBusiness, Fall 2024
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)

According to the Pew Research Center, in the US alone, the share of Americans who say having conversations with those they disagree with politically is “stressful and frustrating” has increased dramatically in recent years. As individuals, we are finding it increasingly hard to engage in civil discourse to negotiate our struggles and conflicts. We are stuck in difficult, intractable challenges and conflicts – with the characteristic fear and anger, entrenched positions, and destructive fighting – in all aspects of our lives.
POSSIBLE is for all of us who feel that frustration and seek to uncover new possibilities for the challenges in which we find ourselves. Based on four and a half decades of real-life experiences grappling with the world’s toughest conflicts — from wildcat strikes to family feuds, boardroom battles to civil wars – William Ury, co-author of Getting to YES, the world’s all-time bestselling book on negotiation, offers a way out of the seemingly impossible, no-win conflicts of our time, a creative and collaborative method that can transform even our toughest conflicts.
In POSSIBLE, Ury invites readers to become possibilists. Possibilists aren’t optimists or pessimists, but rather believers in our human potential to transform our conflicts and relationships. Possibilists see, create, and act on new possibilities to deal with our deepest differences. They are willing to engage any conflict, no matter how heated, in order to explore possible openings. In their minds, conflict isn’t bad. In fact, it is natural and even necessary.
Transforming a conflict is not the same as resolving it, which may be impossible right now and sometimes not even desirable. We don’t always need to agree. A possibilist aims to change the conflict’s fundamental form from destructive fighting into creative negotiation and constructive coexistence so that we can begin to open up new possibilities for mutual satisfaction. Then, over time, conflicts can be more easily resolved or just remain creative tensions.
Ury’s triple-win method works even if the other side at first does not go along. Just as it takes two to tango, it takes two to fight. And it only takes one to stop. It is your choice. There is a switch, and you can decide to pull it whenever you like. This book will show you how.

William Ury, cofounder of Harvard’s Program on Negotiation, is one of the world’s best-known and most influential experts on negotiation. He has served as a mediator in boardroom battles, labor conflicts, and civil wars around the world. Ury is the coauthor of Getting to Yes, the bestselling negotiation book in the world, and seven other books, including the New York Times bestsellers Getting Past No and The Power of a Positive No. An avid hiker, he lives with his family in Colorado.

THE WORDS THAT MATTER de Susan Verde

From the New York Times #1 bestselling author Susan Verde, an essay collection that emphasizes the importance of positive self-talk and the impact it has on raising children.

THE WORDS THAT MATTER:
Learning to Speak to Myself (and Others) with Love
by Susan Verde
Abrams Image, March 2023

Bestselling children’s book author Susan Verde turns her attention from children to the adults who care for them. The stories in THE WORDS THAT MATTER are filled with honesty and vulnerability, as Verde shares both the words of her own inner critic and what she has learned about approaching that voice with curiosity and compassion. She shares ways to rethink how we speak to ourselves in order to cultivate our own self-love and show our children that self-love is not only achievable but necessary.
A single mom of three very different kids, each with their own needs and challenges, Verde knows firsthand that motherhood can be rough. However, she understands that the words we say to ourselves are what enable us to show up for our kids. THE WORDS THAT MATTER is meant to offer actionable ways to change our inner speak from negative to supportive, and serves as a gentle guide for anyone who wants to remember how worthy and wonderful they are and to pass those feelings of self-worth on to their kids.

Susan Verde is a New York Times bestselling children’s author, children’s yoga and mindfulness expert, former teacher, and parent. She has more than 20 picture books in the marketplace. She is a highly sought after speaker at conferences, festivals, and schools across the nation, and spends half the year on the road working with children and families. Verde is a frequent contributor to online magazines and has appeared on multiple podcasts speaking about writing, parenting, mindfulness, and yoga. She lives in East Hampton, New York.