The powerful mythic martial arts attracts everything from giant birds and magic pearls to miraculous orchids and an army of wushu warriors, while the spectacular, colorful movie about it was a 1982 hit.
UFC FIGHT PASS official review: Mystery, action, scheming, action, double-crossing and more action. This movie is everything you could ask for in not only a kung-fu movie, but a movie itself. With exploding cars, about a dozen encounters in rush hour traffic, and a police chase all within the first ten minutes, film buffs and thrill seekers alike are sure to flock to UFC FIGHT PASS to get their hearts racing.
Official score: Normally this type of film would get a 4.5 rating, but the dual subtitle feature with a number of typos and a speed that makes it almost possible to keep up with the dialogue provides a mental workout. Those features boost the official score to a perfect 5.
Resting in Stillness by Martin Jamyang Tenphel and Pema Dddul is a valuable collection of written pieces which will inspire, encourage and guide you on the Buddhist path. The authors are Co-Directors of the Jal Buddhist Meditation Centre and have decades of personal practice under their belts as well as plenty of experience in teaching workshops and courses in meditation, mindfulness, compassion and more.
The Jal Buddhist Meditation Centre offers secular courses in Calm Abiding and Insight meditation as well as Buddhist courses which draw from both the Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and the Chan tradition of Zen. Many of the pieces which appear in this collection were written in response to questions asked by those attending meditation classes or participating in discussion groups, so they cover a range of topics that will be of interest to anyone who is looking to develop their own practice and understanding.
Dharma practice is like making a cup of tea. We prepare by studying and contemplating the teachings, this is like putting tea and sugar in the cup. Then we pour boiling water into the cup and let it steep. The steeping process is equivalent to our Shamatha practice. The longer we let the tea steep, the stronger, more powerful, and more flavourful the tea will become. What do we need to do to help the tea steep? Nothing. We just rest, relax and wait for it to do its own thing. The same goes for Shamatha practice. The more we practice relaxing and resting in the stillness of Shamatha, the more we will experience the deep satisfying joy of our True Nature.
This book has forty-eight short chapters in total, and these focus on everything from what to do when one is too distressed to meditate, how to recognise and train in pure awareness and how to deal with difficult times, right through to how to meditate, how to practice sky gazing, how to get unstuck, the true nature of mind, and more.
Wake Up to What Matters: A Guide to Tibetan Buddhism for the Next Generation is a carefully curated selection of Dharma talks by Avikrita Vajra Sakya. Born in Seattle in 1993 into the Khon Family, Avikrita Vajra Rinpoche moved to northern India at the age of four to receive a formal Buddhist education, and became a Dharma teacher in 2012. His modern perspective and superbly accessible teachings in English have helped countless people to see how Tibetan Buddhism is just as relevant to those of us living in the fast-paced and technology-driven 21st century as it was to those in previous generations.
Subsequent chapters present talks entitled Putting Aspiration into Action, Transforming the Mind, As Fearless as Tara, The Transformative Power of Compassion, Victory Over All Obstacles, Questions for the Modern Practitioner and Being a Twenty-First Century Buddhist.
Karuna has worked as a psychotherapist, business psychologist and coach for over two decades, and he also happens to be a long-time student of Lama Zopa Rinpoche (Head and co-founder of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition) and the late Lama Thubten Yeshe.
The central message of the book is defined on the very first page of the introduction, and offers immediate hope to anyone who has been looking for a way to experience more happiness and peace of mind:
The introduction continues to explain that this book is best viewed as a set of ideas and tools that the reader can use to become happier by facing problems head-on. It is, the author stresses, a gradual process, but one that has been tested thoroughly and validated by millions of people over the course of more than 2,500 years.
In the penultimate chapter, Karuna discusses how the reader can integrate the teachings that have already been provided whilst still dealing with the hustle and bustle of daily life, and he brings the book to a close by focusing on the topics of ethics, responsibility, learning from mistakes and developing compassion for oneself and others.
Well Connected by Irmentraud Schlaffer has the subtitle Encountering Buddha in Everyday Life, and that is exactly what this book is all about. There are plenty of books that explain how Buddhists can deepen their practice on the cushion, or in an isolated retreat setting, and most of those are perfectly valuable, but titles that provide ideas for bringing the experience of awakening into the hustle and bustle of daily life are much thinner on the ground. Well Connected is one such title, and a very good one it is, too.
The way this book achieved that purpose is by taking the reader on a linear journey from the moment of waking up in the morning to the time of going to sleep and dreaming at night. Over the course of eighteen chapters, Well Connected points out the sacredness that is right there in front of us at all times, and shows us how to recognise and make use of the various symbols that we usually encounter without even realising it.
Writing in a pragmatic and down-to-earth style, and drawing from over 30 years of practising Buddhism, Well Connected serves as a no-nonsense guidebook to help you integrate your own Buddhist practice with your life off the cushion. Whether you are brushing your teeth, sitting in traffic, working at your job, cooking dinner or even watching TV, the sacred is always there to be experienced and appreciated, and Well Connected will show you how.
The Dalai Lama on What Matters Most gives us the opportunity to eavesdrop on an extended conversation between Japanese anthropologist Noriyuki Ueda and the Dalai Lama on the topics of anger, compassion, social action and more.
The book opens with an Introduction, subtitled The Road to Dharamsala, in which the anthropologist outlines how he and the Dalai Lama came to have the conversation that is shared in the pages that follow.
There are four main parts to this book, and the first addresses the question What Can Buddhism Offer? Here we get to listen in as Ueda asks the Dalai Lama about his ideas on creating An Altruistic Society, What Matters Most in life, society as A Biological Need, Cultivating Compassion and the relationship between Faith and Social Development.
A discussion of Love and Attachment occupies Part Three of this book, and the Dalai Lama begins by discussing the difference between the two in an examination of Love vs Attachment. The concepts of conditional and unconditional love arise here, and the conversation explores how those play out among Humans and Animals, with humanity having a stronger awareness of community. This leads on to a discussion about Love and Innate Healing Power, where the connection between inner spiritual values and physical health is explored.
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