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Recommended Books
Below is a list of books you may find helpful in beginning or deepening your mindfulness and meditation practice. Enjoy!
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Note: Please consider ordering books from our local, independent bookstore. All links to books go to Timbre Books' website.
Radical Acceptance
Tara Brach
“Believing that something is wrong with us is a deep and tenacious suffering,” says Tara Brach at the start of this illuminating book. This suffering emerges in crippling self-judgments and conflicts in our relationships, in addictions and perfectionism, in loneliness and overwork—all the forces that keep our lives constricted and unfulfilled. Radical Acceptance offers a path to freedom, including the day-to-day practical guidance developed over Dr. Brach’s forty years of work with therapy clients and Buddhist students.
Writing with great warmth and clarity, Tara Brach brings her teachings alive through personal stories and case histories, fresh interpretations of Buddhist tales, and guided meditations. Step by step, she shows us how we can stop being at war with ourselves and begin to live fully every precious moment of our lives.
True Refuge
Tara Brach
A compassionate and practical guide to discovering an inner sanctuary of peace, wisdom, and love that is always available—especially in times of difficulty. Drawing on Buddhist teachings, mindfulness, and her own experiences, Brach shows how most of us cope with life’s inevitable challenges (such as loss, trauma, fear, or emotional pain) by clinging to “false refuges” like control, distraction, or self-judgment, which offer only temporary relief. She invites readers instead to turn inward toward our true refuge: a deep, non-judgmental awareness rooted in truth, love, and present-moment presence. Through inspiring stories, accessible teachings, guided meditations, and practical practices (including the RAIN method), the book offers a path for healing suffering, cultivating compassion, and living with greater freedom and connection.
You Belong
Sebene Selassie
You Belong is a call to action, exploring our tangled relationship with belonging, connection, and each otherYou are not separate. You never were. You never will be. We are not separate from each other. But we don't always believe it, and we certainly don't always practice it. In fact, we often practice the opposite--disconnection and domination. From unconscious bias to "cancel culture," denial of our inherent interconnection limits our own freedom. In You Belong, much-admired meditation expert Sebene Selassie reveals that accepting our belonging is the key to facing the many challenges currently impacting our world. Using ancient philosophy, multidisciplinary research, exquisite storytelling, and razor-sharp wit, Selassie leads us in an exploration of all the ways we separate (and thus suffer) and offers a map back to belonging. To belong is to experience joy in any moment: to feel pleasure, dance in public, accept death, forgive what seems unforgivable, and extend kindness to yourself and others. To belong is also to acknowledge injustice, reckon with history, and face our own shadows. Full of practical advice and profound revelations, You Belong makes a winning case for resisting the forces that demand separation and reclaiming the connection--and belonging--that have been ours all along.
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Find quiet reflective moments in your life—and reduce your stress levels drastically—with this classic bestselling guide updated and featuring a new introduction and afterword.
When Wherever You Go, There You Are was first published in 1994, no one could have predicted that the book would launch itself onto bestseller lists nationwide and sell over 1 million copies to date. Thirty years later, Wherever You Go, There You Are remains a foundational guide to mindfulness and meditation, introducing readers to the practice and guiding them through the process. The author of over half a dozen books on mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn combines his research and medical background with his spiritual knowledge to help readers find peace and change their lives.
In this new edition, readers will find a new introduction and afterword from Kabat-Zinn, as well as factual updates throughout to address changes in research and knowledge since it was originally published. After the special tumult of the last few years, as well as the promise of more unrest in the future, Wherever You Go, There You Are serves as an anchor for a whole new generation of readers looking to find their center and achieve their true self.
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The Miracle of Mindfulness
Thich Nhat Hanh
Find quiet reflective moments in your life—and reduce your stress levels drastically—with this classic bestselling guide updated and featuring a new introduction and afterword.
When Wherever You Go, There You Are was first published in 1994, no one could have predicted that the book would launch itself onto bestseller lists nationwide and sell over 1 million copies to date. Thirty years later, Wherever You Go, There You Are remains a foundational guide to mindfulness and meditation, introducing readers to the practice and guiding them through the process. The author of over half a dozen books on mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn combines his research and medical background with his spiritual knowledge to help readers find peace and change their lives.
In this new edition, readers will find a new introduction and afterword from Kabat-Zinn, as well as factual updates throughout to address changes in research and knowledge since it was originally published. After the special tumult of the last few years, as well as the promise of more unrest in the future, Wherever You Go, There You Are serves as an anchor for a whole new generation of readers looking to find their center and achieve their true self.
Breath by Breath
Larry Rosenberg
Larry Rosenberg shares his journey of embracing insight meditation through the timeless teachings of the Anapanasati Sutra. Guided by revered teachers like Ajahn Buddhadasa and Thich Nhat Hanh, Rosenberg reveals the sutra’s sixteen contemplations as a comprehensive path to mindfulness, offering readers a practical blueprint for awakening. The book emphasizes the breath as a powerful anchor, leading practitioners from simple awareness to the realization of life’s deepest truths.
Readers will discover how to integrate mindfulness into daily life, transforming ordinary activities into opportunities for presence and clarity. Rosenberg’s personal experiences and insight illuminate the path to cultivating equanimity, compassion, and wisdom, making this ancient practice accessible to contemporary audiences. The book encourages a spirit of openness and nonattachment, guiding readers to experience the liberating wisdom at the heart of the Buddha’s teachings. Rosenberg’s engaging exploration of mindfulness and practical advice invites readers to embrace the breath as a gateway to inner peace and liberation. This work promises to inspire both seasoned practitioners and newcomers alike, offering a fresh perspective on integrating meditation into the fabric of everyday life.
A New Earth
Eckhart Tolle
With his bestselling spiritual guide The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle inspired millions of readers to discover the freedom and joy of a life lived “in the now.” In A New Earth, Tolle expands on these powerful ideas to show how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world. Tolle describes how our attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, and shows readers how to awaken to a new state of consciousness and follow the path to a truly fulfilling existence.
Illuminating, enlightening, and uplifting, A New Earth is a profoundly spiritual manifesto for a better way of life—and for building a better world.
Healing Resistance
Kazu Haga
An expert in the field offers a mindfulness-based approach to nonviolent action, demonstrating how nonviolence is a powerful tool for personal and social transformation
Nonviolence was once considered the highest form of activism and radical change. And yet its basic truth, its restorative power, has been forgotten. In Healing Resistance, leading trainer Kazu Haga blazingly reclaims the energy and assertiveness of nonviolent practice and shows that a principled approach to nonviolence is the way to transform not only unjust systems but broken relationships.
With over 20 years of experience practicing and teaching Kingian Nonviolence, Haga offers us a practical approach to societal conflict first begun by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement, which has been developed into a fully workable, step-by-step training and deeply transformative philosophy (as utilized by the Women’s March and Black Lives Matter movements). Kingian Nonviolence takes on the timely issues of endless protest and activist burnout, and presents tried-and-tested strategies for staying resilient, creating equity, and restoring peace.
An accessible and thorough introduction to the principles of nonviolence, Healing Resistance is an indispensable resource for activists and change agents, restorative justice practitioners, faith leaders, and anyone engaged in social process.
Open Mind Open Heart
Thomas Keating
Thomas Keating was a Cistercian monk who founded the worldwide 'Contemplative Outreach', teaching people the art of meditation.
This is the 20th anniversary edition of Continuum's best-selling spiritual classic, which has sold over half a million in the English language and has appeared in 10 foreign-language editions.
This book is designed to initiate the reader into a deep, living relationship with God. Written by an acknowledged spiritual master, the book moves beyond "discursive meditation and particular acts to the intuitive level of contemplation.
"Keating gives an overview of the history of contemplative prayer in the Christian tradition, and step-by-step guidance in the method of centering prayer. Special attention is paid to the role of the Sacred Word, Christian growth and transformation, and active prayer.
The book ends with an explicit treatment of the contemplative dimension of the gospel. Open Mind, Open Heart will take readers into a world where God can do anything, into a realm of the greatest adventure – “Where one is open to the Infinite and hence to infinite possibilities.
Tattoos on the Heart
Gregory Boyle
“Destined to become a classic of both urban reportage and contemporary spirituality” (Los Angeles Times)—Tattoos on the Heart is a series of parables about kinship and redemption from pastor, activist, and renowned speaker, Father Gregory Boyle.
Thirty years ago, Gregory Boyle founded Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world. In Tattoos on the Heart, his debut book, he distills his experience working with gang members into a breathtaking series of parables inspired by faith.
From giant, tattooed Cesar, shopping at JC Penney fresh out of prison, you learn how to feel worthy of God’s love. From ten-year-old Pipi you learn the importance of being known and acknowledged. From Lulu you come to understand the kind of patience necessary to rescue someone from the dark—as Father Boyle phrases it, we can only shine a flashlight on a light switch in a darkened room.
This is a motivating look at how to stay faithful in spite of failure, how to meet the world with a loving heart, and how to conquer shame with boundless, restorative love.
Mindfulness
Joseph Goldstein
The mind contains the seeds of its own awakening—seeds that we can cultivate to bring forth the fruits of a life lived consciously. With Mindfulness, Joseph Goldstein shares the wisdom of his four decades of teaching and practice in a book that will serve as a lifelong companion for anyone committed to mindful living and the realization of inner freedom. Goldstein’s source teaching is the Satipa??hana Sutta, the Buddha’s legendary discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness that became the basis for the many types of Vipassana (or insight meditation) found today. Exquisite in detail yet wholly accessible and relevant for the modern student, Mindfulness takes us through a profound study of:
• Mindfulness of body, including the breath, postures, activities, and physical characteristics
• Mindfulness of feelings—how the experience of our sense perceptions influences our inner and outer worlds
• Mindfulness of mind—learning to recognize skillful and unskillful states of mind and thought
• Mindfulness of dhammas (or categories of experience), including the Five Hindrances, the Six Sense Spheres, and the Seven Factors of Awakening
“There is a wealth of meaning and nuance in the experience of mindfulness that can enrich our lives in unimagined ways,” writes Goldstein. In Mindfulness you have the tools to mine these riches for yourself.
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