The Open-Focus Brain

4 General Open-Focus Training

3 Head and Hands in Open Focus

2013 Nautilus Award Winner - Silver

Here’s a drug-free, side effect–free solution to common stress and mood problems—developed by two physicians. Millions of Americans suffer from mood problems and stress-related issues including anxiety, depression, insomnia, and trauma-induced emotions and behaviors; and most would prefer not to take medication for their conditions due to troublesome side effects, withdrawal symptoms, and disappointing success rates.

Drs. Richard P. Brown and Patricia L. Gerbarg provide a drug-free alternative that works through a range of simple breathing techniques drawn from yoga, Buddhist meditation, the Chinese practice of qigong, Orthodox Christian monks, and other sources. These methods have been scientifically shown to be effective in alleviating specific stress and mood challenges such as anxiety, insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and many others. The authors explain how breathing practices activate communication pathways between the mind and the body, positively impacting the brain and calming the stress response. The enclosed audio program guides readers through the techniques and helps make these breathing practices an ongoing part of daily life.

This book and CD set includes breathing techniques to relieve
anxiety and depression
trauma-related emotions and behaviors
post-traumatic stress disorder
insomnia
addiction-related behaviors

It also offers breathing techniques to enhance concentration, peak performance, and personal relationships.

The Healing Power Of The Breath

Total Breath 2

Body Scan

Total Breath

Coherent Breathing

Introduction

The Awakening Body - Somatic Meditation for Discovering Our Deepest Life

Practice Three: Yin Breathing

Practice Two: Earth Descent and Earth Breathing

Practice One: Ten Points Practice

These six audio practices accompany The Luminous Self—a guide to self-remembrance with practices, meditations, and self-inquiry questions inspired by yoga and Tantra to help you connect with your inner wisdom, remember your wholeness, and live with clarity and compassion—by the bestselling author of Radiant Rest.

01 As Above, So Below Meditation

Bring Me the Rhinoceros is an unusual guide to happiness and a can opener for your thinking. For fifteen hundred years, Zen koans have been passed down through generations of masters, usually in private encounters between teacher and student. This book deftly retells more than a dozen traditional koans, which are partly paradoxical questions dangerous to your beliefs and partly treasure boxes of ancient wisdom. Koans show that you don’t have to impress people or change into an improved, more polished version of yourself. Instead you can find happiness by unbuilding, unmaking, throwing overboard, and generally subverting unhappiness. John Tarrant brings the heart of the koan tradition out into the open, reminding us that the old wisdom remains as vital as ever, a deep resource available to anyone in any place or time.

Running time: 5 hours, 9 minutes

Bring Me The Rhinoceros audiobook sample

Discover how to embrace the dark side of your personality, the unconscious and repressed aspects—or the shadow self, as introduced by Carl Jung—to live a fuller, more authentic life.

Our “shadow” is the collection of negative or undesirable traits we keep hidden—the things we don't like about ourselves or are ashamed of, but it also includes our positive, untapped potential. The shadow is often a source of creative inspiration and greater self-acceptance. Befriending the shadow makes fear an ally and enables us to live more authentically. It also automatically improves our interpersonal relationships, because we are freed from the need to project our own negativity onto others, and we become more acutely aware when theirs is projected onto us.

David Richo looks for where the shadow manifests in our personal life, family interactions, religion, relationships, and the world around us. He shows how to use the gentle practice of mindfulness to work with our shadow side, and he provides numerous exercises for going deeper. He is remarkably skillful at making the shadow concept not only easy to understand but supremely practical for enhancing the quality of our lives.

Shadow Dance audiobook sample

In this renowned translation of Buddhism’s most widely read scripture, freshly updated for a new generation of readers, Gil Fronsdal provides extensive explanatory notes and easy-to-understand insight for practice. Whether a practicing Buddhist of any tradition or simply a reader of the world’s literary classics, all will be enriched by this centuries-old wisdom.

The Dhammapada audiobook sample

Your genuine, go-to overview of Tibetan Buddhism from a leading contemporary teacher who has traversed the wisdom path.

This guide shares Tibetan Buddhist insight and tools that will benefit everyone in transforming their mind. Khenpo Sodargye, who has attracted hundreds of thousands of students worldwide with his concise, easy-to-follow teaching style, sketches the big picture of the Mahayana path in straightforward language with stories relevant to everyday life.

Tibetan Buddhism audiobook sample

Psychotherapist, author of The Heroine’s Journey, and influential writing teacher Maureen Murdock explores connections between ancient myths and popular contemporary memoirs to help readers examine their own life patterns and map their personal stories. Looking at myth foundations as well as archetypal themes, this illuminating book probes universal questions like: Who am I? What is my journey? Where is home? With excerpts from beloved memoirs, practical advice, and writing prompts, readers will gain a deeper understanding of the rich scope of the memoir genre. And in turn, they’ll come out with a better grasp on their own life trajectory and their place within the rich tapestry of the human experience.

Running time: 5 hours, 16 minutes

Mythmaking audiobook sample

Many regard alchemy as a metaphor for inner transformation. But this is only half the story. According to Catherine MacCoun, alchemy is no mere metaphor. It’s real magic. Transforming the inner world is, for the alchemist, a way to transform the outer world. Through studying the principles of alchemy, we can achieve extraordinary effects from ordinary actions by understanding how the world really works. We can perceive the hidden connections between the spiritual and the material worlds. Knowledge of these connections enables us to influence external phenomena through the powers of heart and mind alone. Yet alchemy is not, like some forms of magic, the exercise of mind over matter. It is the art of taking what already exists—whatever presents itself—and transmuting the harmful into the helpful, the useless into the valuable. On Becoming an Alchemist initiates us into these secrets, showing us how to think, perceive, and operate as an alchemist. 

Running time: 12 hours, 4 minutes

On Becoming An Alchemist audiobook sample

Tulku Pema Rigtsal gave this teaching on Longchenpa and his Seven Treasues in Niwot, CO, Feb 28, 2024.

Tulku Pema Rigtsal - Longchenpa and His Seven Treasuries

More than just a tool to diagnose your personality type, the Enneagram was originally developed to help people find the ultimate freedom of consciousness and achieve spiritual liberation. A. H. Almaas brings us back to this original mission as he shares the essential keys that will help readers break free from the limitations and distortions of each type’s fixation—and to express their true spiritual nature in everyday life.

Running time: 6 hours, 23 minutes

Keys To The Enneagram audiobook sample

Why do things happen the way they do in our lives? How do we create the causes for a happy life? The Buddhist practice of mind training gives us the answer to these questions: it involves overcoming our self-centered attitude and replacing it with an attitude that cherishes others. This, in turn, leads us to act in ways that naturally lead away from suffering and toward happiness—in short, to create good karma. Thubten Chodron offers a commentary on one of the great Tibetan Buddhist poems, The Wheel of Sharp Weapons, which shows, clearly and practically, how to eliminate the causes of anxiety, fear, and depression and to create the causes of joyful liberation for oneself and all others.

Good Karma audiobook sample

Written and read by Sharon Salzberg

Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and find a greater sense of connection with others. Our fear of intimacy—both with others and with ourselves—creates feelings of pain and longing. But these feelings can also awaken in us the desire for freedom and the willingness to take up the spiritual path.

The practice of lovingkindness is revolutionary because it has the power to radically change our lives, helping us cultivate true happiness in ourselves and genuine compassion for others. The Buddha described the nature of such a spiritual path as “the liberation of the heart, which is love.” The author draws on simple Buddhist teachings, wisdom stories from various traditions, guided meditation practices, and her own experience from over thirty years of practice and teaching to illustrate how each one of us can cultivate love, compassion, joy, and equanimity—the four “heavenly abodes” of traditional Buddhism.

Lovingkindness audiobook sample

These are the audio excercises to accompany the book Sitting Still Life a Frog by Eline Snel from Shambhala Publications, available here:
https://www.shambhala.com/sitting-still-like-a-frog-2968.html

Sitting Still Like A Frog: Mindfulness Exercises For Kids (And Their Parents)

Exercise 11 - Sleep Tight

Exercise 6 - First Aid for Unpleasant Feelings

Exercise 4 - The Spaghetti Test

Exercise 3 - Attention to the Breath

Exercise 2 -  The Little Frog

Exercise 1 - Sitting Still Like a Frog

LamRim Guided Meditations

A4. Recitations

A3. Breathing Meditation

A2. Meditation on the Buddha

The Mindfulness Prescription for ADHD

Sound, Breath, and Body

Mindful Breathing

Somatic Descent

Guided Practice I-A (Ten Points)

Practice Six: Into the Void

Practice Five: Healing Moon Nectar

Practice Four: Altar of the Heart

Practice Three: Essential Activation

Practice Two: Waves of AUM

Practice One: Grounding Deep Relaxation

Shambhala Publications' podcasts and audiobook excerpts.  Visit Shambhala.com for more books, articles, videos, news, courses, events, and more.

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