bodhi tree swaying

Peter’s book is a lovely thing: it’s a year of reflections by someone who practices Buddhism but resists the label “Buddhist.”

I was pleased to hear that one of my audiobooks is doing well on Audible.com, the audiobook company. This is from American Consumer News:

The Wisdom of the Breath: Three Guided Meditations for Calming the Mind and Cultivating Insight is now available as an audiobook from Audible.com. The book, published by Sounds True and written by Bodhipaksa, has also made Audible.com’s Best Sellers List for the week of January, 1 2011.

The audiobook version of The Wisdom of the Breath: Three Guided Meditations for Calming the Mind and Cultivating Insight, narrated by Bodhipaksa, has received an average rating of 4.67. The title has a run length of 2 hours and 13 min. The book was first released in January 2010 and a sample of the audiobook is available for download.

How cool. You can now download the first chapter of Living as a River, completely free! It’s in PDF format.

Click on this link to start the download.

Have at it!

I had a lovely hour-long interview yesterday with Jeff Ferrannini of the radio program, Planetary Spirit, which is affiliated with Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. The discussion was about my book, Living as a River, which Jeff apparently both loved and was “disconcerted” by (that’s the exact word he used in conversation with me). That’s great. I want the book to be spiritually subversive!

Here’s a link to stream the interview.

Or if you want to download the file for later listening, you can use this link.

Recently I was interviewed by E. Christopher Clark of the Geek Force Five blog. He started by asking me about Living as a River (my new book) but then veered into a discussion of the TV dramas, Lost and Battlestar Galactica. (How well he knows me!) It was a fun interview!

Here’s a link to the article.

This is a video of me reading one of my favorite parts of Living as a River. It features the extraordinary story of the first flight across the US.

“Of great help to people interested in meditation and an inspiring reminder to those on the path.”

Joseph Goldstein, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society and author of One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism

My book, Wildmind: A Step-by-Step Guide to Meditation, is now available in the UK, and will shortly be available in the US (estimated date is Nov 12), which is the day after Wildmind (the website)’s birthday. You can get the book from Amazon.co.uk, and from Windhorse Publications.

On Wednesday I talked about Living as a River at Nagaloka Buddhist Center, Portland, Maine. Here’s a wee extract.

The sound level’s a bit low, I’m afraid, but with your volume cranked up you should just about know what I’m saying.

Amazon has an amazing new widget that allows bloggers to post chapters of books online. That’s bloggable in itself, since it makes book selling (and buying) a heck of a lot easier. I think Amazon have a winner here, especially given that the widget not only plugs Amazon’s Kindle reading device, but allows people to buy Kindle books at the click of a button. (One question — why do they assume that people reading a book online are only interested in the Kindle edition? Why not have a direct link to paperback and hardback editions as well?)

Speaking of which, here’s the direct link to the Kindle edition, and to the paperback versions on Wildmind, Sounds True, Amazon.com, and Amazon.co.uk.

Anyway, what I meant to say was that you can read the introductory chapter to Living as River below. I’d suggest switching the reader to full screen …

I’m buzzed. I just heard that the Kindle edition of Living as a River is available on Amazon.com.

It doesn’t seem to be listed as a Kindle edition on Amazon.co.uk — can people in the UK buy from the US Amazon Kindle store?

Anyway, click here to see the Amazon.com Kindle listing.

I must say I’m tempted to buy the Kindle edition just to see what it looks like. I don’t have a Kindle, but I have the Kindle app on my iPhone and it would be lovely to be able to carry a copy of the book around in my pocket. And I hold out the hope that we’ll have enough money so that I can get a Kindle for my birthday or Christmas. Of course that …

I have a few more interviews lined up, and I’ll try to remember to post them here once they go live. Here’s one I did a couple of weeks ago, talking with Krysta Gibson of New Spirit Journal about my new book.

This links directly to the MP3 file, so you can either left-click and listen in your browser, or right click and download to listen in iTunes or whatever media player you use.

It was recorded on an ancient-looking land-line in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the sound on my end is rather muffled. Sometimes it might be inaudible, but maybe that will encourage you to go out and buy my book so that you can work out what the heck I was saying…

I enjoyed being interviewed by Paul John Roach of “World Spirituality” on Unity.fm the other day.

You can listen to the podcast here (MP3 link).

It’s been a long wait, but copies of my book have arrived in the Sounds True offices, and a copy is now on its way to me. I’m hoping they sent it overnight. They probably did, since the crew at the True are exceptionally kind and generous…

Thanks to E. Christopher Clark for bringing this Facebook ad to my attention. I use an adblocker and so I’d never have seen it, otherwise. I wonder if it would have appeared in my sidebar anyway?

I just came across (and I’m sorry if this sounds circuitous) Cory Doctorow’s account of a review of a biography of the science fiction writer, Robert Heinlein. The biography sounds worth reading, especially if you are (or have been) a fan of Heinlein’s writing.

The first volume of William H Patterson’s enormous Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century is out. It’s the first authorized biography of the sf writer who popularized at least three important motifs of the 20th century (polyamory, private space travel and libertarianism) and redefined the field of science fiction with a series of novels, stories and essays that are usually brilliant but sometimes self-indulgent, sometimes offensive in their treatment of race and gender, and always provocative and generally sneaky.

The best review I’ve read of this book so far comes from John Clute, one of the field’s

…

There’s a tantalizingly brief interview in the Guardian with linguist Guy Deutscher, who holds with the rather unpopular notion that language shapes the way we perceive the world. He gives a rather fascinating example of an Australian language which doesn’t have notions like left/right or behind/in front of, but instead uses the cardinal directions to indicate relative position. This gives the language’s speakers a kind of mental GPS system, so that they are always aware of direction.

I argue that the mother tongue has considerable influence on the way we think and perceive the world. But there’s a great deal of historical baggage attached to this question and so most respectable psychologists and linguists won’t touch it with a bargepole.

It’s like being a historian and talking about national character, isn’t it?

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Sounds True recently sent me the copy for the back cover of Living as a River:

“At a time when it’s increasingly challenging to find clear and honest direction on the spiritual path, Living as a River offers contemporary insight into an ancient practice and wise counsel we can trust. This book is both beautifully written and useful to all serious seekers.”
—Mariana Caplan, PhD, author of Eyes Wide Open: Cultivating Discernment on the Spiritual Path and Halfway Up the Mountain: The Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment

To face reality is to embrace change; to resist change is to suffer. This is the liberating insight that unfolds with Living as a River. A masterful investigation of the nature of self, this eloquent blend of current science and time-honored spiritual insight is meant to free us from the fear of impermanence in a world defined by change.

The primary vehicle for

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Shelly, on the the publicists at Sounds True, has been pushing my forthcoming book, Living as a River: Finding Fearlessness in the Face of Change, at Book Expo America in NYC. (I’m sorry for using the phrase “The Big Apple.” It’s tacky and I promise not to do it again.) Anyway, Shelly kindly sent me a couple of photos of the book from the expo!

The publicity is coming together for my forthcoming book, Living as a River. Click on the image below to download the PDF presskit.

“Living as a River” is working its way towards publication, and today I was sent the proposed page layout for the book. This illustrates design features such as the typeface, spacing, etc. I like the design and was happy to approve it.

Incidentally, the designers used the version of the manuscript prior to proofreading, so don’t be too shocked if you see a typo.