bodhi tree swaying

We’re delighted to announce that through a partnership with More Than Sound, an independent production and publishing company, we now have some excellent new audio digital downloads in our online store. More Than Sound aims to benefit the world by making available audio programs on Emotional Intelligence, leadership, and meditation and mindfulness, and they have [...]

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.

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 …

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…

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

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

Daily OM recently reviewed my audio book, “The Wisdom of the Breath.”

Here’s an extract.

Bodhipaksa’s mission here is to guide us towards a clear perception of our interconnected reality, giving us the strength to transcend the illusion of our own separateness and permanence. With his mellow guidance we “explore the interconnected reality of the universe in which we live.” When we are focused in our breathing we are able to feel that interconnectedness, the joy of union with the divine counters the feeling of loss that may accompany the undoing of our egoic desires. The ego itself is revealed as a mere knot in the chain that’s come to think of itself as separate from the chain, but once untangled, sees it’s much more powerful with all the other links to hold and be held by. With The Wisdom of the Breath, Bodhipaksa, helps us undo the knots and feel,

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Last year I announced that the second edition of Wildmind: A Step-by-Step Guide to Meditation would have a new cover. And I was very excited about it.

Since then, however, the publication date got moved back because they publisher was moving and had some staffing problems. And the staffing problem included the designer departing and not leaving a copy of the cover art. Sigh. So the cover above is the new proposed design.

In retrospect, although I was excited about the old design, I think this one has lasting appeal. It’s a bit conventional, but it more than does the job.

The launch of the second edition of “Vegetarianism: A Buddhist View” is on Friday, November 13 (by the way, you’re invited to my online launch party).

From the Guardian, a couple of days ago.

Eating meat could become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving because of the impact it has on global warming, according to a senior authority on climate change.

Lord Stern of Brentford, former adviser to the government on the economics of climate change, said people will have to consider turning vegetarian to help reduce global carbon emissions.

“Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better,” Stern said.

Farmed ruminant animals, including cattle and sheep, are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of “man-made” methane emissions worldwide.

Stern, whose 2006 Stern Review

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A few weeks back I was interviewed by the awesome Tami Simon, who is the founder and owner of Sounds True, the publisher of spirituality audiobooks. Sounds True just sent me this attractive “e-flier,” which unfortunately I had to scrunch a little to get it to fit into a post. The original looks just a bit nicer. Anyway, there’s a link to the podcast of the interview in the flier. I haven’t listened to it myself and I’m looking forward to hearing what I said. I hope it made sense!

Bodhipaksa: Living as a River

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Natalie Portman has a piece in the Huffington Post responding to Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, a book she credits with moving her from being a vegetarian to being a vegan activist. I’m experiencing a bit of that myself, having recently returned to veganism, even though I haven’t yet read the book and won’t have time to for months yet. (I’m writing a book of my own).

This is just an extract — do read the whole article.

The human cost of factory farming — both the compromised welfare of slaughterhouse workers and, even more, the environmental effects of the mass production of animals — is staggering. Foer details the copious amounts of pig shit sprayed into the air that result in great spikes in human respiratory ailments, the development of new bacterial strains due to overuse of antibiotics on farmed

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Remember that Friday Nov 13 is the date for my online book-launch party to celebrate the arrival of my book on Buddhism and vegetarianism: Vegetarianism: A Buddhist View.

Slate has an interesting article on the CO2 footprint of tofu:

Soybeans themselves are a highly efficient source of protein: According to one recent study, it takes about 0.2 calories of fossil fuels to make a calorie of soybean protein, a little more than one-thirtieth of the total for chicken. Soy is also much better from a global-warming perspective: In conventional production, a kilogram of raw beans generates about 150 grams to 300 grams of carbon-dioxide equivalent, as opposed to 2,500 grams for the equivalent quantity of edible chicken meat. (Organic soybeans should produce even less CO2 equivalent.

So that’s really an amazing saving in CO2 emissions, especially when you consider that red meat …

I came across this 2006 article thanks to a friend on Twitter. It reports on a study investigating why intelligent people are less likely to get heart disease, and discovering that they are more likely to be vegetarian.

The launch of the second edition of “Vegetarianism: A Buddhist View” is on Friday, November 13 (by the way, you’re invited to my online launch party).

Intelligent children may be more likely to be vegetarian as adults, suggests a University of Southampton-led study published online by the British Medical Journal today.

The study led by Dr Catharine Gale of the University’s MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre looked to see why people with higher IQs appeared to be less likely to suffer from heart disease.

‘We examined the records of 8179 men and women aged 30 years, whose IQ had been tested at the age

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Friday, November 13. An easy date to remember!

It’s the day that the new and updated edition of my book on Buddhism and Vegetarianism, Vegetarianism: A Buddhist View, will become available.

I’m celebrating the day by dedicating my whole time to being on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/bodhipaksa), (Facebook), and my blog (that’s where you are right now), talking about Buddhism and vegetarianism. And just generally hanging out as well, so that things don’t get too serious.

As well as playing the suave host and urging people to mingle, mingle, mingle, I’ll be posting articles, quotes, and video to feed into a discussion about this important topic. I’ll also be happy to take questions.

I’ll be online all day, from 9 until 9 (Eastern), but you can drop by on any of those three platforms (again, that’s Twitter, Facebook, my blog). Just remember to say “hi”! …