Religion

The perfect introduction to mindfulness--and one of our bestselling local titles! Author Eliza Wing and Illustrator Karen Sandstrom teamed up to create this simple but powerful little book _Just Breathe: A Simple Guide to Meditation_.  Wing is a long-time meditator and teaches mindfulness classes/workshops/retreats locally. Sandstrom is a local artist and illustrator.

Father Dan Begin spent thirty-five years ministering among those who lived in the poorest neighborhood in one of the poorest cities in America--Cleveland, Ohio. He was one of thirteen children, full of stories of growing up in the fifties and sixties in a hardscrabble household of thirty-seven people on Cleveland's West Side. He was a white priest who was welcomed into the homes (and church communities and funeral homes) of African-American families, as well as those of celebrities and athletes. Father Dan was irreverent, articulate, and wise. When he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2016, at the age of sixty-seven, the meaning of his life and ministry came into sharp focus. "Watch me through this," he told his family, friends, and parishioners. Just as he had always showed us how to live, at the end he showed us how to suffer and die with grace. In Lead Me, Guide Me, author Kathy Ewing describes the friendship she had with Father Dan and the profound effects his life had on her and hundreds of others by simply being an ordinary man who possessed extraordinary goodness and love.

The Three Commitments are three methods for embracing the chaotic, uncertain, dynamic, challenging nature of our situation as a path to awakening. The first of the commitments, traditionally called the Pratimoksha Vow, is the foundation for personal liberation. This is a commitment to doing our best to not cause harm with our actions or words or thoughts, a commitment to being good to each other. It provides a structure within which we learn to work with our thoughts and emotions, and to refrain from speaking or acting out of confusion. The next step toward being comfortable with groundlessness is a commitment to helping others, traditionally called the Bodhisattva Vow. It is a commitment to dedicate our lives to keeping our hearts and minds open, and nurturing our compassion with the longing to ease the suffering of the world. The last of the three commitments, traditionally known as the Samaya Vow, is a resolve to embrace the world just as it is, without bias; a resolve to see everything we encounter, good and bad, pleasant and painful, as a manifestation of awakened energy. It is a commitment to see everything and anything as a means by which we can awaken further.