Tibetan Art Calendar 2011

This calendar is no longer available for purchase.

Poster-sized reproductions of classical paintings produced to the highest standards. Wisdom’s Tibetan Art Calendar is an annual favorite.

The antique scroll-art masterpieces seen in Wisdom’s Tibetan Art Calendar 2010 are called thangkas. While the thangka is common to Tibetan Buddhists, its finest examples are highly sought-after in the international art community and have become hot properties in the same vein as Oriental rugs and ceramics. As a result, the best of these works are seldom, if ever, available for public viewing.

This is why Wisdom’s Tibetan Art Calendar is so special. It’s an affordable way to enjoy incredibly rare and meaningful works of sacred art, year-round. These thirteen sacred paintings by Tibet’s master painters represent a variety of classical images, mandalas, deities, and icons. Each poster-sized picture is produced to the highest German printing standards, and is suitable for framing. Complete with in-depth explanations of their cultural and philosophical significance, these exquisite fine art reproductions will be treasured for years to come.

Please note that calendars are unable to ship via USPS Media Mail. If you are ordering a calendar and Wisdom books, you should place the book orders separately to ensure the least expensive shipping.

Images in the 2011 calendar are:

  • Arhat Abheda
  • Vajrabhairava
  • Dharmaraja
  • Buddha’s Miracles
  • Shri Heruka
  • Prayer to Padmasambhava
  • Bardo of Ultimate Reality
  • Mandala of Guhyasamaja
  • Shakyamuni and sixteen Arhats
  • Mandala of Vajrabhairava
  • Bardo and Yama
  • Begtse
  • Four Armed Mahakala

Dying with Confidence

Anyen Rinpoche’s wise and reassuring voice guides readers through the Tibetan Buddhist teachings on death and dying, while providing practical tools for end-of-life and estate planning. Dying with Confidence reads like a remarkable how-to guide, laying out in clear and straightforward language the preparations we must make and the best practices to use while dying to further our goal of enlightenment.

Nothing Is Hidden

In this inspiring and incisive offering, Barry Magid uses the language of modern psychology and psychotherapy to illuminate one of Buddhisms most powerful and often mysterious technologies: the Zen koan. What’s more, Magid also uses the koans to expand upon the insights of psychology (especially self psychology and relational psychotherapy) and open for the reader new perspectives on the functioning of the human mind and heart. Nothing Is Hidden explores many rich themes, including facing impermanence and the inevitability of change, working skillfully with desire and attachment, and discovering when “surrender and submission” can be liberating and when they shade into emotional bypassing. With a sophisticated view of the rituals and teachings of traditional Buddhism, Magid helps us see how we sometimes subvert meditation into just another “curative fantasy” or make compassion into a form of masochism.

The Way of Awakening

The print version of this book is currently out of stock. Check back soon.

One of the great classics of Buddhist literature, the Bodhicharyavatara, or Way of the Bodhisattva, is required reading for understanding Tibetan Buddhism. Shantideva was a seventh-century Buddhist master who taught at the great monastic university of Nalanda. Presented in the form of a personal meditation in verse, the Bodhicharyavatara outlines the path of the bodhisattvas—those who renounce the peace of their own salvation, vowing instead to attain enlightenment for the sake of all others. The Dalai Lama once remarked that his own understanding of the bodhisattva path is based entirely upon Shantideva’s text.

As long as space endures,
As long as sentient beings remain,
May I likewise remain
To dispel the sorrows of the world.

—Shantideva

The Way of Awakening is without question the most comprehensive single commentary on this text available. Expounded by an accomplished scholar and deeply realized meditator, it is a resource for a lifetime of study. Chapter by chapter and verse by verse, it maps the Bodhicharyavatara, helping us to deepen our understanding of its teachings and apply them to our lives.

Real Meditation in Minutes a Day

As seen in Newsweek.

Got a few minutes? You can:

  • Reduce your stress, even when under pressure
  • Sleep better
  • Get re-energized
  • Think more clearly, and more creatively
  • Reconnect with the people who count on you
  • Learn to recognize and encourage the best in yourself

You know that meditation would probably be good for you, just like you know that you should floss your teeth. First, though, you need the motivation to make it happen. This book, with its jargon—free tone and incredibly simple exercises-little but effective things you can do in just a minute at work, in the car, wherever-will make you want to meditate. You’ll realize: it’s just a good thing to do. Like flossing—only for your mind.

Real Meditation in Minutes a Day is an easygoing, always-encouraging mental workout buddy, ready to teach and train you. Throughout the book, composite everypersons “Maria” and “Brian” recount their efforts, reinforcing the basics, answering FAQs, and removing common obstacles and quandaries.

With its clear language and exercises that even the busiest of us can find time for, Real Meditation in Minutes a Day can help anyone to make meditation’s very real benefits part of everyday life.

Know Where You’re Going

Know Where You’re Going provides a full course of instruction in Buddhist meditation and reflection, and contains a wealth of exercises and advice to help the reader grow. As we put these teachings into practice over time, we learn to see things as they really are and discover transcendence right here in our everyday lives.

Ayya Khema shows us how to live a wholehearted spiritual life, even amid our day to day concerns and responsibilities. Her teachings unfold simply, free of jargon, and are ideal for the contemporary world. Grounding the practice of more advanced meditations in a deeply cultivated sense of mindfulness, love, and altruism, Khema shows us, step by step, how to access to liberation and freedom. Originally published as When the Iron Eagle Flies.

Zen Meditation in Plain English

An excellent, practical introduction to Zen meditation. Written in a warm and easily accessible style, this book appeals to anyone with an interest in meditation, Zen, or, as is often the case today, a combination of the two. The book emphasizes the importance of receiving good instruction and of finding groups to practice with, yet it lays out the necessary steps to practice Zen meditation on your own. The book includes easily followed exercises to help the reader along. For anyone looking to uncover a clear and insightful path into the philosophy and practice of Zen meditation, this book represents the culmination of that search.

Jaya’s Golden Necklace

While on a very important mission from the King, young Jaya encounters the deities Shiva, Inanna, and Hercules. Leaping from gold coins on her mother’s golden necklace, they help Jaya achieve her goal and discover strengths she didn’t know she had.

Jaya’s Golden Necklace is the first children’s book to tell of the origin and cultural roots of the beloved Buddha image. A story of East and West, it teaches lessons and entertains while also opening a door into Asian culture. Set along the Silk Road, Jaya’s journey highlights the interconnected and multicultural worlds of yesterday and today.

This engaging, fast-moving tale of empowerment will help children relate better to the powerful beings in human history’s rich religions and myths. It also conveys the independence, resilience, and creativity that make Jaya a true heroine for today.

Watch a video about Jaya’s Golden Necklace:

Medicine and Compassion

It is estimated that nearly one-third of the U.S. adult population acts as informal caregivers for ill or disabled loved ones. We can add to these countless workers in the fields of health and human service, and yet there is still not enough help to go around.

Sure to be welcomed by caregivers of all types, this new edition of the groundbreaking Medicine and Compassion can help anyone reconnect with the true spirit of their caregiving task. In a clear and very modern voice, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche and Dr. David R. Shlim use the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism to present practical tools for revitalizing the caring spirit.

Offering practical advice on dealing with people who are angry at their medical conditions or their care providers, people who are dying, or the families of those who are critically ill, Medicine and Compassion provides needed inspiration to any who wish to reenergize their patience, kindness, and effectiveness. The warmth and care in these pages is sure to strike a resonant chord with medical professionals, hospice workers, teachers and parents of children with special needs, and those caring for aging and infirm loved ones.

Sitting Together Activity Book

This book is filled with over 50 coloring pages, games, mazes, and other fun activities for children ages 3-12. Though designed to be used with the Sitting Together curriculum, it can also be used on its own. This book is perfect for any family, Dharma center, yoga studio, or organization that wants to incorporate mindfulness into their children’s activities.

 

Check out MindfulFamilies.net: mindfulness, meditation, and Buddhist resources for families >>

 

Vajrasattva Meditation

The force of our past actions makes it hard to attain our goals, including success in meditation. And so Buddhism has developed methods for purifying our past, clearing the obstacles to success and fulfillment. One of the most popular methods for karmic housekeeping, one common to all schools of Tibetan Buddhism, is the preparatory practice of visualizing the buddha Vajrasattva and reciting his hundred-syllable mantra. It is considered an essential foundation for the success of spiritual endeavor.

The practice of Vajrasattva is often the first experience practitioners have of trying to perform tantric ritual. Combining prayers, visualizations, mantra recitations, and multiple styles of meditation, it can be hard for those who did not grow up in the tradition to know how to proceed. This friendly volume by a young Tibetan lama with many followers in China lays out the practice step by step accompanied by sixty color illustrations.

Detox Your Heart

Valerie Mason-John knows what it is like to be filled with toxic emotions—and how to release them. After years of abuse and struggles with addiction, she was mired in anger, resentment, and fear. But through meditation and willingness to forge a new path, she learned how to disarm such toxins and find peace.

In Detox Your Heart Mason-John helps us recognize our emotions, good and bad, and to develop the self-care to heal ourselves. Chapters that explore and clearly define negative emotions are paired with chapters on how to transform them. Meditation exercises based on the Buddhist principles of mindfulness, loving-kindness, and compassion provide tools to help us heal our own hurts and to close the gap that toxic emotions create between heart and mind.

This revised and expanded edition includes forewords from angel Kyodo williams and Christopher Titmuss.

The Dharma of Star Wars

“What is the Dharma? And what in Sith spit does it have to do with Star Wars? Well, if you’re like me, it has everything to do with that glorious galaxy far, far away…”

Here, the modern space saga and the ancient words of the Buddha illuminate each other in playful and unexpectedly rewarding ways, answering questions such as

Is Yoda a Zen Master?
Do Jedis practice mindfulness?
Did attachment cause Darth Vader’s turn to the Dark Side?

Covering everything from A New Hope to The Clone Wars, this revised and expanded edition provides a unique take on the intergalactic epic and an inspiring introduction to Buddhism.

When the Anger Ogre Visits

When the Anger Ogre Visits gives children symbolic and concrete guidance about how to deal with anger as a natural part of their inner lives. Rather than squelching anger or pushing it away, the book invites children to sit with and observe anger, removing its overwhelming aspects. This playfully illustrated story, written in memorable rhyme, centers on discovering and using internal resources and portrays anger as manageable.

 

How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness

Chronic illness creates many challenges, from career crises and relationship issues to struggles with self-blame, personal identity, and isolation. Beloved author Toni Bernhard addresses these challenges and many more, using practical examples to illustrate how mindfulness, equanimity, and compassion can help readers make peace with a life turned upside down.

In her characteristic conversational style, Bernhard shows how to cope and make the most of life despite the challenges of chronic illness. Benefit from:

  • Mindfulness exercises to mitigate physical and emotional pain
  • Concrete advice for negotiating the everyday hurdles of medical appointments, household chores, and social obligations
  • Tools for navigating the strains illness can place on relationships

Several chapters are directed toward family and friends of the chronically ill, helping them to understand what their loved one is going through and how they can help.

Humorous and empathetic, Bernhard shares her own struggles and setbacks with unflinching honesty, offering invaluable support in the search to find peace and well-being.

Other helpful books from Toni include:

How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers

How to Be Sick: Your Pocket Companion

How to Wake Up: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide to Navigating Joy and Sorrow

Authorized Lives

In Authorized Lives, Elijah Ary, former Geluk monk, recognized tulku, and Harvard-trained scholar, looks at various commonly accepted conceptions of Tsongkhapa’s biography. He demonstrates how these conceptions evolved in the decades after his death.

Delving into the early Geluk biographical tradition, Ary follows the tracks of this evolution in the biographies of Tsongkhapa and Khedrup. This is the first work devoted to early Geluk history and to the role of biographies in shifting established lineages. As the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism that provides the intellectual backdrop for the Dalai Lama’s teachings, the Geluk lineage traces its origins to the figure of Tsongkhapa Losang Drakpa (1357-1419). Gelukpas today believe Tsongkhapa is a manifestation of the bodhisattva Manjushri and revere him with his two heart disciples, Gyaltsap and Khedrup. But as Ary points out, both of these conceptions of Tsongkhapa arose many decades after his death. Delving into the early Geluk biographical tradition, Ary follows the tracks of this evolution in the biographies of Tsongkhapa, Khedrup, and the influential early Geluk writer and reformer Jetsun Chokyi Gyaltsen.

Learn more about the Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism series.

An Intelligent Life

The idea that our experiences in life are shaped by our own minds is fundamental to Buddhist philosophy. An Intelligent Life uses the principles of Buddhist philosophy to explore how best to make use of our lives in order to benefit ourselves and others. Building on the foundation of core Buddhist concepts like the ego, interdependence, and karma, Professor Yokoyama presents a uniquely practical application of Buddhist philosophy.

By understanding how intimately our own habits of mind are related to the world that we experience, we begin to see how many of our everyday actions are founded on ignorance rather than intelligence. If you steadily work to transform your everyday habits, through meditation and reflection on the true nature of your experiences, you will come to forget your ego, feel more closely related to others, and gain access to the inestimable well of happiness and health that rests within. Learning to see ourselves and the world for what they truly are, we learn how to live truly intelligent lives.

Buddhism for Dudes

In Buddhism for Dudes, Gerry “Strib” Stribling, former Marine and all-around good guy, answers questions on life and living with a healthy dose of Buddhist wisdom for the regular guy. Strib takes a good look at who the Buddha was, meditation, karma, and more. With good humor and without sentimentalism (plus a sprinkling of hilarious cartoons), he explains these down-to-earth insights in everyday language. Showing how Buddhism boldly approaches life’s problems head on, unflinching and alert—like a soldier in a forward listening post in the dark of night—Strib emphasizes the Buddhist call to moral action for the good of oneself and others.

Living Mindfully

Like a wise friend or kind teacher, Deborah Schoeberlein David—educator, meditator, and mother—walks you through a complete, easy-to-follow curriculum of mindfulness practice.

Beginning with the very basics of noticing your breath, David shows how simple mindfulness practices can be utterly transforming. Each practice builds on the previous exercise like a stepping stone, until you have the tools to bring mindfulness into every aspect of your life including sex, parenting, relationships, job stresses, and more.

This is an approachable guide for anyone who desires positive change.

Shantideva

Shantideva: How to Wake Up a Hero is the retelling of Shantideva’s teachings before a surprised audience, who had thought he was useless and could only eat, sleep, and poop. Leading his listeners into a superhero training of different kind, he reveals the secret to perfect bravery and unbounded compassion and shows how anyone can develop them. You don’t need super-strength or magical powers, he says. You just need practice.

Over a dozen illustrations painted in traditional Tibetan style draw readers into this work that will be treasured not only by Buddhist families but by anyone who aspires to become more kind and wise.