Books and CDs

 A Life of Being, Having and Doing Enough

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About this book:
We have forgotten what enough feels like.

As the pace of life quickens and the economic crisis deepens, people feel overwhelmed, unhappy, and afraid. Many are losing jobs, health, and vitality. We feel ourselves drowning under the impossible multiplication of activities, responsibilities, deadlines and requirements – and we all but abandon the pursuit of happiness and peace. How do we know when what we offer, whatever we are able to give in this moment, for this day — who we are and what we do, is enough?

In his bold new book, Wayne Muller – mentor, philanthropist, community organizer, minister and bestselling author of Sabbath and Legacy of the Heart – calls for the reclamation of an unhurried, deeply sufficient life. He rigorously challenges how our culture relentlessly pushes us to strive for more, to be bigger, better, faster, more useful. Because, he insists, this same culture absolutely fails to fulfill its promise: to supposedly reward us with a life of comfort, peace and ease that will never, ever come.

“Every single choice we make, no matter how small, is the ground where who we are meets what is in the world. And the fruits of that essential relationship— the intimate, fertile conversation between our own heart’s wisdom and the way the world has emerged before us— becomes a lifelong practice of deep and sacred listening for the next right thing we are required to do. We make the only choice that feels authentic and honest, necessary and true in that moment.”
    — WAYNE MULLER
        (from A Life of Being, Having and Doing Enough)

“This book can preserve your sanity and save your life.”
    — LARRY DOSSEY, MD, author of The Power of Premonitions

Also available from: Barnes and Noble, Borders, Indie Bound and other selected bookstores.

Sabbath
Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in our Busy Lives

About this book:
In the relentless busyness of modern life, we have lost the rhythm between action and rest. When action is universally prescribed as more useful than rest, we inevitably lose our way. We bypass the nourishment that would give us succour, and we reject the quiet that would give us wisdom. Poisoned by this hypnotic belief that good things come only through unceasing striving and tireless effort, we can never truly rest. And for want of rest, our lives are in danger.

All spiritual traditions insist that a life well-lived requires rest. Only from rest may we gain the nourishment, wisdom, courage and clarity necessary to heal the world. In this book, Wayne Muller explores how we may reclaim the wisdom and delight that make our lives and work fruitful.

"Wayne Muller’s message is one of the wisest treatments of stress I have ever come across."
     — CAROLINE MYSS, Anatomy of the Spirit and Defy Gravity

Legacy of the Heart
The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood

About this book:
It requires a tremendous leap of faith to imagine that our deepest sorrows, our losses and our grief, may become gifts for us. In this bestselling book, featured on Oprah, Wayne Muller explores how the pain and hurt of our lives can become catalysts that bring forth remarkable strength and wisdom, courage and peace. We do not need to repair what we believe is damaged, so much as to awaken what is already alive and well, a deep, spiritual magic that burns bright and refuses to be extinguished.

"Brings an awakening to the heart, a gift to the soul, and a healing balm to the spirit."
     — JACK KORNFIELD, coeditor of Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart

How Then, Shall We Live?
Four Simple Questions that Reveal the Beauty and Meaning of Our Lives

About this book:
     Who Am I?
     What Do I Love?
     How Shall I Live, Knowing I Will Die?
     What is My Gift to the family of the earth?

These simple questions have shaped the spiritual journeys of pilgrims and seekers for thousands of years. Through them we awaken the beauty of our precious human life, and the unique gifts we have to offer the world.

What kind of people do we wish to be? By what star do we navigate our spiritual unfolding? When we meditate upon these questions, they reveal our true nature, the nature of our love, courage and wisdom. They allow us to break free, to grow beyond what we already know. We glimpse the relentless spark of spirit that burns within each of us, and we move gently and confidently from a life repaired to a life well-lived.

"What a beautiful, sensitive, and important book. Muller once more lets us in on the secret power of pain - to lead us to transcend labels and feel with our hearts, when we are willing to go deep, fly high."
     — JUDY COLLINS

Learning to Pray
How We Find Heaven on Earth

About this book:
‘In northern California, there is a fog in the morning. As I write this, looking out my window, I know that the mountains and the trees, the grasses and the sky, remain hidden in the fog, but I cannot see them with my eyes. Instead, I feel their presence in my body, know the shapes that lie behind the fog for having seen them, watched them emerge again and again.. It is a primitive kind of faith, based on repetition and proof, but a kind of faith that the fog will, indeed, lift. Slowly, as the sun warms the earth, the fog begins to clear. And as it does, outlines appear, colors, textures, and finally, the sky and the sun are quietly revealed and I can see them all.'

This is prayer. This is deep, faithful listening, waiting for what is hidden to be revealed. Prayer is not words; prayer is what happens when you listen and wait, beneath the words, for the outline of heaven to emerge.

"Muller harvests the riches of the Lord’s Prayer without slighting either its simple elegance or the complexities of human nature."
     — Spirituality and Health

Sabbath
Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest and Delight
(Audio CD)

About this CD:
This is not an audiobook version of the book Sabbath. Rather, Soundstrue recorded Wayne engaged in conversation with a small group of people, exploring together the essential necessity for a time of rhythmic dormancy in our lives and hearts, and useful precepts for incorporating sacred rest into our good and necessary work in the world. At the same time, Wayne lifts up the ancient presumption that a spiritual life can – and indeed should – be a sensual, delicious and delightful gift to ourselves, and something to share with those we love.

In the relentless busyness of modern life, we have lost the rhythm between action and rest. When action is universally prescribed as more useful than rest, we inevitably lose our way. We bypass the nourishment that would give us succour, and we reject the quiet that would give us wisdom. Poisoned by this hypnotic belief that good things come only through unceasing striving and tireless effort, we can never truly rest. And for want of rest, our lives are in danger.

All spiritual traditions insist that a life well-lived requires rest. Only from rest may we gain the nourishment, wisdom, courage and clarity necessary to heal the world. In this book, Wayne Muller explores how we may reclaim the wisdom and delight that make our lives and work fruitful.

"With the passion of a poet and the meticulousness of a scholar, Wayne Muller gathers up the wisdom about rest and reminds us that dormancy is part of the natural way life deepens and grows."
    — RACHEL NAOMI REMEN, Kitchen Table Wisdom, My Grandfather’s Blessings

Spiritual Gifts of a Painful Childhood
(Audio CD)

About this CD:
When you peel away the pain and suffering from your life, you will find the seeds of wisdom. This opening process and the sorrows that come with it are a great gift—the source of the most profound spiritual lessons.

On The Spiritual Gifts of a Painful Childhood, Wayne Muller—author of the national bestseller Legacy of the Heart—helps listeners grasp the divine thread that connects sorrow and pain to an awakening of the spirit. This graduate of Harvard Divinity School has devoted almost 20 years to helping the homeless, the sick, and the impoverished.

On this moving session, Muller surveys the world's great spiritual traditions to illustrate that our suffering does make sense, and that it can be the first step to greater spiritual depth. The Spiritual Gifts of a Painful Childhood is a unique audio event, combining Muller's inspirational words of guidance with interludes of spare, reflective flute music by jazz legend Herbie Mann. Four sections cover fear, forgiveness, avoidance, and faith. Concludes with a guided meditation for loving-kindness to all beings.

Sabbath

The Sacred Rhythm of the Sabbath, and How to Restore It in Your Own Life. Meditations and guided practices inviting us to take sanctuary in Sabbath, a day of rest.
(Audio CD)

About this CD:
Thomas Merton, toward the end of his life, warned of a “pervasive form of contemporary violence” that is unique to our times: overwork and over-activity. In his work as a minister and caregiver, Wayne Muller has observed the effects of this violence on our communities, our families, and our people. On Sabbath, he responds to this escalating “war on our spirits,” and guides us to a sanctuary open to everyone..

Muller immerses us in the sacred tradition of the shabbat – the day of rest – a tradition, Muller says, that is all but forgotten in an age where consumption, speed, and productivity have become the most valued human commodities. Inviting us to drink from this “fountain of rest and delight,” he offers practices and exercises that reflect the sabbath as recognized in Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism. Through this way of nourishment and repose, Muller teaches, we welcome insights and blessings that arise only with stillness and time..

Rich with meditations, poems, and inspiring true stories, Sabbath asks us to remember this most simple and gracious of all spiritual practices.

Touching the Divine
(Audio CD)

About this CD:
Within each one of us there is a reservoir of divine wisdom; a seed of universal truth waiting to be discovered. The Kingdom of God, the Inner Light, the Buddha Nature, the Goddess within-every spiritual tradition has identified a direct personal connection to God and all that is sacred. On Touching the Divine, Wayne Muller offers a “model of heaven” (the original meaning of “contemplate”) to bring you in touch with the very center of your sacredness. In the great tradition of classical spiritual training, Muller's wise voice guides you through a “circle of contemplations”: meditations and reflections to help you find your true nature, cultivate loving kindness, and live in simplicity and humility.

It is inevitable, Muller begins, that you will come to a time in your life when you must go deeply inside to find out the truth of who you are. Often this time of deep searching emerges after a personal tragedy that suddenly “breaks you open.” Muller teaches that this sorrow is also an opportunity to touch something miraculous and whole that is waiting to change your life from within. Touching the Divine invites you to enter the sanctuary of your self, and surrender to the perfection already inside you.