Tag: Buddhist books

Review: The Heart’s Awakening: 108 Steps to a Life of Love by Bodhipaksa

By Luke Penkett on Wed, 5 Nov, 2025 - 09:44

Review: The Heart’s Awakening: 108 Steps to a Life of Love by Bodhipaksa

By Luke Penkett on Wed, 5 Nov, 2025 - 09:44

To assist us as we journey through The Heart’s Awakening we have four places of rest, four opportunities to take a step back and reflect, in turn, on kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. To help us reflect, Bodhipaksa – founder of Wildmind (an online meditation resource), publisher of guided meditations, and provider of online instruction – provides us with 108 points to ponder – the same number of beads as on a mala – 27 for each place of reflection, and...

Windhorse Publications

Review: Reimagining Buddhism: Understanding Sangharakshita and His Teachings by Vishvapani (2025)

By Luke Penkett on Mon, 25 Aug, 2025 - 10:18

Review: Reimagining Buddhism: Understanding Sangharakshita and His Teachings by Vishvapani (2025)

By Luke Penkett on Mon, 25 Aug, 2025 - 10:18

With The Complete Works of Sangharakshita being rounded off with the publication of its Concordance at the end of 2024, Vishvapani’s
Reimagining Buddhism seems like the icing on the cake. It is a beautiful book, meticulously researched, and sensitively written for both those who knew Sangharakshita well and others who have only recently come across his name, or have yet to discover the joys of Triratna.

Vishvapani (Blomfield) is the editor of Challenging Times: Stories of Buddhist Practice When Things...

Windhorse Publications

Review: A Survey of Buddhism: Chapter One by Sangharakshita (new edition 2025)

By Luke Penkett on Mon, 21 Jul, 2025 - 14:45

Review: A Survey of Buddhism: Chapter One by Sangharakshita (new edition 2025)

By Luke Penkett on Mon, 21 Jul, 2025 - 14:45

In the summer of 1954 Sangharakshita was invited to give four lectures on Buddhism at the Indian Institute of World Culture in Bangalore (South India). The transcripts of these lectures became the basis of A Survey of Buddhism which was published by the Institute in 1957, the same year that witnessed the 2500th anniversary of Buddhism.

An auspicious start: apart from a collection of poetry this was Bhante’s first book which went on to have many editions in English and other languages, and has been continuously in...

Windhorse Publications

Review: Train Your Mind: Tibetan Exercises in Wisdom and Compassion by Dhirananda & Viryabodhi

By Luke Penkett on Wed, 28 May, 2025 - 10:45

Review: Train Your Mind: Tibetan Exercises in Wisdom and Compassion by Dhirananda & Viryabodhi

By Luke Penkett on Wed, 28 May, 2025 - 10:45

Training the Mind in Seven Points (Tibetan: Lojong) is an eleventh century Mahayana and Tibetan manual of practising and developing wisdom and compassion in order to think about and communicate with others, to respond to, not to react against, other living beings which are not necessarily human beings, rather than putting ourselves first.

Buddhism begins with compassion, and compassion begins with alleviating the suffering of others, rather than alleviating our own suffering. Through developing wisdom, we learn how to care for others...

Windhorse Publications

Review: Sangharakshita, Living With Kindness by Sangharakshita (new edition 2025)

By Luke Penkett on Wed, 28 May, 2025 - 10:34

Review: Sangharakshita, Living With Kindness by Sangharakshita (new edition 2025)

By Luke Penkett on Wed, 28 May, 2025 - 10:34

Back in 1978 Sangharakshita gave a seminar on the Karaņiyā Mettā Sutta at Padmaloka, the men’s retreat centre in Norfolk. This was edited by Jinananda and Pabodhana and first published as Living with Kindness by Windhorse Publications in 2004. It was re-edited to appear in Pāli Canon Teachings and Translations, Volume 15 of the Complete Works series, and has now been reprinted as a standalone book for the new Classic Sangharakshita series, complete with new notes and index.

Living With Kindness is...

Windhorse Publications

Review: Living with Awareness by Sangharakshita (new edition 2025)

By Luke Penkett on Mon, 24 Mar, 2025 - 15:23

Review: Living with Awareness by Sangharakshita (new edition 2025)

By Luke Penkett on Mon, 24 Mar, 2025 - 15:23

Sangharakshita’s much loved commentary on the Satipațțhāna Sutta, a Pāli text from the Majjhima Nikāya in which the Buddha explains the practice of mindfulness, has just been published in a brand-new edition! The material was originally delivered as a seminar at a men’s ordination retreat in Tuscany in 1982 and developed as a book by Dharmacharis Pabodhana and Jinananda published in 2003, it has been thoroughly revised and significantly enlarged for the new Classic Sangharakshita series (of which it is...

Windhorse Publications

Review: Concordance to Sangharakshita's Complete Works (2024)

By Luke Penkett on Tue, 10 Dec, 2024 - 20:50

Review: Concordance to Sangharakshita's Complete Works (2024)

By Luke Penkett on Tue, 10 Dec, 2024 - 20:50

With this tome (1087 pages) Windhorse Publications completes its staggering publication of Sangharakshita’s Complete Works, all 27 volumes! One of the greatest joys of these volumes is the inclusion of previously out-of-print or never-before-published material such as various talks by Sangharakshita given in India in the 1980s.

The final volume, the Concordance to the Complete Works, is an invaluable, comprehensive, yet accessible guide, index, encyclopaedia, dictionary, as well as concordance. It is also full of quotations, as the publisher’s blurb states, ‘It answers...

Windhorse Publications

Review: Approaching Enlightenment: A Guidebook for Buddhist Ritual by Bodhidasa (2024)

By Luke Penkett on Wed, 30 Oct, 2024 - 10:08

Review: Approaching Enlightenment: A Guidebook for Buddhist Ritual by Bodhidasa (2024)

By Luke Penkett on Wed, 30 Oct, 2024 - 10:08

It is such a joy to pick up this book, see the stunning painting of Avalokitesvara on its front cover, be reminded of its artist, Aloka, who painted it in 1974/1975, and remember all the art work he has produced both at Padmaloka and the Norwich Buddhist Centre.

It is a beautiful meeting of minds. Aloka and Bodhidasa. Bodhidasa, after studying English literature, history and performance studies at the University of Sydney, teaches, leads retreats, and facilitates courses at the Sydney Buddhist...

Windhorse Publications

Review: The Promise of a Sacred World by Nagapriya (2022)

By Luke Penkett on Thu, 17 Oct, 2024 - 11:19

Review: The Promise of a Sacred World by Nagapriya (2022)

By Luke Penkett on Thu, 17 Oct, 2024 - 11:19

No dry, inaccessible, or tedious history, Nagapriya’s book The Promise of a Sacred World is a joy to read and digest as it not only ‘evokes a personal encounter with Shinran’ (5) through a series of meditations, and arouses our fascination with Amida, the Buddha of ‘boundless light’, ‘the source of liberation and of all existential value’ (49), with inspired readings of the Pure Land scriptures, it also draws our attention to key concepts, ‘concepts that matter...

Windhorse Publications

Introducing 'I Hear Her Words'

By Windhorse Publi... on Wed, 16 Dec, 2020 - 16:00

Introducing 'I Hear Her Words'

By Windhorse Publi... on Wed, 16 Dec, 2020 - 16:00

We’re delighted to announce that in May we’ll be publishing I Hear Her Words: An Introduction to Women in Buddhism by Alice Collett.

Core Buddhist doctrines and ethical formulations provide no justification for the notion that women are inferior to men. However, Buddhism was born and took root in ancient and medieval societies that held traditional views of women. In this way, social and cultural norms positioning women as inferior to men found their way into Buddhist tradition and some Buddhist texts. As...