Amy Schmidt

Ron Schmidt

Collects poems about dogs who go to school.

Dog-Gone School

Joseph Goldstein

Sharon Salzberg

This life story of one of the few women in her generation to devote herself entirely to the pursuit of meditation also includes Dipa Ma's spiritual teachings, which have made her a major figure in contemporary Buddhism. Dipa Ma was the first truly accomplished female meditation master in the Thereavada tradition to teach in the United States and, while she had a deep devotion to the tradition, she also had a fierce understanding that the spiritual accomplishments of women could be in every way equal to those of the predominantly male religious hierarchy. Her influence on the teaching of insight meditation practice in the West is presented here through stories and encounters told by sources such as family members, her students in Calcutta, and several of America's leading Buddhist and meditation teachers.

The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master

Dipa Ma

A tiny Indian woman leading an inconspicuous life in Calcutta profoundly influenced the evolution and teaching of Buddhist meditation practice in America. Knee Deep in Grace presents the life story of Dipa Ma Barua, along with the essential spiritual teachings that make her a towering figure in contemporary Buddhism. While she experienced fame in her lifetime and had a following of many Burmese, Indian, and American students, she was like the women saints of the Vedas, "remarkable women...from the dawn of history...who achieved realization while cleaning their homes and raising their children" (Daughters of the Goddess: Women Saints of India). Dipa Ma was a primary teacher of Sharon Salzberg Jack Kornfield, and Joseph Goldstein, who have been among the most influential "importers" of Buddhism to America. Through the centers they founded and the teachers trained in them (the author among them), the example and teaching of Dipa Ma reach multitudes. Jack Kornfield described the power of Ma's influence: "Without anything said or done, just the impact of meeting a person so developed can be enough to change one's whole way of life." Knee Deep in Grace is filled with intimate stories collected over a period of ten years, not only from prominent meditation teachers in the West but from Dipa Ma's daughter and grandson and her Calcutta students. Dipa Ma addressed her teaching to ordinary people in her apartment complex and her extended family, and her iconoclastic style of daily life "immersion" practice brought many of her students to awakening.

The Extraordinary Life and Teachings of Dipa Ma

Knee Deep in Grace

Rock Star! An Eva Heart, Vampire Slayer Novel

Sixteen kid-friendly rhymes accompany funny photographic portraits of dogs in this delightful picture book. A salty dog’s lament of traveling the world is perfectly captured in ballad form; a finicky Yorkie expresses her bathing preferences in common meter; while a Paul Bunyan-esque golden lab celebrates the outdoors in haiku form. This collection of canine poems and photos will enchant dog lovers of all ages.

Loose Leashes

Julie Buckner Armstrong

This anthology of drama, essays, fiction, and poetry presents a thoughtful, classroom-tested selection of the best literature for learning about the long civil rights movement. Unique in its focus on creative writing, the volume also ranges beyond a familiar 1954-68 chronology to include works from the 1890s to the present. The civil rights movement was a complex, ongoing process of defining national values such as freedom, justice, and equality. In ways that historical documents cannot, these collected writings show how Americans negotiated this process--politically, philosophically, emotionally, spiritually, and creatively. Gathered here are works by some of the most influential writers to engage issues of race and social justice in America, including James Baldwin, Flannery O'Connor, Amiri Baraka, and Nikki Giovanni. The volume begins with works from the post-Reconstruction period when racial segregation became legally sanctioned and institutionalized. This section, titled "The Rise of Jim Crow," spans the period from Frances E. W. Harper's Iola Leroy to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. In the second section, "The Fall of Jim Crow," Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and a chapter from The Autobiography of Malcolm X appear alongside poems by Robert Hayden, June Jordan, and others who responded to these key figures and to the events of the time. "Reflections and Continuing Struggles," the last section, includes works by such current authors as Rita Dove, Anthony Grooms, and Patricia J. Williams. These diverse perspectives on the struggle for civil rights can promote the kinds of conversations that we, as a nation, still need to initiate.

American Literature from Jim Crow to Reconciliation

The Civil Rights Reader

You're Never Too Old and It's Never Too Late You're entering midlife-the "big five-oh" may be looming or may have come and gone. You find yourself standing on the edge of the high dive wishing you could cannonball with fearless exhilaration like you did when you were ten. But you're frozen. What's holding you back? Fear of the unknown? Procrastination? Self-doubt? Fear of others judging you? Fear of failing? Amy Schmidt has been there, done that, and still doing some of it. In Cannonball, Fearlessly Facing Fifty, she shares her personal stories, and those of other women, to help arm us with insights and inspiration to cannonball fearlessly into the rest of our lives with the biggest splash possible. Amy is the real deal-disarmingly open, honest, and relatable. She sometimes feels fat. She can be a perfectionist. She can procrastinate and she sometimes forgets to love herself. But as she says, "I am a work in progress," and most days she feels "absolutelyfreaking" amazing. Amy is the BFF you want climbing each rung of that ladder with you and encouraging you to cannonball into the next best phase of your life.

Cannonball!

Read the life story and spiritual teachings of Dipa Ma, a major figure in contemporary Buddhism. She was the teacher of such well-respected western Buddhists as Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, Alice Walker and Sylvia Boorstein, among others. An accomplished yogi, she was an inspired teacher and a devoted mother and grandmother. A woman who found great freedom through profound levels of insight and one who exemplified in her every action immense kindness, generosity, and mindfulness.

Amy Schmidt

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