Bøger af Ben Connelly

A practical guide to Vasubandhu's classic work "Thirty Verses of Consciousness Only" that can transform modern life and change how you see the world.In this down-to-earth book, Ben Connelly sure-handedly guides us through the intricacies of Yogacara and the richness of the “Thirty Verses.” Dedicating a chapter of the book to each line of the poem, he lets us thoroughly lose ourselves in its depths. His warm and wise voice unpacks and contextualizes its wisdom, showing us how we can apply its ancient insights to our own modern lives, to create a life of engaged peace, harmony, compassion, and joy. In fourth-century India one of the great geniuses of Buddhism, Vasubandhu, sought to reconcile the diverse ideas and forms of Buddhism practiced at the time and demonstrate how they could be effectively integrated into a single system. This was the Yogacara movement, and it continues to have great influence in modern Tibetan and Zen Buddhism. “Thirty Verses on Consciousness Only,” or “Trimshika,” is the most concise, comprehensive, and accessible work by this revered figure. Vasubandhu’s “Thirty Verses” lay out a path of practice that integrates the most powerful of Buddhism’s psychological and mystical possibilities: Early Buddhism’s practices for shedding afflictive emotional habit and the Mahayana emphasis on shedding divisive concepts, the path of individual liberation and the path of freeing all beings, the path to nirvana and the path of enlightenment as the very ground of being right now. Although Yogacara has a reputation for being extremely complex, the “Thirty Verses” distills the principles of these traditions to their most practical forms, and this book follows that sense of focus; it goes to the heart of the matter—how do we alleviate suffering through shedding our emotional knots and our sense of alienation? This is a great introduction to a philosophy, a master, and a work whose influence reverberates throughout modern Buddhism.   

What do you do when you find out the train you're on is going the wrong way? If you're Mrs. Picklebottom, you simply jump onto the roof of a train passing in the other direction!Nine-year-old Charlotte Connelly (and her dad) invite you into the whimsical world of Mrs. Picklebottom and her fanciful friends -- the loyal Mr. Conductor and the British Lord and Lady Tomatotop -- who inspire imagination and joy in these four delightful short stories. The Adventures of Mrs. Picklebottom combines the values of deep friendship and problem-solving, with quirky characters and fanciful settings - passenger trains and their various stops. Adults and children alike will laugh out loud and turn pages with anticipation, waiting to see how Mrs. Picklebottom gets out of each story's unique predicament.Look for more Mrs. Picklebottom coming soon... Learn more and follow along with Mrs. Picklebottom: picklebottom.net==="I enjoyed these stories so much. They read beautifully aloud which is particularly great! It was comforting for me as a kid to have characters you can grow to love and rely on while the circumstances change. I still love that!"--Alison Whitehurst, Broadway actress and star of "Beautiful: The Carole King" US Tour"These stories are delightful and I like how they work together... By the time you're done you want to go back and read them again now that you know more about these friends."--Ben & Bethany Fort, director of Four Day Weekend Sketch Comedy Training, & children's librarian

If you've ever struggled to stay on track with your diet or workout routine, you'll benefit from reading this book. How to Be Your Own Coach will teach you the habits and techniques that enable successful athletes to stick to their training plans - as well as the skills to adapt their plans when setbacks occur. If you want to get healthy, but you're unsure where to start, check out this book today.

"I'm an unbeliever. So are you," We slip in and out of believing God's word about us and trusting in his work on our behalf. We forget who He is, what's He's done and in light of that who we are. Do these statements resonate with you? Then the Gospel Fluency Handbook was written for you. For those who've realized there are areas of life-your normal, everyday, busy life-where you disbelieve God, His goodness and His gospel. And, it's for those who are keenly aware and weighted down by a failure to connect the way gospel truths actually matter to everyday life. The Gospel Fluency Handbook is designed to help you and your group become fluent in the gospel-in other words, to help you move from unbelief to belief. The discussions and exercises in this 8-week interactive handbook provide a step-by-step immersion of your mind, heart, soul, and life in the gospel. Each week follows a simple format: three sets of personal Readings and Reflections, a weekly guide for Group Discussion and Exercises that will lead to becoming a more gospel-fluent people. People who are learning to see and then speak the truths of Jesus into the everyday stuff of life. INCLUDES INFORMATION ABOUT A *COMPANION VIDEO SERIES*!

Includes bibliographical references (pages 260-263) and index

Don't keep asking God for forgiveness. Do judge one another. And you're not going to heaven for all eternity!How have we misunderstood the teachings of Jesus? Often His message to the leaders and disciples was: You're getting this wrong!Somewhere along the way you got confused, lost, way off track. Would He have the same assessment of us today?Every time we approach the Scriptures, we must start and end with God--rather than with people. When we see Jesus as true hero and Redeemer in the commands and story of the Bible, our relationship with God, with others, and every aspect of our lives is rightly formed and understood.In Reading the Bible, Missing the Gospel, pastor and author Ben Connelly reveals shockingly common ways we mis-read and mis-interpret the Bible. He invites us to see the Bible's themes and teachings through a new lens--or, rather, God's intended lens--on topics like confession and forgiveness . . . what it means to be blessed or happy . . . and the role of church in a believer's faith. Using theology, humor, and practical examples, this book invites readers to recover a gospel-infused lens that corrects common misunderstandings and helps us recover God's original message in the Bible. Connelly helps us see and celebrate how Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and reign are refreshingly good news for the tangible situations in our everyday lives.

Go beyond mere mindfulness—and deepen your connection to your self, the people in your life, and the world around you.Mindfulness is an ancient and powerful practice of awareness and nonjudgmental discernment that can help us ground ourselves in the present moment, with the world and our lives just as they are. But there’s a risk: by focusing our attention on something (or someone), we might always see it as something other, as separate from ourselves. To close this distance, mindfulness has traditionally been paired with a focus on intimacy, community, and interdependence. In this book, Ben Connelly shows us how to bring these two practices together—bringing warm hearts to our clear seeing.   Helpful meditations and exercises show how mindfulness and intimacy can together enrich our empathetic engagement with ourselves and the world around us—with our values, with the environment, and with the people in our lives, in all their distinct manifestations of race and religion, sexuality and gender, culture and class—and lead to a truly engaged, compassionate, and joy-filled life

Enter the mind and practice of Zen: apply the insights of one of Zen's classic poems to your life--here and now.Shitou Xiqian's "Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage" is a remarkably accessible work of profound depth; in thirty-two lines Shitou expresses the breadth of the entire Buddhist tradition with simple, vivid imagery. Ben Connelly's Inside the Grass Hut unpacks the timeless poem and applies it to contemporary life. His book delivers a wealth of information on the context and content of this eighth-century work, as well as directly evokes the poem's themes of simple living, calm, and a deep sense of connection to all things. Each pithy chapter focuses on a single line of the poem, letting the reader immerse himself thoroughly in each line and then come up for air before moving on to the next. Line by line, Connelly shows how the poem draws on and expresses elements from the thousand years of Buddhist thought that preceded it, expands on the poem's depiction of a life of simple practice in nature, and tells stories of the way these teachings manifest in modern life. Connelly, like Shitou before him, proves himself adept at taking profound and complex themes from Zen and laying them out in a practical and understandable way. Eminently readable, thoroughly illuminating, Inside the Grass Hut shows the reader a path of wholehearted engagement -- with the poem, and with the world. Destined to become a trusted, dog-eared companion.