Books

We publish Buddhist books from all traditions. Our current titles are:

WALK LIKE A MOUNTAIN: The Guide to Buddhist Walking Practice

Innen Ray Parchelo
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-896559-17-9

Indigo ♦ Amazon ♦ Barnes & Noble

Walk Like a Mountain is the definitive guide to walking as Buddhist practice, not just for the serious practitioner but for anyone who wants to bring more contemplative depth to their everyday walks. From kinhin during zazen sessions to pilgrimage and beyond, this handbook offers the “how-to” with clarity and insight. Posture, hand positions and foot mechanics are merely the beginning. Other topics that are addressed in this comprehensive book include:
 Preparations and aids            Prayer walking
 Purification and dedication      Kaihogyo (marathon contemplative walking)
 Leading a walking practice      Walking for change
 Walking as daily life               Walking the symbolic landscape
 Alms rounds                         Mandalas
 Circumambulation                  Labyrinths
 Walking Nembutsu                 Alternatives in contemplative walking

Innen Ray Parchelo has studied, taught and practiced Buddhism for over 40 years and acts as both the Priest to the Red Maple Sangha and Director of Tendai Canada. He began his formal dharma practice in 1974 and has been a member of several Buddhist centres, first taking refuge in 1994. In 2008, he renewed his refuge-vows as a student of Ven. Monshin Paul Naamon, and, in 2010, was ordained a Tendai priest.

Lama Chopa

Panchen Lozang Chokyi Gyaltsen
Translated by Robert Preece
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-896559-11-7
E-Book: ISBN 978-1-896559-13-1

Paperback (Canada) ♦ Paperback (International) ♦ Kindle ♦ Kobo ♦ Nook ♦ iTunes

Lama Chöpa is a practice of guru devotion special to the Gelugpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. In Sanskrit, lama isguru, and chöpa is offering, so Lama Chöpa translates into English as “offering to the spiritual guide.” In the Gelugpa tradition, there are many guru yoga sadhanas, but Lama Chöpa is the most popular and sacred text. A special practice of Je Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), the founder of the Gelugpa School, Lama Chöpa was compiled by the first Panchen Lama, Panchen Lozang Chökyi Gyaltsen (1570-1662), who was the teacher of the fifth Dalai Lama (1617-1682). Lama Chöpa became so popular in Tibet and Mongolia that almost every monk of the Gelugpa tradition had it memorized, and recited it on a daily basis, both in the temple as a group practice, and individually.

This unique edition features a complete version of the Lama Chöpa, a world heritage text, including all of the traditional music and mudras needed to perform the sadhana in its traditional form.

“It is a real delight to read the famed Lama Chöpa in Rob Preece’s new translation. In chanting the lines from this new rendering, one could almost hear echoes of the original Tibetan composed so eloquently by Panchen Lobsang Chögyen, one of Tibet’s greatest spiritual masters.” — Thupten Jinpa, PhD., principal English translator to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the author/translator of Essential Mind Training, Montreal, QC, 2012

Rimey Lama Chopa

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Translated by Glenn Mullin
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-896559-05-6
E-Book: ISBN 978-1-896559-08-7

Paperback (Canada) ♦ Paperback (International) ♦ Kindle ♦ Kobo ♦ Nook ♦ iTunes

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was someone whose inner journey led him to an extraordinary depth of knowledge and enabled him to be, for whoever met him, a fountain of loving kindness, wisdom and compassion. His knowledge of the enormous range of Tibetan Buddhist literature was probably unparalleled, and he inherited Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s determination to preserve and make available texts of all traditions, particularly those in danger of disappearing.

It is therefore understandable that Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, at the request of Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche, wrote a complete set of prayers, praises and Offering to the Masters of the lineage of the Eight Great Chariots of Accomplishments, integrated in a single text known as “Invoking The Nectar Of Wisdom: Prayers, Praises and Offering [inspired by] the Remembrance of the Assembly of Supreme Beings from the Various Lineages of the Muni’s Teachings”. The present Rimey Lama Chopa is that text.

An American Buddhist Life: Memoirs of a Modern Buddhist Pioneer

Charles Prebish
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-896559-09-4
E-Book: ISBN 978-1-896559-14-8

Paperback (Canada) ♦ Paperback (International) ♦ Kindle ♦ Kobo ♦ Nook ♦ iTunes

From the beginning of Charles Prebish’s involvement with Buddhism in 1965, Buddhism has made huge inroads on the North American continent, and world-wide, both in terms of its scholarship and globalization. He has been fortunate enough to know and work with an incredible group of brilliant scholars who remain alive: Luis Gómez, Lewis Lancaster, Donald Swearer, Frank Reynolds, Stanley Weinstein, Jeffrey Hopkins, Robert Thurman and others. Unfortunately, none of these great scholars seems as yet to have shared their reminiscences of these exciting times with readers.

Apart from being the leading pioneer in the study of Western forms of Buddhism, as mentioned above, he was the leading advocate for establishing this new and exciting avenue of inquiry as a valid and important sub-discipline in the larger discipline of Buddhist Studies. Now there are many dozens of courses devoted to this topic, and it has become one of the most vibrant areas of scholarly publication in Buddhist Studies. When technology began to creep into academe, he was there to found, with Damien Keown in 1994, the online Journal of Buddhist Ethics, which was the first online peer-reviewed scholarly journal in the field of Religious Studies. Five years later, with Martin Baumann, he began the Journal of GlobalBuddhism. In 1996, he and Keown founded the Routledge “Critical Studies in Buddhism” series which published more than sixty scholarly titles under their editorship over the next 10 years. In other words, Dr. Prebish has been involved in virtually everything exciting in the Buddhist world over the past forty-five years. Because of his unique involvement and longevity, he has an incredible historical record to document and share, and a huge number of stories to tell. These stories allow us to share his incredible personal journey, and provide a true “insider’s” viewpoint.

Natural Appearances, Natural Liberation

Master Tam Shek-wing
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-896559-10-0
E-Book: ISBN 978-1-896559-15-5

Paperback (Canada) ♦ Paperback (International) ♦ Kindle ♦ Kobo ♦ Nook ♦ iTunes

This commentary is based on the six bardos teachings from a series of hidden treasure texts known as the Profound Dharma of Natural Liberation through the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones (Zab chos zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol), discovered by the great terton Karma Lingpa in the fourteenth century. The word “bardo,” made popular in the West through the English translation of the Bardo Thodol or The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which also belongs to the same series of treasure texts, means an intermediate or in-between state. The practice of the six bardos, according to the hermeneutics of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, is essentially the meditative practice of living and dying.

Natural Appearances, Natural Liberation not only contains very practical advice, but also has many teachings of the Nyingma tantric tradition embedded in it. The original text is not intended as a study of spiritualism or psychology. Neither is it intended to be viewed as handbook for taking care of the deceased, nor as a treatise on emptiness. The intention is to condense the very deep and profound tantric teachings of the six bardos into practices approachable by all sentient beings so that many can swiftly attain various states of liberation. This book offers a scholarly but accessible explanation of the ancient wisdom embedded in this ancient Buddhist classic.

Understanding the Chinese Buddhist Temple

Karma Yonten Gyatso
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-896559-06-3

Paperback (Canada) ♦ Paperback (International)

This book is a collection of annotated photos taken in 2009 and 2010 at Ching Kwok Chinese Buddhist Temple, located in Toronto, Ontario.

The book is arranged as a walk-around, featuring pictures of the main shrine hall, the main altar, all of the statues, close-up details of many statues, the various chapels, offering tables, paintings, ritual objects, decorative panels, and calligraphic scrolls. Each item is accompanied by an explanation of its iconographic meaning, context, fabrication and provenance. Chinese, Sanskrit and Canadian equivalents are given wherever possible.

We are grateful to Ven. Wu De, abbot of the temple, who granted the author several interviews in order to provide commentary on the author’s photographs. We are also grateful to Ven. Ivan Trinh and Ms. Chris Ng, who provided translation, and to Professor Henry Shiu, of the University of Toronto Department of Humanities, who graciously provided translations for the more complex calligraphic scrolls.

The significant contribution of “Understanding the Chinese Buddhist Temple” is to reveal the key concepts embedded within the numerous objects common to Chinese Buddhist shrines, as well as the layout of the temple, in an engaging manner that combines photographic representations with explanations. The book is suitable for anyone interested in Chinese Buddhism and culture.

Rebirth as Empirical Basis for the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths

Suwanda Sugunasiri
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-896559-04-9

Paperback (International)

Drawing upon the Pali Canon, this exploration reconstructs the series of events that culminated in Samana Gotama cutting off all defilements, becoming an Arhant and the Buddha. Detailing the experience that took place while Gotama was sitting under the Bodhi Tree some 2500 years ago, in the three watches of that critical night (6 – 10 pm; 10 pm – 2 am; 2 – 6 am), the author shows how Gotama’s seeing his own past lives as well as those of his kith and kin, friends and enemies, and so on, in a continuing life-cycle, served as the very empirical basis for arriving at the first Noble Truth of dukkha, when we can almost hear him inwardly say to himself, “Oh man, what suffering!” It was this initial discovery that prompted him to explore its natural concomitants of Arising (of dukkha), Cessation and the Path, giving us the Four Noble Truths.

The contribution of “Rebirth …” is that this piece brings together all the key concepts underpinning the Buddha’s Enlightenment experience, while Canonical texts merely provide extensive details of the events. It also carefully makes the distinction, rarely found in popular literature at least, between attaining Buddhahood (gaining wisdom, in the cognitive domain) and attaining Nibbana (purifying the mind, in the affective domain). A chart at the end of the book provides a neat graphic summary of the three chronological phases, showing the process of what happened during each of them. Where relevant, the author digs into science as well to make his point.

If you are a Buddhist teacher or author and would like to publish with us, we would be delighted to hear from you.