The Philosophy category has 1,858 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 25,891 ratings. The most-rated is 12 Rules for Life.
It Came from Beyond Zen!: More Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye)
Summary
Volume two of Brad Warner's radical but reverent paraphrasing of Dogen's Treasury of the True Dharma Eye
In Japan in 1253, one of the great thinkers of his time died - and the world barely noticed. That man was the Zen monk Eihei Dogen. For centuries his main work, Shobogenzo, languished in obscurity, locked away in remote monasteries until scholars rediscovered it in the 20th century. What took so long? In Brad Warner's view, Dogen was too ahead of his time to find an appreciative audience.
To bring Dogen's work to a bigger audience, Warner began paraphrasing Shobogenzo, recasting it in simple, everyday language. The first part of this project resulted in Don't Be a Jerk, and now Warner presents this second volume, It Came from Beyond Zen! Once again, Warner uses wry humor and incisive commentary to bridge the gap between past and present, making Dogen's words clearer and more relevant than ever before.
©2017 Brad Warner (P)2017 Brad Warner
The Socrates Express
Summary
The New York Times best-selling author of The Geography of Bliss embarks on a rollicking intellectual journey, following in the footsteps of history’s greatest thinkers and showing us how each - from Epicurus to Gandhi, Thoreau to Beauvoir - offers practical and spiritual lessons for today’s unsettled times. We turn to philosophy for the same reasons we travel: to see the world from a different perspective, to unearth hidden beauty, and to find new ways of being. We want to learn how to embrace wonder. Face regrets. Sustain hope. Eric Weiner combines his twin passions for philosophy and global travel in a pilgrimage that uncovers surprising life lessons from great thinkers around the world, from Rousseau to Nietzsche, Confucius to Simone Weil. Traveling by train (the most thoughtful mode of transport), he journeys thousands of miles, making stops in Athens, Delhi, Wyoming, Coney Island, Frankfurt, and points in between to reconnect with philosophy’s original purpose: teaching us how to lead wiser, more meaningful lives. From Socrates and ancient Athens to Simone de Beauvoir and 20th-century Paris, Weiner’s chosen philosophers and places provide important signposts as we navigate today’s chaotic times. In The Socrates Express, Weiner invites us to voyage alongside him on his life-changing pursuit of wisdom and discovery as he attempts to find answers to our most vital questions.
©2020 Eric Weiner (P)2020 Simon & Schuster
Buddhism 101
Summary
Learn everything you need to know about Buddhism in this clear and straightforward new guide. Buddhism was founded thousands of years ago and has inspired millions of people with its peaceful teachings. Buddhism 101 highlights and explains the central concepts of Buddhism to the modern listener, with information on mindfulness, karma, The Four Noble Truths, the Middle Way, and more. Whether you're looking just to understand Buddhism or to explore the philosophy in your own life and own journey to enlightenment, this book gives you everything you need to know!
©2017 Adams Media (P)2017 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think
Summary
Over the past few years, Brianna Wiest has gained renown for her deeply moving, philosophical writing. This new compilation of her published work features pieces on why you should pursue purpose over passion, embrace negative thinking, see the wisdom in daily routine, and become aware of the cognitive biases that are creating the way you see your life. Some of these pieces have never been seen; others have been read by millions of people around the world. Regardless, each will leave you thinking: This idea changed my life.
©2016 Brianna Wiest (P)2018 Tantor
Striking Thoughts
Summary
"A teacher is never a giver of truth - he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself. A good teacher is merely a catalyst." (Bruce Lee) Within the chapters of Striking Thoughts, you will find the secrets of Bruce Lee's incredible success - as an actor, martial artist, and inspiration to the world. Consisting of eight sections, Striking Thoughts covers 72 topics and 825 aphorisms - from spirituality to personal liberation and from family life to filmmaking - all of which Bruce lived by. His ideas helped energize his life and career and made it possible for him to live a happy and assured life, overcoming challenging obstacles with seeming ease. They also inspired his family, friends, students, and colleagues to achieve success in their own lives, and this personal collection will help you in your journey, too. The sections include: On First Principles - life, existence, time, and death On Being Human - the mind, happiness, fear, and dreams On Matters of Existence - health, love, marriage, raising children, ethics, racism, and adversity On Achievement - work, goals, faith, success, money, and fame On Art and Artists - art, filmmaking, and acting On Personal Liberation - conditioning, Zen Buddhism, meditation, and freedom On the Process of Becoming - self-actualization, self-help, self-expression, and growth On Ultimate (Final) Principles - yin-yang, totality, Tao, and the truth
©2016 Bruce Lee Enterprises, LLC (P)2019 Echo Point Books & Media, LLC
The Beginner's Guide to Stoicism
Summary
Optimize joy, overcome obstacles - discover the calm of stoicism Being a stoic means embracing positivity and self-control through the ability to accept the uncertainty of outcomes. With this stoicism guide, the beginner stoic will learn how to take charge of their emotions on the path to sustained happiness and satisfaction. This easy-to-navigate stoicism guide gives you the emotional tools needed to let go of the things you can’t control and find joy in what you have. Through thought-provoking strategies and exercises, this book helps you find contentment so you can build closer relationships and become an active member of society. The Beginner’s Guide to Stoicism includes: Evolution of stoicism - Discover the history of stoicism and how its principles can help you find peace. Complete the mindset - Find acceptance using an essential emotional toolkit based on the disciplines of Desire, Action, and Assent. Time to reflect - Apply what you’ve learned to your own life with ethical questions, quotes, and exercises. Change your perception, focus on positivity - become the best version of yourself with The Beginner’s Guide to Stoicism. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Althea Press (P)2019 Audible, Inc.
The Passions: Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions
Summary
Conventional wisdom suggests there is a sharp distinction between emotion and reason. Emotions are seen as inferior, disruptive, primitive, and even bestial forces. These 24 remarkable lectures suggest otherwise-that emotions have intelligence and provide personal strategies that are vitally important to our everyday lives of perceiving, evaluating, appraising, understanding, and acting in the world. Take a tour of Professor Solomon's more than three-decade-long intellectual struggle to reach an understanding of emotions, which he argues are, "the key to the meaning of life." A distinguished philosopher himself, Professor Solomon's lectures unfold as a rich dialogue with other philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Adam Smith, Nietzsche, William James, Freud, Heidegger, and Sartre. In your exploration, you'll address such questions as: how do we distinguish emotions from feelings, such as heartache? What is the meaning of our emotions, and how do they serve to enrich and guide our lives? Are there a determinable number of basic emotions that serve as building blocks for the range of emotions we experience? Is an emotion such as jealousy a genetic trait shared by all humans - or is it something learned? As you listen to these lectures, prepare to think: Think about your own emotions; think about what you observe in others; think about the enormous body of research and conjecture on this fascinating topic as Professor Solomon takes you on a challenging and stimulating journey. The more we puzzle over the nature of emotions, the deeper the mystery becomes. It is a mystery that is by no means solved, but one that repays in careful, philosophical analysis. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2006 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2006 The Great Courses
We Want to Do More Than Survive
Summary
Winner of the 2020 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award Drawing on personal stories, research, and historical events, an esteemed educator offers a vision of educational justice inspired by the rebellious spirit and methods of abolitionists. Drawing on her life’s work of teaching and researching in urban schools, Bettina Love persuasively argues that educators must teach students about racial violence, oppression, and how to make sustainable change in their communities through radical civic initiatives and movements. She argues that the US educational system is maintained by and profits from the suffering of children of color. Instead of trying to repair a flawed system, educational reformers offer survival tactics in the forms of test-taking skills, acronyms, grit labs, and character education, which Love calls the educational survival complex. To dismantle the educational survival complex and to achieve educational freedom - not merely reform - teachers, parents, and community leaders must approach education with the imagination, determination, boldness, and urgency of an abolitionist. Following in the tradition of activists like Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Fannie Lou Hamer, We Want to Do More Than Survive introduces an alternative to traditional modes of educational reform and expands our ideas of civic engagement and intersectional justice.
©2019 Bettina Love (P)2019 Random House Audio
The Seven Decision
Summary
Just one of these decisions can alter the course of a person’s life. What if you decided to master all seven? In this revised and repackaged version of Mastering the Seven Decisions, master storyteller and life coach Andy Andrews has fast-forwarded the concept of success and what it takes to make it stick. Seeking out what separates the ordinary life from the extraordinary, Andrews has spent much of his life dissecting countless biographies and spending time with some of the most successful people on the planet in an effort to understand the principles that propel them toward greatness. The result: seven simple principles that - when applied consistently - render extraordinary lives. Through his entertaining, down-to-earth style, Andrews introduces these principles and offers all the tools necessary to make lasting changes in your life. The consistent application of the Seven Decisions brings about what can only be called miracles: What was once labeled “impossible” actualizes. Opportunities that once eluded you are now attracted to you. Dysfunctional relationships transform into harmonious ones. Life, which was once a struggle, now becomes an exciting adventure!
©2014 Thomas Nelson (P)2014 Thomas Nelson
Food for the Heart
Summary
Renowned for the beauty and simplicity of his teachings, Ajahn Chah was Thailand's best-known meditation teacher. His charisma and wisdom influenced many American and European seekers, and helped shape the American Vipassana community. This collection brings together for the first time Ajahn Chah's most powerful teachings, including those on meditation, liberation from suffering, calming the mind, enlightenment and the "living dhamma". Most of these talks have previously only been available in limited, private editions and the publication of Food for the Heart, therefore, represents a momentous occasion: the hugely increased accessibility of his words and wisdom. Western teachers such as Ram Dass and Jack Kornfield have extolled Chah's teachings for years, and now listeners can experience them directly in this book.
©2002 Abhayagiri Monastic Foundation (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
Coming Closer to Ourselves
Summary
How to Befriend Your Most Challenging Emotions and Experiences In challenging times, why do so many of us turn to Pema Chödrön for guidance? Many say that it’s her honest and caring way of communicating the core teachings of Buddhism - not just conceptually, but directly from her heart to ours. In these inspiring sessions, she teaches us how to give that compassion to the person we neglect most often - ourselves. With her, you will explore: What to do when it feels impossible to be kind to ourselves. In challenging relationships and situations, how to let go of our story and see what’s really happening. Cultivating inner comfort and greater kindness toward our bodies. Leaning into frustration, sadness, and fear with a spirit of trust and intimacy. Many other insights and recommendations to befriend the difficult places within us. Through gentle and clear guidance, Coming Closer to Ourselves shows us how, even in the tumult of life’s uncertainties, we can begin with a glimmer of curiosity, move closer into our experiences, and discover a place of welcome and refuge within.
©2012 Pema Chödrön (P)2012 Pema Chödrön
Training the Samurai Mind
Summary
Through the ages, the samurai have been associated with honor, fearlessness, calm, decisive action, strategic thinking, and martial prowess. Their ethos is known as bushido, the Way of the Warrior-Knight. Here, premier translator Thomas Cleary presents a rich collection of writings on bushido by warriors, scholars, political advisors, and educators from the 15th century through the 19th century that provide a comprehensive, historically rich view of samurai life and philosophy. Training the Samurai Mind gives an insider's view of the samurai world: the moral and psychological development of the warrior, the ethical standards they were meant to uphold, their training in both martial arts and strategy, and the enormous role that the traditions of Shintoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism had in influencing samurai ideals. The writings deal with a broad range of subjects - from military strategy and political science, to personal discipline and character development. Cleary introduces each piece, putting it into historical context, and presents biographical information about the authors. This is an essential listen for anyone interested in military history and samurai history, and for martial artists who want to understand strategy.
©2008 Thomas Cleary (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Marcus Aurelius - Meditations: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader
Summary
Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the Meditations as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. These books have been carefully adapted into modern English form to allow for easy listening. Enjoy!
©2016 James Harris (P)2016 James Harris
Stoicism
Summary
It's a well-recorded phenomenon that words are liable to develop different meanings in common modern usage compared to those they had their origins and how people "in the know" would use them. This is doubly true for philosophical concepts - the word Epicurean, for example, has been transmuted from identifying the very sober and level teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus to being a synonym for wanton pleasure-seeking and hedonism. Stoicism hasn't suffered as severe a distortion. The modern understanding of what it means to be stoical is never showing any form of outward emotion regardless of all circumstances, good or bad, and indeed not having any emotions whatsoever. The entire species of the Vulcans in the popular science fiction franchise Star Trek exemplifies the popular definition. But it's easy to recognize an absence of outward emotion as not necessarily being a good thing; it is possible, after all, for someone to have a calm and blank exterior and yet be screaming inside. Having no internal emotion at all is also a less-than-ideal situation, as well. Without emotion, how could one possibly enjoy life? Being immune to the negatives and vicissitudes of life in this way is something we can all stand to benefit from. Our modern lives are so full of worries and insecurities, and peace and fulfillment are something most people try to find outside of themselves. Stoicism teaches that these are things we can only find from inside ourselves, and gives us the tools and mindset necessary to build them up. What this audiobook will endeavor to do is to introduce the philosophy of Stoicism to the modern person and make a case for how it can drastically improve our outlook and quality of life.
©2015 Tom Miles (P)2015 HRD Publishing
The Lucifer Principle
Summary
The Lucifer Priciple is a revolutionary work that explores the intricate relationships among genetics, human behavior, and culture to put forth the thesis that "evil" is a by-product of nature's strategies for creation and that it is woven into our most basic biological fabric. Though this argument is not a new one - it has been brought forth by such great historical figures as St. Paul, Thomas Hobbes, and Raymond Dart - Howard Bloom here takes fresh data from a variety of sources and shapes it into a lens through which listeners can reinterpret the human experience.
©2015 Blackstone Audio (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
A Secular Age
Summary
What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age? Almost everyone would agree that we - in the West, at least - largely do. And clearly the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly in the last few centuries. In what will be a defining book for our time, Charles Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean - of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others.Taylor, long one of our most insightful thinkers on such questions, offers a historical perspective. He examines the development in "Western Christendom" of those aspects of modernity which we call secular. What he describes is in fact not a single, continuous transformation, but a series of new departures, in which earlier forms of religious life have been dissolved or destabilized and new ones have been created. As we see here, today's secular world is characterized not by an absence of religion - although in some societies religious belief and practice have markedly declined - but rather by the continuing multiplication of new options, religious, spiritual, and anti-religious, which individuals and groups seize on in order to make sense of their lives and give shape to their spiritual aspirations. What this means for the world - including the new forms of collective religious life it encourages, with their tendency to a mass mobilization that breeds violence - is what Charles Taylor grapples with, in a book as timely as it is timeless.
©2007 Charles Taylor (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking
Summary
Over a storied career, Daniel C. Dennett has engaged questions about science and the workings of the mind. His answers have combined rigorous argument with strong empirical grounding. And a lot of fun. Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking offers seventy-seven of Dennett’s most successful “imagination-extenders and focus-holders” meant to guide you through some of life’s most treacherous subject matter: evolution, meaning, mind, and free will. With patience and wit, Dennett deftly deploys his thinking tools to gain traction on these thorny issues while offering listeners insight into how and why each tool was built. Alongside well-known favorites like Occam’s Razor and reductio ad absurdum lie thrilling descriptions of Dennett’s own creations: Trapped in the Robot Control Room, Beware of the Prime Mammal, and The Wandering Two-Bitser. Ranging across disciplines as diverse as psychology, biology, computer science, and physics, Dennett’s tools embrace in equal measure light-heartedness and accessibility as they welcome uninitiated and seasoned listeners alike. As always, his goal remains to teach you how to “think reliably and even gracefully about really hard questions.” A sweeping work of intellectual seriousness that’s also studded with impish delights, Intuition Pumps offers intrepid thinkers - in all walks of life - delicious opportunities to explore their pet ideas with new powers.
©2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc. (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Buddhism Without Beliefs
Summary
Before it was a religion, a culture, or even a system of meditation, what was Buddhism? On Buddhism Without Beliefs, celebrated teacher, translator, and former Buddhist monk Stephen Batchelor takes us back to the first years after the Buddha's awakening to reveal the root insights of Buddhism hidden beneath centuries of history and interpretation. In eight compelling sessions of self-inquiry - including many fascinating exercises and practices - we learn how to awaken and refine our senses, introduce the essential spirit of curiosity into the practice of awareness, and comprehend with both our hearts and our minds the Buddha's astonishing (and often misunderstood) revelations on emptiness, compassion, and the self. Before he died, the Buddha did not appoint a successor. He simply remarked that each of us must be responsible for our own freedom. Buddhism without Beliefs is an invitation to hear what the Buddha taught - and to trust yourself on your own path to liberation.
©1997 Stephen Batchelor (P)2013 Sounds True
Man, Nature, and the Nature of Man
Summary
Drawn from hundreds of hours of rare archival recordings from the personal collection of his son, Mark Watts, this program presents the essential message of Alan Watts. Here is Alan Watts, recorded live in seminars conducted in America and Japan, personally explaining how the Eastern view of man and his place in the world can be made meaningful to the contemporary Westerner.
(P)1991 Audio Renaissance
Seneca - On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader
Summary
De Brevitate Vitae (frequently referred to as On the Shortness of Life in English) is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, to his father-in-law Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives man enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly. In general, time can be best used in the study of philosophy, according to Seneca. This essay has been carefully adapted into a contemporary form.
©2016 James Harris (P)2016 James Harris