Best Selling Books by Cheri Huber

According to Zen teacher Cheri Huber, we are conditioned to think that if we were only a little better in some way, we would be happy: "Life isn''t the way it should be and it''s my fault!" But, Huber says, no amount of self-punishment will ever make us happy or bring us control over life’s problems. The help we are looking for is really found in self-acceptance and kindness toward ourselves. By simply allowing ourselves to be guided by our innate intelligence and generosity, which are our authentic nature, we are able to be compassionately present to what’s happening now. Compassionate self-discipline—the will to take positive steps in life—is found through nothing other than being present. When we are present and aware, we are not engaged in distracting, addictive behaviors. If we simply cultivate our ability to pay attention and focus on what is here in this moment, our experience can be authentic, awake, honest, and joyful. The book includes a guided thirty-day program of daily meditation, contemplation, and journaling. For more information on the author, Cheri Huber, visit her website at www.cherihuber.com.

This book reveals the origin of self-hate, how self-hate works, how to identify it, and how to go beyond it. It provides examples of some of the forms self-hate takes, including taking blame but not credit, holding grudges, and trying to be perfect, and explores the many facets of self-hate, including its role in addiction, the battering cycle, and the illusion of control. After addressing these factors, it illustrates how a meditation practice can be developed and practiced in efforts to free oneself from self-hating beliefs.

Suffering Is Optional: Three Keys to Freedom and Joy centers around three basic aspects of Zen practice: pay attention, believe nothing, and don'' t take anything personally. As ending suffering requires that one sees how suffering happens, the book urges readers to be willing to be quiet and pay attention to the process of suffering in an effort to see each moment as an opportunity to step beyond illusion into freedom. It also argues that examining beliefs,abandoning them, and returning attention to the present is essential to ending suffering, as is living in the awareness that nothing in the universe is personal.

Discover how to increase your awareness and find the happiness you seek, with zen teacher Cheri Huber. Each of us has everything we need to overcome whatever obstacles we encounter. Anyone can do it; it just takes willingness and practice. In the straightforward, engaging style for which she is known, Zen teacher Cheri Huber presents a process for getting where you want to go in life. This process, which is based on Zen awareness training, is explained here in ordinary language. It is demonstrably effective for all who are willing to look honestly at themselves. This fascinating book tells you precisely how to examine an issue that is causing you difficulty, how to discover the source of the challenge, and how to free yourself from the suffering that is created. Step by step, you will be able to follow this path to freedom. Each step is illustrated with examples from Cheri’s life and spiritual practice, as well as from problems that students bring to her. Additionally, each step includes a “survey” in which readers explore their own experiences, emotions, beliefs, and patterns of behavior.

This funny, engaging guide to the basics of Buddhist meditation presents the idea that people are not human beings trying to be spiritual, but spiritual beings trying to be human. That is, instead of striving toward an ideal image of ourselves, people might aim simply to see more clearly what being human is all about, including what impels striving.

Our lives are the result of what we practice. For example, if we practice "chasing after money" or "I''m overwhelmed with work" or "things should be different," that''s the life experience we will have. Focusing on "something wrong" and "not enough" will create a life of lack or failure. If we want our lives to be different, we must practice the difference we want. To have a different practice we must 1) recognize our current practice, 2) clarify the practice we want instead, and 3) learn to practice moment by moment what we choose. The sequel to Cheri Huber''s perennial best seller There Is Nothing Wrong with You: Going Beyond Self-Hate, this book further exposes with clarity and humor the antics of mental conditioning and self-hate. It introduces the powerful practice of Recording and Listening with tools and techniques to develop the relationship with the Wisdom, Love and Compassion that allow us to transcend self-hate.

Rather than explaining typical strategies for overcoming fear, this book examines how fear is an experience, how to recognize that experience as nothing more than conditioned reaction to circumstance, and how to mentor oneself into letting go of beliefs about "appropriate" responses to fear. The notion is debunked that fear is anything other than a label we have learned to put on a set of physical and emotional responses, which is a Buddhist view of emotion in general.The revised edition expands on many points and includes a series of exercises and new illustrations for recognizing fear for what it is and overcoming its devastating effects.

Sweet Zen is an impressive compendium of clear and inspiring teachings showcasing Zen Buddhist approaches to spiritual practice. Offering the unusual perspective on the softness and sweetness to be discovered in the Zen path., which has long been associated with formality and even harshness, this book includes the traditional rigor of Zen practice, but is balanced and eased with ever-growing compassion for the self and for the suffering caused by the delusion that we are separate from all that is.Trained in the Soto tradition of Zen Buddhism, Cheri Huber has taught meditation for more than 20 years.

Good Life presents the Buddhist precepts as signposts on the path to discovering human beings'' inherent goodness. It offers concrete ways of transforming real-life difficulties into freedom.

When You'' re Falling, Dive combines the psychological concept of acceptance with Buddhist teachings, providing useful tools for looking at how suffering happens and how to let that go. The book is written in three parts: What Acceptance Is and Why We Resist; How to Accept; Acceptance, Freedom and Possibility. The primary themes are threefold: accepting what life brings, learning to recognize what acceptance is and discerning one'' s psychological mechanisms that stand in the way of being able to accept. Five practices for mentoring oneself to overcome resistance are included: 1) Lower your expectations, 2) learn to see “ who is here,” 3) create for yourself a Q&A mini-workbook, 4) prove to yourself that you are doing nothing wrong and 5) realize the uselessness of comparing yourself to others.

This self-discovery workbook contains 16 short essays interspersed with writing and drawing exercises on numerous topics, including money, body image, relationships, and career.

Everything we encounter can help us see who we are, if we know how to look. Our clearest mirrors, and most difficult challenges, are often other people---those wonderful, nagging, kind, selfish, thoughtful, lazy, sweet, arrogant people. Becoming aware that what we see in others is a part of who we are is the first and most powerful step on the journey of self-discovery. This is not a typical how-to book on solving your relationship problems. The focus here is awareness, responsibility, clarity and freedom.

This book provides a process for dealing with the dull pain of depression. It employs a custom hand-lettered font and many lighthearted illustrations. A self-guided retreat has been added to assist readers to explore how to be compassionate with themselves when depressed.

This is a Zen guide to the principles of compassionate communication. Communication is among the most common yet difficult challenges humans face. Effective communication is rarely a simple give-and-take of information because of interference from individual egos, whereby input is taken personally, judged, and reacted against. This book can be read and the principles put into effect by a general audience.

Zen techniques, from a renowned Zen teacher, to derive greater satisfaction from life Are you making choices that are supposed to give you what you want but leave you feeling unfulfilled and disappointed? This new book is based on the Buddha''s teachings and the practice of Zen, and breaks down the structures of this karmic process. Written in a humorous and lighthearted style, it illustrates through essays, stories, and examples what keeps us from choosing well-being, love, happiness, and joy as our life experience. In addition, the book contains a full year of practical exercises and nuggets of wisdom from those who have practiced with these teachings.

Whether it''s a choice, such as a class we'' ve signed up for, or a chore we feel we have no choice about, resistance (a voice in the head saying "I don'' t want to, I don'' t feel like it") can rocket us from commitment to inaction in a matter of seconds. Employing the tenets of Zen Awareness Practice, the book provides numerous exercises and tools for working through resistance. It reveals how the voice of resistance operates in everyday life, the many forms it takes, and how to be free of it. Transcending resistance is a practice of recognizing it as a process that happens to everybody and not taking it personally.

Hating and resisting depression and anything else we don''t want - and maintaining it.

The teachings of Zen are presented to Westerners in this book, including subjects ranging from compassion and meditation to death.

Answering questions such as "What is meditation?" "I can''t clear my mind. What should I do?" "What do I focus on?" and "How can I meditate when I have no time?" this guide answers more than 50 of the most commonly asked questions about meditation practices. Beginners will find information on how to sit, what to sit on, when to sit, where to sit, why to sit, and what to expect. They will learn how the body, mind, emotions, and spirit might respond to meditation.

Children learn more from what we do than from what we say. If we want our children to be happy and fulfilled, we must model that; we must be happy, fulfilled adults. Choose anything-light-hearted, generous, industrious, expressive-be that way yourself, and that is what your children will learn about how adults are. How can we, as parents, be who we want our children to become? We are often not happy, not fulfilled, not in touch with our deepest selves. This book presents a practice of compassionate acceptance for who and how we are in any moment. It is a book about being kind to ourselves and extending that kindness to others. Even when we are not being ideal parents, if we model openness and acceptance for how we are in every moment, the children around us will learn openness and acceptance for themselves, and that is a wonderful gift. Book jacket.

¿Odias tu depresión? ¿Desearías que simplemente se fuera? "Hay muchas cosas en este libro que van a contracorriente de lo que a la mayoría de nosotros se nos ha condicionado a creer y pensar. Cuando lees algo que parece equivocado o que carece de sentido, observa si puedes hacerlo a un lado para permanecer abierto a cualquier verdad que se esconda dentro de ello. Luego de considerarlo durante un tiempo, tal vez lo veas de forma diferente." Cómo nos tratamos a nosotros mismos cuando estamos deprimidos es más importante que superarlo. Rechazarnos durante la depresión no es una buena práctica para aceptarnos en otro momento. Este libro sugiere que resistirse a la depresión o a cualquier otra cosa que no queramos realmente la mantiene, y que la aceptación compasiva de nuestros sentimientos y de nosotros mismos nos lleva a la libertad.

Admirers of Cheri Huber''s books will enjoy seeing Zen practice through the eyes of the monks under her guidance. The same simplicity and clarity for which her teaching is known shines through the stories written by the monks. The many low-fat vegetarian recipes are organized in standard cookbook format: Main Dishes, Soups, Breads, Desserts, etc. There are many special features including items such as tips and suggestions for low fat cooking, how to cook whole grains, and cooking with tofu.

Devoted half to sex, half to money, this spiritual workbook is printed back to back so it appears to have two full-color front covers. 70 line drawings. (Consumable)

Structured as a daily game, this book and card deck has readers randomly choose a card and then read the corresponding pages in the book. The intention is to broaden perspective, lift spirits, and improve the quality of one''s life. What Universe Are You Creating? is a playful, powerful tool for learning the skill that frees us: Zen, the practice of presence. Recording and listening is a revolutionary tool for practicing turning attention from incessant, haranguing, karmically conditioned patterns of thought and action to the peace of presence. Recording in our own voice and then listening to kind words, encouragement, inspirational readings, favorite songs, gratitude lists, meditations--in short, being our own mentor--turns attention away from the constant stream of negative self-talk, revealing its illusory nature.

These insights from many years of Zen meditation practice appeal to a wide range of spiritual traditions and explore topics such as the difference between process and content, notions of right and wrong, ending self-punishment, and taking responsibility for one''s experiences. Perfect for beginning Zen students and for those interested in Buddhism in general or eastern religion, it features deep spiritual insights and playful illustrations that add warmth and approachability to the topic.

Chosen for impact, clarity, and humor, these one-per-day quotations come from a wide variety of sources: Zen masters; Christian and Sufi mystics; Eastern and Western philosophers; poets ancient and modern; and living artists, writers, and comedians. Each entry also contains a question to prompt self-examination, making the calendar a year-long course in fending off destructive thoughts and finding inner certainty.

An innovative workbook that brings out the best in kids by bringing out the best in parents.

This look at the blues shows us that the worst thing we can do is try to fight them. The author suggests that resisting depression - or anything else you don''t want - actually sustains it and that compassionate acceptance of your feelings and yourself leads to freedom. Through simple exercises and meditations readers learn to open up to emotions, both good and bad, because, according to the author when you open yourself up to pain you also open yourself up to joy.

Conversations with a zen teacher and her students.