A Los Angeles Review of Books Best of the Year selection

Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it. A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.--Kirkus Reviews

Elegant and formally ingenious.--Geoff Wisner, Wall Street Journal

When world renowned Buddhist writer Stephen Batchelor turned sixty, he took a sabbatical from his teaching and turned his attention to solitude, a practice integral to the meditative traditions he has long studied and taught. He aimed to venture more deeply into solitude, discovering its full extent and depth.

This beautiful literary collage documents his multifaceted explorations. Spending time in remote places, appreciating and making art, practicing meditation and participating in retreats, drinking peyote and ayahuasca, and training himself to keep an open, questioning mind have all contributed to Batchelor's ability to be simultaneously alone and at ease. Mixed in with his personal narrative are inspiring stories from solitude's devoted practitioners, from the Buddha to Montaigne, from Vermeer to Agnes Martin.

In a hyperconnected world that is at the same time plagued by social isolation, this book shows how to enjoy the inescapable solitude that is at the heart of human life.

In this simple but important volume, Stephen Batchelor reminds us that the Buddha was not a mystic who claimed privileged, esoteric knowledge of the universe, but a man who challenged us to understand the nature of anguish, let go of its origins, and bring into being a way of life that is available to us all. The concepts and practices of Buddhism, says Batchelor, are not something to believe in but something to do--and as he explains clearly and compellingly, it is a practice that we can engage in, regardless of our background or beliefs, as we live every day on the path to spiritual enlightenment.

This entertaining guide introduces readers to the amazing world of the Ancient Greeks. It offers a complete rundown of Greek history alongside fascinating insights into daily life in Ancient Greece and a captivating overview of Greek mythology. Readers will discover how this ancient culture came to be the cornerstone of Western civilisation and the enormous influence it has had on our language, politics, education, philosophy, science, arts and sport.

• The history of Ancient Greece remains a wide topic of interest, particularly renowned for its influential and diverse culture
• This basic guide will allow greater access to this vibrant area of study, and provide a distinct and light-hearted approach to this vast area history
• Covers dozens of topics, including; the early civilisations, war & fighting, home & family, day-to-day life and much, much more

About the author

Steve Batchelor is a lecturer in Classics at Richmond College and has been teaching ancient history for 10 years. He has written reviews for various publications, including History Today, and he has also been involved in running guided historical tours of Greece.

The Awakening of the West is an insightful and elegantly written history chronicling the developing relationship between Buddhism and Western culture. As anyone familiar with the work of Stephen Batchelor (best-selling author of Buddhism Without Beliefs) would expect, The Awakening of the West is presented in a fresh and lively way and backed by thorough research. Using the innovative approach of starting with the present and working back in time, Batchelor makes it easy to connect familiar contemporary Buddhist teachers to their historical roots. He breathes life into history by capturing the personalities and times of famous and lesser-known but important Buddhist figures. After absorbing these stories and their context, readers will not only have a greater appreciation of Buddhism as a religion but can gain insights that can help them develop their own discerning wisdom. The Awakening of the West is a unique, engaging and important book for anyone seeking a greater understanding of Buddhism.

Some twenty-five centuries after the Buddha started teaching, his message continues to inspire people across the globe, including those living in predominantly secular societies. What does it mean to adapt religious practices to secular contexts?

Stephen Batchelor, an internationally known author and teacher, is committed to a secularized version of the Buddha's teachings. The time has come, he feels, to articulate a coherent ethical, contemplative, and philosophical vision of Buddhism for our age. After Buddhism, the culmination of four decades of study and practice in the Tibetan, Zen, and Theravada traditions, is his attempt to set the record straight about who the Buddha was and what he was trying to teach. Combining critical readings of the earliest canonical texts with narrative accounts of five members of the Buddha's inner circle, Batchelor depicts the Buddha as a pragmatic ethicist rather than a dogmatic metaphysician. He envisions Buddhism as a constantly evolving culture of awakening whose long survival is due to its capacity to reinvent itself and interact creatively with each society it encounters.

This original and provocative book presents a new framework for understanding the remarkable spread of Buddhism in today's globalized world. It also reminds us of what was so startling about the Buddha's vision of human flourishing.

As the practice of mindfulness permeates mainstream Western culture, more and more people are engaging in a traditional form of Buddhist meditation. However, many of these people have little interest in the religious aspects of Buddhism, and the practice occurs within secular contexts such as hospitals, schools, and the workplace. Is it possible to recover from the Buddhist teachings a vision of human flourishing that is secular rather than religious without compromising the integrity of the tradition? Is there an ethical framework that can underpin and contextualize these practices in a rapidly changing world?

In this collected volume of Stephen Batchelor's writings on these themes, the author explores the complex implications of Buddhism's secularization. Ranging widely--from reincarnation, religious belief, and agnosticism to the role of the arts in Buddhist practice--he offers a detailed picture of contemporary Buddhism and its attempt to find a voice in the modern world.

This is one man's confession.

In his classic Buddhism Without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor offered a profound, secular approach to the teachings of the Buddha that struck an emotional chord with Western readers. Now, with the same brilliance and boldness of thought, he paints a groundbreaking portrait of the historical Buddha--told from the author's unique perspective as a former Buddhist monk and modern seeker. Drawing from the original Pali Canon, the seminal collection of Buddhist discourses compiled after the Buddha's death by his followers, Batchelor shows us the Buddha as a flesh-and-blood man who looked at life in a radically new way. Batchelor also reveals the everyday challenges and doubts of his own devotional journey--from meeting the Dalai Lama in India, to training as a Zen monk in Korea, to finding his path as a lay teacher of Buddhism living in France. Both controversial and deeply personal, Stephen Batchelor's refreshingly doctrine-free, life-informed account is essential reading for anyone interested in Buddhism.

Although they never met, Socrates and the Buddha were almost exact contemporaries, and each addressed in a radically new and surprisingly similar way the core questions of how to lead a good, just, and dignified life amid turbulence and violence. Common to their teachings was an ethics of uncertainty: both men refused to make truth claims about the ultimate nature of reality, and both insisted on the primacy of critical self-evaluation as the basis of an ethical life.

In this illuminating book, best-selling author Stephen Batchelor explores the philosophical, social, and political worlds of the Buddha and Socrates, showing how their teachings continue to provide lessons in how to lead a flourishing and engaged life. Keenly aware of the fickle and conflicted nature of the human mind, Gotama and Socrates inspired their followers to act with humility and courage, risk and resolve, doubt and confidence. Drawing on their insights, and those of their followers, Batchelor uncovers a common ground between Buddhist dharma and Greek philosophy that can serve as a starting point for a secular faith that addresses the most pressing spiritual and planetary issues of our age.

Rattle through 1000 years of horrible history, from the fifth century to the sixteenth century

Famine, plague and public execution - the medieval period wasn't the best time for some, but heroic rulers like Charlemagne, William the Conqueror and Henry V made sure that it was full of action. Brimming with facts, this book helps you get under the skin of the people who lived at the time, from impoverished peasants to opulent monarchs. From the Dark Ages to the Renaissance and all the upheavals in between, this book takes the pain out of medieval history.

• The Black Death - assess the deadly pandemic that swept through Britain and Europe killing millions of people
• The Holy Roman Empire strikes back - understand how the empire fought to maintain its position
• Falling apart - witness the arrival of powerful armies from the east and invaders from the north, and the dramatic effects of religious schisms
• Heading for the Holy Land - uncover the reasons why crusading became so popular, and ultimately so unsuccessful, between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries
• Living in the medieval world - understand the lives of monks and monarchs, peasants and popes, and travellers and traders of the period
• Waging conflicts, battles and wars - a look through the troubles that shaped the medieval age; from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Wars of the Roses

Open the book and find:

• Why the peasants revolted
• Where Chaucer gained inspiration to write The Canterbury Tales
• Which religious groups fought for power
• How the Magna Carta shaped our present-day legal system
• Why the Vikings may have got to America before Columbus
• Profiles of the best and worst medieval monarchs
• How Joan of Arc made her name
• The great and grisly histories of surviving medieval castles

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In the national bestseller Living with the Devil, Batchelor traces the trajectory from the words of the Buddha and Christ, through the writings of Shantideva, Milton, and Pascal, to the poetry of Baudelaire, the fiction of Kafka, and the findings of modern physics and evolutionary biology to examine who we really are, and to rest in the uncertainty that we may never know. Like his previous bestseller, Buddhism without Beliefs, Living with the Devil is also an introduction to Buddhism that encourages readers to nourish their buddha nature and make peace with the devils that haunt human life. He tells a poetic and provocative tale about living with life's contradictions that will challenge you to live your life as an existence imbued with purpose, freedom, and compassion--rather than habitual self-interest and fear.

In this engaging spiritual memoir, Stephen Batchelor describes his own training, first as a Tibetan Buddhist and then as a Zen practitioner, and his own direct struggles along his path. It is most uncanny that we are able to ask questions, for to question means to acknowledge that we do not know something. But it is more than an acknowledgement: it includes a yearning to confront an unknown and illuminate it through understanding. Questioning is a quest.

Batchelor is a contemporary Buddhist teacher and writer, best known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism. He considers Buddhism to be a constantly evolving culture of awakening rather than a religious system based on immutable dogmas and beliefs. Buddhism has survived for the past 2,500 years because of its capacity to reinvent itself in accord with the needs of the different Asian societies with which it has creatively interacted throughout its history. As Buddhism encounters modernity, it enters a vital new phase of its development. Through his writings, translations and teaching, Stephen engages in a critical exploration of Buddhism's role in the modern world, which has earned him both condemnation as a heretic and praise as a reformer.

The Awakening of the West is an insightful and elegantly written history chronicling the developing relationship between Buddhism and Western culture. As anyone familiar with the work of Stephen Batchelor (best-selling author of Buddhism Without Beliefs) would expect, The Awakening of the West is presented in a fresh and lively way and backed by thorough research. Using the innovative approach of starting with the present and working back in time, Batchelor makes it easy to connect familiar contemporary Buddhist teachers to their historical roots. He breathes life into history by capturing the personalities and times of famous and lesser-known but important Buddhist figures. After absorbing these stories and their context, readers will not only have a greater appreciation of Buddhism as a religion but can gain insights that can help them develop their own discerning wisdom. The Awakening of the West is a unique, engaging and important book for anyone seeking a greater understanding of Buddhism.

Solo con los Demás. Un acercamiento existencial al Budismo es una enseñanza contemporánea necesaria para comprender el mensaje intemporal del Budismo y su incidencia en las relaciones humanas.Está inspirado en Guía a la Forma de Vida del Bodhisatva, de Shantideva (traducida del tibetano por el mismo autor), en instrucciones orales de maestros budistas modernos, en el clásico Ser y Tiempo, de Heidegger, y en los escritos de los teólogos cristianos Paul Tillich y John MacQuarrie.

Está escrito con una claridad poco usual que hace accesibles temas complejos. Del modo más sensible, inteligente y cuidadoso llena un serio vacío en el dialogo Oriente-Occidente. Es pionero el uso de la fenomenología y el existencialismo, pero a pesar de ello, los términos utilizados por estas disciplinas no impiden un encuentro veraz con una tradición diferente. La estrategia de Batchelor (valerse de estas disciplinas occidentales para hacer accesible el Budismo) es un acierto.
David Michael Levin, Profesor Asociado del Departamento de Filosotía Northwestern University

Magnífico, inspirador! Este excelente libro ha sido para mi un texto revelador, a pesar de mis casi sesenta años de interés en el Budismo.El acercamiento de Batchelor inspirará a muchos lectores que nunca han considerado el Budismo como algo relevante para ellos mismos.
Del prefacio de John Blofield.

Han pasado veinticinco siglos desde que el Buda inició sus enseñanzas, y el budismo sigue inspirando a personas de todo el mundo, incluyendo a aquellas que viven en sociedades secularizadas. Pero, qué significa adaptar las prácticas religiosas a un contexto secular. Stephen Barchelor, un maestro y autor muy reconocido internacionalmente, lleva tiempo articulando una visión filosófica, contemplativa y ética del budismo, adecuada a nuestra época. Después del budismo es la culminación de cuatro décadas de estudio y práctica en las tradiciones tibetana, Zen y Theravada. Realizando una brillante lectura crítica de los textos canónicos más antiguos, Batchelor nos describe la enseñanza de Buda no como una metafísica dogmática sino como una enseñanza ética y pragmática. Entiende el budismo como una cultura del despertar en constante evolución, cuya longevidad responde a su capacidad de reinventarse e interactuar de forma creativa con las sociedades con las que se encuentra.