Awakening the Buddhist Heart: Integrating Love, Meaning, and Connection into Every Part of Your Life
Surya Das's breezy delivery makes his teachings come off like colorful  conversation. In the third installment of his bestselling "Awakening" series,  America's most popular lama shows us how to integrate inner and outer practices.  Our inner spirituality, he says, can never be separate from our relationships  with others. With his trademark clarity, he integrates his teachings with light- hearted anecdotes and down-to-earth practices. Basic meditation, for instance,  can help us create a gap between our knee-jerk judgments and our reactions,  allowing for calm, wise relations. Likewise, one can try authentic listening  ("opening the third ear") or exploiting the power of speech to build deeper  connections. And beyond human relations lies our connection to the natural  world, for which Surya Das also includes a few lovely meditations. Taking that  extra step in our practice from the self to the world requires more than just  individual persistence, it takes compassion and teaches more than you'd expect.--Brian Bruya