A Reader’s Guide to Greening Your Bookshelf
As spring begins, warmer temperatures and longer days call upon us to deepen our connection to the natural world. We begin spending more time outside and taking notice of all the new growth and colors popping up in the world around us. As a celebration of Earth Day, Shambhala Publications has compiled a guide to books that will help readers to continue to connect to and celebrate the Earth, no matter the season.
As our environment faces ever-increasing stresses, deepening our connection to Earth remains invaluable. Whether spiritual, practical, or creative, our continued engagement with the natural world results in a heightened sense of interdependence with and compassion for the world around us. May these books help inspire green living and a joyful celebration of our home.
We have compiled a guide to some of our favorite Shambhala Publications books that will help readers connect to and celebrate the Earth, no matter the season.
Shambhala Publications: A Reader’s Guide to Greening Your Bookshelf
by Lindsay Michko
Mindfully Green: A Personal and Spiritual Guide to Whole Earth Thinking
With all the attention on living sustainably, the one thing missing from the conversation is how to find a personal connection with green living that will sustain us on our green path. While practical approaches to an eco-responsible lifestyle offer important first steps, it is critical that we ground these actions in broader understanding so that we can effect real change in the world.
”For those wishing to live more in harmony with their environment, author Stephanie Kaza offers a “green practice path.” This Buddhist-inspired approach to practical and effective environmental action encourages deeper reflection on our personal impact on the natural world, and its impact on us. As Kaza explains, “When we come to see ourselves as part of the great web of life, in a relationship with all beings, we are naturally drawn to respond with compassion” She offers a simple, Buddhist-inspired philosophy for taking up environmental action in real, practical, and effective ways. Discover new ways to think more deeply about your impact on the natural world, engage in environmental change, and make green living a personal practice based on compassion and true conviction.
Green Buddhism – Practice and Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times
By Stephanie Kaza
With species rapidly disappearing and global temperatures rising, there is more urgency than ever to act on the ecological crises we face. Hundreds of millions of people around the world—including unprecedented numbers of Westerners—now practice Buddhism.
Can Buddhists be a critical voice in the green conversation? Leading Buddhist environmentalist Stephanie Kaza has spent her career exploring the intersection of religion and ecology. With so much at stake, she offers guidance on how people and communities can draw on Buddhist concepts and practices to live more sustainable lives on our one and only home.
Conversations with Trees-An Intimate Ecology
By Stephanie Kaza 
First published in 1993 as The Attentive Heart, Kaza’s intimate exploration of the lives and relationships of individual trees exemplifies the conjunction of inquiry and emotion, of science and spirituality.
Stephanie Kaza’s heartfelt meditations on the singular presence of trees have helped thousands of readers feel a sense of spiritual connection to our ancient relatives. Through her attentive, loving encounters with trees, Kaza asks vital questions about what it means to reinhabit place, live simply, and speak from the truth of experience. More pertinent now than ever, her intimate exploration of the lives of individual trees demonstrates the possibility of personal and ecological sanity in our time.
A Plea for the Animals- The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion
By Matthieu Ricard
Every cow just wants to be happy. Every chicken just wants to be free. Every bear, dog, or mouse experiences sorrow and feels pain as intensely as any of us humans do. In a compelling appeal to reason and human kindness, Matthieu Ricard here takes the arguments from his best-sellers Altruism and Happiness to their logical conclusion: that compassion toward all beings, including our fellow animals, is a moral obligation and the direction toward which any enlightened society must aspire. He chronicles the appalling sufferings of the animals we eat, wear, and use for adornment or “entertainment,” and submits every traditional justification for their exploitation to scientific evidence and moral scrutiny. What arises is an unambiguous and powerful ethical imperative for treating all of the animals with whom we share this planet with respect and compassion.
Integral Ecology-Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World
By Sean Esbjorn-Hargens and Michael Zimmerman
Today there is a bewildering diversity of views on ecology and the natural environment. With more than two hundred distinct and valuable perspectives on the natural world—and with scientists, economists, ethicists, activists, philosophers, and others often taking completely different stances on the issues—how can we come to an agreement to solve our toughest environmental problems?
In response to this pressing need, Integral Ecology unites valuable insights from multiple perspectives into a comprehensive theoretical framework—one that can be put to use right now. The framework is based on Integral Theory, as well as Ken Wilber’s AQAL model, and is the result of over a decade of research exploring the myriad perspectives on ecology available to us today and their respective methodologies.
Dozens of real-life applications and examples of this framework currently in use are examined, including three in-depth case studies: work with marine fisheries in Hawai’i, strategies of eco-activists to protect Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest, and a study of community development in El Salvador. In addition, eighteen personal practices of transformation are provided for you to increase your own integral ecological awareness.
Integral Ecology provides the most sophisticated application and extension of Integral Theory available today, and as such it serves as a template for any truly integral effort.
About Shambhala Publications
Shambhala Publications is dedicated to creating books, audio, and immersive courses aimed at improving lives—in ways big and small—in the hope of contributing to the development of a thoughtful, kindhearted, and contemplative society. In the words of our first author, Chögyam Trungpa, “Enlightened society has to be real and good, honest and genuine.” We hold these words as a guiding principle and try to reflect its sentiment in each and everything we make and do, from publishing timeless spiritual classics and cultural treasures to contemporary explorations of what it is to live a meaningful and honest life that benefits the people and world around us. https://www.shambhala.com
