Award-winning author Lama Tsomo provides insights and practices to enrich our relationships, be mindfully and joyfully present in the world, and deepen our understanding of ourselves.

The tide of modern life is sweeping us even further into isolation--away from each other, from the world, from ourselves. To turn this tide, Lama Tsomo has created the latest addition to her Ancient Wisdom for Our Times series: Deepening Wisdom, Deepening Connection. Building on the ideas and practices in the first two books--Why Bother: An Introduction and Wisdom Compassion (Starting with Yourself)--this new volume actively engages readers, expanding our understanding and guiding our practice in the several key areas.

The Four Boundless Qualities. Loving Kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity are not lofty, abstract sentiments. They are practical capacities that we can all cultivate for the benefit, as Buddhists say, of ourselves and others. Lama Tsomo teaches us how.

Forgiveness. This is essential to our inner well-being--if we want to move on in our lives, and to move closer to others, we must be able to forgive. Resentment is the most destructive form of stress. As someone once said, hanging on to resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Deepening Wisdom, Deepening Connection shows us that we don't need to forget to forgive.

Near Enemies. Lama Tsomo's explanation of the Buddhist concept of "near enemies" is a true eye-opener: she explains how we can stop fooling ourselves into thinking some of our shortcomings are actually virtues.

Sublime Insight. Her patient guidance into the principles and practice of Vipassana (Sublime Insight) offers us ways to experience reality in its complexity and simplicity. (Buddhism was thousands of years ahead of quantum physics on this one.) You'll never see the world, or yourself, the same way again.

Written with the conversational clarity and generous dashes of humor she's brought to her retreats at the Namchak Retreat Ranch and award-winning titles such as Why Is the Dalai Lama Always Smiling? and The Lotus and the Rose, Lama Tsomo's latest is the culmination of decades of deep practice and scholarly inquiry, filled with real-world examples, beautiful illustrations, practice cards, and links to online support. Deepening Wisdom, Deepening Connection is an authentic guide to compassionate awareness and a salve against a growingly disconnected world.

Deepening Wisdom, Deepening Connection; Lama Tsomo; Namchak Publishing; Paperback; 190 pages; $14.95

Lama Tsomo is an American Buddhist lama, author, and co-founder of the Namchak Foundation and Namchak Retreat Ranch. She holds an MA in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Jungian studies. She is author of the award-winning Why Is the Dalai Lama Always Smiling? and co-author, with Reverend Matthew Fox, of The Lotus & The Rose: A Conversation Between Tibetan Buddhism & Mystical Christianity. Lama Tsomo lives in Missoula, MT.