Essential Wisdom Teachings: The Way to Inner Peace

by Peter Fenner, Penny Fenner

Overview

Provides a distillation of the profound wisdom teachings from many spiritual traditions. It is free of esoteric jargon and foreign terms, making it easy to absorb spiritual truths that have previously been available only to people who have studied ofmany years. The Fenners focus a great deal of attention on stress, its causes, wide variety of disguises, the suffering it produces, and techniques that can lead to inner peace, joy, and freedom. Bibliography. Index.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780892540532
Publisher:	Nicolas-Hays, Inc
Publication date:	04/01/2001
Pages:	150
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	viii
	Preface	ix
	Introduction	xiii
Part 1	How Suffering Is Created and Dissolved	1
Chapter 1	What Is Stress?	3
	Defining Stress	5
	The Signs of Stress	6
	Signs of Stress-Free Living	7
Chapter 2	The Source of Stress	9
	Stress Lives in Our Belief System	11
	Our Experience Is Filtered by Beliefs	13
	Stress Is Caused by Conflicting Beliefs	14
Chapter 3	Beliefs	17
	Levels of Beliefs	20
	Conflicting Beliefs As the Cause of Stress	22
	Experiencing Deep Beliefs	24
Chapter 4	Why Do Our Beliefs Conflict?	27
	Beliefs Co-Emerge	29
	How We Come into Existence	29
	The Stress of Disconnection	30
	How Beliefs Imply Their Opposite	31
	Emotional Paradoxes	32
Chapter 5	Common Conflicting Beliefs	35
	Beliefs That Make Stress	36
	The Battleground of the Mind	41
Chapter 6	Harmonizing Conflicting Beliefs	45
	Fear of Losing Our Beliefs	47
	Going Beyond All Beliefs	48
	Natural Release	49
Part 2	Relationship to Knowing	55
Chapter 7	The Seduction of Knowing	57
	Attachment to Beliefs	61
	Taking the Suffering Out of Factual Events	63
	Nothing Is Permanent	64
	Things Are What They Are	65
	Going Beyond the Story	66
	Beginning to Release Attachment	68
Chapter 8	Creating Openness Through Not-Knowing	71
	Ambiguity on the Spiritual Path	73
	Developing Openness	74
Part 3	Phases of Growth	77
Chapter 9	Disconnection	79
	Preoccupation with Oursleves	80
	Disconnecting from Ourselves	82
	Internal Disconnection	83
	Counterbalancing Disconnection	84
	Interrupting the Stimulus-Response Pattern	84
	Connecting with the Environment	85
	Connecting with People	86
Chapter 10	Conflict	87
	Reacting to Conflict	88
	Thinking or Feeling	90
	Being and Doing	90
	Time and Space As Obstacles	91
	Counterbalancing Conflict	92
Chapter 11	Codependence	95
	External Codependence	96
	Internal Codependence	98
	Counterbalancing Codependence	99
Chapter 12	Coexistence	103
	Keeping an Eye on the Ball	104
	Desiring Personal Power	105
	Counterbalancing Coexistence	107
Chapter 13	Dilemma	111
	Hope and Hopelessness	113
	Crazy Wisdom	113
	Nowhere to Go	114
	Counterbalancing Dilemma	114
	Surrendering All Effort	116
	Typical Conversations in Each Phase of Growth	117
Chapter 14	Presence	121
	We Cannot Gain It	123
	No Manipulation of Our Experience	124
	Nor Can We Lose It	125
Part 4	Practice and Beyond	127
Chapter 15	Practicing the Impossible	129
	Relationship to Practice	131
	Observing Reactions	132
	Naturally Releasing	135
	Dissolution--Going Beyond Practice	136
Appendix	Origins	139
	Bibliography	143
	Index	146
	Timeless Wisdom Courses	149
	About the Authors	150