Facing the Wave - A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami

Joy is not for just the lucky few–it’s a choice anyone can make. In this groundbreaking book, based on his popular course, James Baraz helps you discover a path to the happiness that’s right in front of you, offering a step-by-step program that will reorient your mind away from dissatisfaction and distraction and toward the contentment and delight that is abundantly available in our everyday lives.

You can decide to be happy. For years, James Baraz’s online Awakening Joy course has offered participants from around the world the benefits of this simple but profoundly radical proposition. Grounded in simple Buddhist principles but accessible to people of all faiths–or no faith at all–this concept provides the jumping-off point for a transformational journey toward a richer, more meaningful, more positive outlook on life. Now readers everywhere can follow the same ten steps Baraz teaches to his program participants. In this practical down-to-earth guide, you will learn how to

• make happiness a habit by inclining your mind toward states that lead to well-being
• find joy even during difficult times and avoid the pitfalls that prevent you from achieving the contentment you seek
• cultivate effective practices for sustaining joyfulness, such as reclaiming your natural sense of wonder and finding joy in the midst of everyday experiences

Each chapter of Awakening Joy consists of one step in Baraz’s ten-step program and includes engaging exercises and practical advice to make happiness your natural default setting. For everyone from the cynic despondent over life’s many sorrows to the harried commuter raging at freeway traffic, this book offers up a simple yet powerful message of hope grounded in the realization that joy already exists inside every one of us. Like a precious child, it only needs to be recognized, embraced, and nurtured in order to grow to its full potential.

Set in and around a small town in modern-day Belize, Essence & Folly chronicles the lives of several poignant and comical residents from Santo Innocencio.

A humorous ?shing story of revenge gone wrong entitled ?Ole Gyal and Jackanapes? exposes some of the di?culties arising from the generation gap between a cantankerous Mayan grandmother and her ?half-limey? grandson.

?The Voice over the Water? recounts Doña Elena?s days of interminable melancholy and loneliness following the death of her husband. Three months after her heartbreak, the widow ?nds herself at the edge of a cliff, confronting her own mortality.

?Don Gabriel Loco? is a madman serving out the ?nal days of a twelve-year sentence for the botched execution of his ex-wife?s lover. While in jail, he records the colorful details of that bloody evening in a diary. Eventually, through deliberations with God, Shakespeare, and Diablo, he arrives at the decision that he must ?nish what he started?in six seconds ?at?the moment he?s released.

Believing this is his best shot at a normal life, a lonely bachelor enlists the help of a mule to pursue the love and attention of his neighbor in ?The Love Story of a Garbage Man.?

In ?Leonid and the Mini-Commander,? a shopkeeper wonders whether his obsessions and compulsions are the result of prompts from a mini-commander hiding in a bunker lodged inside his head.

Following Common Core Standards, this lesson plan for Alice Walker’s, "The Color Purple" is the perfect solution for teachers trying to get ideas for getting students excited about a book.

BookCaps lesson plans cover five days worth of material. It includes a suggested reading schedule, discussion questions, essay topics, homework assignments, and suggested web resources.

A separate book is also available that contains a companion study guide to the book.