Awareness practices and contemplative technologies that transform our understanding of ourselves and how we participate in the world

When Caverly Morgan reentered society after eight years as a Zen monk, she was confronted with a question many of us are asking these days: When faced with the enormity of the collective problems before us, how can one individual's spiritual practice make a tangible difference in our world?

In The Heart of Who We Are, Morgan explores how meditation, mindfulness, and contemplative technologies designed for the realization of personal freedom can-and must be-applied collectively. Offering a wealth of teachings and reflections, solo and group exercises, and personal stories that inspire us to put our values into action, this timely guide invites us to connect with the deepest truth of who we are, and then use that understanding to transform our own lives and the world we share.

Contents:

. Chapter 1: Return to Community: Creating an Environment of CARE (confidentiality, acceptance, reverence, and empathy)
. Chapter 2: Return to Truth: Giving the Gift of Attention
. Chapter 3: Return to Wholeness: Recognizing the Conditioned Mind
. Chapter 4: Return to Inquiry: Releasing Negative Self-Talk and Shame
. Chapter 5: Return to Unconditional Love: Embodying the Compassionate Mentor Within
. Chapter 6: Return to Belonging: Unpacking Our Survival Strategies
. Chapter 7: Return to Unity: Seeing Through Duality
. Chapter 8: Return to Presence: Knowing the Heart of Who We Are
. Chapter 9: Return to Oneness: Resting in Luminous Being
. Chapter 10: Return to Embodiment: Releasing the Mind into the Heart
. Chapter 11: Return to Surrender: Turning Toward What Is
. Chapter 12: Return to Service: Loving and Living Truth in the World

At the core of this book is the call to liberation, to find freedom that is within and without, both personally and collectively. "The longer we cling to the notion that there's a separate self who awakens, the more arduous our path will be," Morgan writes. "We realize freedom together."