The vow-powered life - Jan Chozen Bays

Winner of the 2016 IPPY Gold Medal Award for Self Help

How
making a vow-consciously setting an intention-can be a powerful tool
for achieving all sort of goals, from the author of the best-selling Mindful Eating.

Making a
vow is a powerful mindfulness practice-and all you have to do to tap
into that power is set your intention consciously. A vow can be as
"small" as the aspiration to smile at someone at least once every day,
or as "big" as marriage; as personal as deciding to be mindful when
picking up the phone or as universal as vowing to save all sentient
beings. It can be deeply spiritual, utterly ordinary, or both. Zen
teacher Jan Chozen Bays looks to traditional Buddhist teachings to show
the power of vows-and then applies that teaching broadly to the many
vows we make. She shows that if we work with vows consciously, they set
us in the direction of achieving our goals, both temporal and spiritual.

Bays presents secular and spiritual wisdom from both East and West, highlighting figures such as Martha Graham, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Buckminster Fuller. She helps us examine the vows we have already made for ourselves and the vows we've unconsciously inherited. She supports us in repairing broken vows, crafting new intentions, and exploring what's truly on our bucket lists.