Books
Vipassana Meditation & Ayahuasca:
Skillful Means for Spiritual Opening & Renewal
• Reveals how the author found ayahuasca to be a remarkable catalyst on his spiritual path, ultimately reinvigorating his own practice
• Explores the ayahuasca ceremony process in depth, detailing his multi-session experience in Peru and advice for how to work with ayahuasca
• Offers an introduction to Tibetan Buddhist practice, including a guided instruction to four progressive techniques of Shamata Vipassana meditation
Over the last several decades, serious study of Tibetan Buddhism and the use of ayahuasca as an agent for spiritual growth have both become widespread in the West. Though the two traditions originate in widely different parts of the world, both are effective in working with the ego and creating a genuine spiritual opening.
Uniting the two paths, the author takes readers through his own journey as a long-time but sometimes-struggling Buddhist practitioner whose sojourn to Peru for a series of Ayahuasca ceremonies provided an invaluable shift in his own spiritual approach. He reveals how ayahuasca was a remarkable catalyst in pointing out self-deception in his spiritual path, providing insight into psycho-emotional obstacles to spiritual growth and ultimately reinvigorating his practice and authentic presence in daily life. But, as he points out, although a skillful means and a useful aid, ayahuasca is not a complete path on its own.
Instead, he introduces Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and the calm mindfulness of Shamata Vipassana meditation as a sustainable developmental path to support and integrate the opening caused by Ayahuasca. He emphasizes the complementary nature of both the medicine and his longer-term studies in Buddhism. He describes his own challenges with spiritual self-deception and stagnation—not uncommon on the Buddhist path—and how Ayahuasca helped him see it. Finally, he shares how to integrate the lessons of his ayahuasca experiences into his Buddhist practice, offering readers a methodical and guided introduction to the progressive techniques of Shamata Vipassana meditation.
Whether readers are long-term seekers or novices, this book can provide a singular means of aligning and re-invigorating the spiritual path.
The Leadership Wheel:
Five Steps for Achieving Individual and Organizational Greatness
The challenges of the world today demand a new brand of leadership – resolute and balanced, empathetic, and principled. In this groundbreaking book, a truly revolutionary management approach maps out how to approach a lifelong process for fulfilling your leadership potential, not only for oneself, but also for others and your organization.
To cultivate and encourage the leaders we need today, the author draws on ancient and archetypal paradigms found in the spiritual traditions of the Tibetan Buddhist Mandala and Native American Medicine Wheel. Paralleling current psychological typologies, both point to an intuitive and compelling model of multiple intelligences – intellectual, emotional, intuitive, action, and spiritual – that we all possess but only partially realize. His dynamic approach zeroes in on this as a template for assessing the work of leaders, first in terms of personal development, then in terms of learning and applying healthy leadership skills in interpersonal, team, and system wide contexts.
A unique and powerful paradigm tailored to today’s rapidly changing business world, The Leadership Wheel unveils his fresh approach to leadership as a way of life, and as a framework for personal and professional growth and fulfillment.
This Hungry Spirit: Your Need for Basic Goodness
Basic goodness is the one thing that leads to
Confidence
Happiness
Success
Contribution
Work that you love
Leading well by serving others
Making a difference
Satisfying and authentic personal and profession relationships
Creating new possibilities
Becoming your best possible self
A meaningful, considered life
Basic goodness is the source of joy, interest, gratitude, enthusiasm—all that makes you feel best about yourself and others.
It awakens a trust in yourself that has magic in it. It inspires choices that serve the best you possible, When you come from basic goodness, the world responds in kind.
Not knowing it is in you is like mistaking a precious gem in your pocket for an ordinary stone.
Basic goodness opens you, broadens your view, connects you with others, and engages your natural talents with the world’s needs.
This book is about how you can find it, nurture it, and watch it nourish every aspect of your life. It gets under the surface of what should make us happy, to the core of what makes us tick-where our chance of actually being happy thrives. It's about the deep joy of being effective for purposes you value, in situations that call forth your natural gifts. Blending personal stories with fresh perspectives on happiness, success, leadership, and spirituality, Sidle gives practical, hands-on tools to fulfill our basic goodness in our lives, work, and relationships.
Empowered: Leadership Development for Higher Education
Czech poet, revolutionary, and former president Vaclav Havel once said, “Without a global revolution of consciousness nothing will change for the better, and the catastrophe towards which is world is headed will be unavoidable.”
Leadership development offers a powerful fulcrum for creating that revolution. Whether in the classroom, the workplace, or the board room, this book defines leadership as being an effective human being and leadership development as a vehicle through which people become fully human and transform organizations and communities into movements of the human spirit. It is a leadership that underpins a balanced, equitable, and sustainable success for us all.
To develop this kind of leadership, however, requires a systemic approach that addresses the whole individual and every aspect professional experience. Based on the author’s teaching at the Johnson School – Cornell University and as a consultant throughout higher education – this book offers a comprehensive program of tools and techniques for teachers and faculty to guide students through a proven developmental sequence he calls personal, interpersonal, team, and system mastery. Every leadership experience is viewed through the totality of these four perspectives that work interdependently to bring about the revolutionary or evolutionary change promoted in the overall message of the book. There are no silver bullets or short cuts in leadership, or no single approach will work every time. Therefore, leaders must be prepared to operate and adapt in multiple arenas with multiple approaches.