Joan Tollifson

These lively talks and dialogs are about seeing through the illusion of separation and waking up to the boundless wholeness that is all there is. They take on perennial questions such as: Who am I? Is there a way out of personal and global suffering? Can we choose to stop addictive and destructive patterns? What does it mean to be awake? What is enlightenment? Does waking up take effort, vigilance and practice, or is it effortlessly and unavoidably always already the case? What happens when we die? Joan questions all attempts to conceptually grasp and frame the movement of life, and she points to what remains when everything that can be doubted drops away. She talks about seeing through the stories and beliefs that create our human suffering and waking up to the simplicity of what is, as it is -- the ever-present, ever-changing seamlessness of being. Joan's approach is open and explorative, not methodical or dogmatic. For those struggling to reconcile the emphasis on "being here now" in some teachings with the uncompromising "this is it, just as it is" message of radical nonduality, Joan brings them together beautifully. With subtlety and humor, these talks reveal the perfection in apparent imperfection, the extraordinary in what appears most ordinary, and the freedom of being what you can't not be.

A new edition with an updated Preface and Afterword for 2022. Awake in the Heartland offers clear non-dual understanding, not in the abstract, but grounded in the actuality of daily life with all its messiness, complexity, uncertainty, paradox, and apparent imperfection. If there seems to be a gap between what the enlightenment books describe and what you find in your own life, if you still think enlightenment is something that will happen to you in the future (or not at all), if you're still chasing experiences or self-improvement, then this book may be just what you need to wake up to the truth that what you are seeking is already here. Awake in the Heartland takes a fresh look at questions of addiction, free will, good and evil, authority, and identity. It encourages the reader to look for themselves without clinging to old opinions or relying on outside authorities. Honest, funny, and profound, this is a book that invites you to discover who or what you really are. About the AuthorJoan Tollifson writes and talks with people about nonduality and the wonder of what is. Her background includes Buddhism, Advaita, nontraditional meditative inquiry, radical nonduality, martial arts, somatic work, addiction recovery, political activism, visual arts, and a devotion to both boundless presence and the beauty of the ordinary. She belongs to no formal tradition. Her website is joantollifson.com.

This book celebrates the great stripping process of aging, dying and spiritual awakening. Beautiful, poignant, at times humorous, transcendent, messy, down to earth, refreshingly honest--the book explores death, and more importantly, being alive, through a rich mix of personal stories and spiritual reflections. Joan writes about her mother's final years and about being with friends and teachers at the end of their lives. She shares her own journey with aging, anal cancer, and other life challenges. She explores what it means to be alive in what may be the collapse of civilization and the possible extinction of life on earth due to climate change. Pointing beyond deficiency stories, future fantasies, and oppressive self-improvement projects, Joan invites an awakening to the immediacy of this moment and the wonder of ordinary life. She demonstrates a pathless path of genuine transformation, seeing all of life as sacred and worthy of devotion, and finding joy in the full range of our human experience.

Nothing to Grasp invites readers to explore their experience in the here and now, wake up from commonplace misconceptions, and see through the imaginary separate self at the root of human suffering and confusion. This book points relentlessly to what is most obvious and impossible to avoid-the ever-present, ever-changing, nonconceptual actuality of the present moment, which is effortlessly presenting itself right now-and encourages readers to celebrate life, exactly the way it is.