Here's why I wrote this little book of love poems. What I have wanted most in this life is a love that will never leave. And I realized that maybe I hadn't met with a love like that outside of me, in someone else, because I hadn't met an unfaltering love from within me. So I decided I would retreat for 40 days with my red pen to try to tether together the small-ego-everyday-me to the me that's a lighthouse-type-of-soul, the me that's just undiluted love. I wanted to anchor once and for all into the love that's within me, to a love that could never leave because it's the truth of who I am. Whether I'm with a partner or alone, I wanted to feel free- entirely my own- an Ouroboros whose love circles back into herself.This book is one-part sutras, one-part love poems, and one-part psychic twine. They tell my whole truth. They reveal my ardor for the divine. They unite the masculine, manly aspects of me with the womanly, feminine aspects of me that I have sought to balance. They reconcile body and soul, human and divine, animal and angel, light and the dark, or basically- all that we can be conscious of containing. What I didn't realize until after I wrote this book is that there's an ancient Tantric text called the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, which is translated as something like "the terror and joy of realizing oneness with the soul." It contains a poetic dialogue between the divine feminine and the divine masculine, between Shiva and Shakti, but in the case of this book it's more like a sacred back and forth between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Ultimately, this book is a collection of love letters to and from my own soul.The Sutras of Unspeakable Joy are the 40 days I devoted to ending a pattern of thinking that love, true and unwavering, was something I would meet outside of me. It's a poetic conversation between the side of me that keeps forgetting that the deepest source of love comes from the divine and can only be met from within. And that side of me that is that love, completely, utterly, fully. And what I did by devoting these 40 days to trying with words to realize oneness with the soul- is that I embodied the truth I have always taught. That love is what we are, not what we find- that true love is here- within us. And, that no cathedral can ever compare to the massive spirit in the messy sinews of this human heart.

Harvard-trained theologian Meggan Watterson marched out of her church at age ten. With little-girl clarity, she knew something tremendously crucial was missing…the voices of women. Watterson became a theologian and a pilgrim to the divine feminine to find the missing stories and images of women’s spiritual voices. She knew women’s voices had never been silenced, just buried. But what she truly sought was her own spiritual voice inside her—the one veiled beneath years of self-doubt. At a sacred site of the Black Madonna in Europe, Watterson had a revelation that changed her. Rather than transcending the body, denying or ignoring it, being spiritual for her meant accepting her body as sacred. Only then, Watterson realized could she hear the voice of unfaltering love inside her- the voice of her soul. With passion, humor, and brutal honesty, Watterson draws on ancient stories and lesser-known texts of the divine feminine, like The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, making them modern and accessible to reveal the spiritual process she went through. She suggests that being spiritual is simply about stripping down to the truth of who we really are. Through her extensive work with women, Watterson found that she was not alone. There are countless women who long for a spirituality that encourages embodiment rather than denies it, that inspires them to abandon their fears but never themselves, and to be led by the audacious and fiercely loving voice of truth inside them. No matter where you rest on the spectrum of spirituality; religious or secular, devout believer or chronic doubter, freelance mystic or borderline agnostic, this story is about the desire in all of us to want to shed everything that holds us back. Reveal provides what religions have left out—the spiritual voice of a woman who has claimed her body as sacred—a woman who has found the divine insider her. In essence, this is a manual for revealing your soul. "I have spent the majority of my life gathering stories of the divine feminine. Each time before getting my masters degrees in theology and divinity, I went on a pilgrimage to sacred sites of the divine feminine throughout Europe. The first one was with a group and the second was on my own… The stories of the divine feminine, of Christianity’s Mary Magdalene, Catholicism’s Black Madonna, Hinduism’s Kali ma, and Buddhism’s Green Tara for example, allowed me to begin to see that I wasn’t as much of a spiritual misfit as I had thought. There was a red thread that became visible to me that ran through so many of the world religions, especially through their mystics, relating that the way to find the divine is to go within. And, that our potential to be transformed by going inward is exactly the same whether we are a man or a woman. The real barometer of our spiritual potential is not our sex, but the commitment of our desire to want to encounter the divine." Excerpt from Reveal

--WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER-- The Gospel of Mary Magdalene reveals a very different love story from the one we've come to refer to as Christianity. Harvard-trained theologian Meggan Watterson leads us verse by verse through Mary's gospel to illuminate the powerful teachings it contains. A gospel, as ancient and authentic as any of the gospels that the Christian bible contains, was buried deep in the Egyptian desert after an edict was sent out in the 4th century to have all copies of it destroyed. Fortunately, some rebel monks were wise enough to refuse-and thanks to their disobedience and spiritual bravery, we have several manuscripts of the only gospel that was written in the name of a woman: The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Mary's gospel reveals a radical love that sits at the heart of the Christian story. Her gospel says that we are not sinful; we are not to feel ashamed or unworthy for being human. In fact, our purpose is to be fully human, to be a "true human being"- that is, a person who has remembered that, yes, we are a messy, limited ego, and we are also a limitless soul. And all we need to do is to turn inward (again and again); to meditate, like Mary Magdalene, in the way her gospel directs us, so that we can see past the ego of our own little lives to what's more real, and lasting, and infinite, and already here, within. With searing clarity, Watterson explains how and why Mary Magdalene came to be portrayed as the penitent prostitute and relates a more historically and theologically accurate depiction of who Mary was within the early Christ movement. And she shares how this discovery of Mary's gospel has allowed her to practice, and to experience, a love that never ends, a love that transforms everything.

Are you trying to find love – and beginning to suspect you’re not looking in the right place? This wise, hip guide gives you a new map for the journey to happiness in relationships of all kinds, starting in your own heart. Told from the alternating vantage points of authors Meggan Watterson and Lodro Rinzler, How to Love Yourself (and Sometimes Other People) reminds us that love isn’t something we have to earn. All of us are deeply and intrinsically worthy of love – not only the love we hope to receive from others, but the love we give to ourselves – and this book offers the insight and practical tools we need to stay firmly grounded in self-love as we ride out the natural (and often stormy) cycles of relationships. Meggan and Lodro’s unique perspectives as teachers and scholars of Christian mysticism and Buddhism respectively make for a rich and lively dialogue that draws on wisdom sources like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the Four Noble Truths, along with funny, revealing stories from their own love lives and their deep friendship with each other. You’ll find guidance for embracing single life, dating with an open heart, and thriving in lasting love; meditations and practices for calm abiding, "disciplined hope," and connecting to the source of love within you; and tips on everything from sex, self-worth, and nourishing friendships to navigating breakups and learning to truly love yourself. Ultimately, you’ll be able to see your ideal partner in a new light – not as someone who "completes" you, but as someone who mirrors back to you your own wholeness.

A masterful translation of one of the most influential Buddhist sutras—the Avatamsaka Sutra—by one of the greatest translators of Buddhist texts of our time Known in Chinese as Hua-yen and in Japanese as Kegon-kyo, the Avatamsaka Sutra, or Flower Ornament Scripture, is held in the highest regard and studied by Buddhists of all traditions. Through its structure and symbolism, as well as through its concisely stated principles, it conveys a vast range of Buddhist teachings. This one-volume edition contains Thomas Cleary’s definitive translation of all thirty-nine books of the sutra, along with an introduction, a glossary, and Cleary’s translation of Li Tongxuan’s seventh-century guide to the final book, the Gandavyuha, “Entry into the Realm of Reality.”

The Secret Sayings of Ye Su: A Silk Road Gospel provides a translation of, introduction to, and commentary upon an extraordinary, previously unknown manuscript. This Christian gospel, though written in koine Greek, was obviously influenced by both Buddhist and Daoist ideas and probably derives from Tang dynasty China (8th or 9th century). The account of how the manuscript emerged in 1994 and how it came to be translated by Dr. Jay G. Williams is, in itself, quite fascinating. The author also describes the nature of the text and why he thinks it should be placed in the Tang dynasty period. He provides a concise introduction not only to the history of Buddhism and the indigenous religions of China during this period but also to the "Religion of Light," a form of Christianity that entered China in 638 A. D. The work ends with a line-by-line commentary on each of the seventy-two verses of this gospel. Although undoubtedly ancient, the work seems amazingly contemporary in its ideas, offering a unique and quite radical vision of Ye Su (Jesus) and his teachings. Neither orthodox nor gnostic, The Secret Sayings comments about such topics as the place of women and gays within the community, the nature of the kingdom, and the source of Christian hope in the "Source." Although faith is emphasized, doctrines and dogmas are not. A place is found for both the Heavenly Father and the Earthly Mother but alone neither is regarded as "ultimate." The fellowship of believers is emphasized, but value of the Church as an institution is seriously questioned.