Selfless Love shows how meditation can help us realize that we don’t love—we are love.
Gentle, elegant, and radically inspiring, Selfless Love presents a holistic, experiential meditative path that enables us to see beyond our preconceived notions of identity, spirituality, and humanity.
Drawing equally from Zen parables, her experience as a mental health therapist, and the Gospels, Ellen Birx shows us that through meditation we can recognize that our true selves are not selves at all—that all beings are united in unbounded, infinite awareness and love, beyond words.
Recognizing the limitations of language in describing the indescribable, Birx concludes each chapter in the Zen tradition of “turning words” with a verse meant to invite insights.
Praise for Selfless Love
“In my opinion, love is the common element that all of humanity strives for. Ellen’s exposition of selfless love shows how we can attain this. A wonderful book. I heartily recommend it for reading.”
— Bernie Glassman, cofounder of the Zen Peacemaker Order and coauthor of The Dude and the Zen Master
“Boundless is the word Dr. Ellen Birx used to describe her life and vision in her latest book, Selfless Love. As a Zen master, Dr. Birx has closed the gap completely and leaves no separation at all between life and death, heaven and earth, and God and the world. Read whatever she writes. Read this book!”
— Roshi Robert Jinsen Kennedy, S. J., St. Peter’s University, author of Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit
“This is a wise and intelligent book, clear-sighted and full of heart. Rooted in the listening silence of meditation and informed by her rich and varied experiences as nurse, educator, grandmother, Zen teacher and Christian, Ellen shows us that we are not separate from each other or from the earth. This is an eloquent exploration of love, God, nonduality, and living fully. I highly recommend it.”
–Joan Tollifson, author of Nothing to Grasp
“To see through yourself, no matter how momentarily, is to see Buddha and be Buddha. A wise man said that ‘The ugliest word in the English language is Them.’ Ellen Birx lovingly leads us beyond such separations and duality into the heart of the divine Dharma of awakefulness.”
— Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening to the Buddha Within
“Seldom do I get to read a book where I agree with everything in it! But here it is. Ellen Birx could only have written such profound things in such a simple and accessible way, if she has first lived them—and knows love from the inside out.”
–Fr. Richard Rohr, O. F. M., Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, New Mexico, author of Falling Upward
“This masterfully simple book introduces the art of meditation, and describes the fruits of this practice as it unfolds into a life of selfless love and compassion toward all beings, beginning with those in one’s immediate circle. Zen Teacher, professor and psychiatric nurse, author Ellen Birx brings a tender touch in her descriptions of the spiritual life, with examples of her own intimate experiences as a wife, mother, and grandmother.”
— Ruben L. F. Habito, guiding teacher at Maria Kannon Zen Center and author of Living Zen, Loving God and Healing Breath: Zen for Christians and Buddhists in a Wounded World
New River Zen 