Exploring mindfulness

October 7, 2006 1:11 PM

What is a good book/article on mindfulness in everyday life?

I am becoming a big fan of mindfulness. It has helped me look at thngs more objectively, specially some anxiety issues as well as becoming more aware of my environment and how I interact with it. I read Jon Kabat's book and also Mindfulness in Plain English. Liked the earlier much more, specially because of the fewer Buddhist remarks. Also read Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now, and found him well intentioned but a bit over the top and repitetive.

Now I am looking for some definitive books on he subject, not necessarily with therapeutic intentions, and if possible without too many Buddhist connotations. Works of research in this field (will this be straying into cognitive science too much) would be welcome as well.

posted by raheel to Grab Bag (9 answers total)

I like Jack Kornfield's A Path with Heart which covers a lot of aspects of spiritual life. It has a Buddhist centre, but he uses other perspectives too. Maybe a bit New Agey for some people.

I also like Pema Chodron's Start Where You Are, which has a lot of insights into the ways you can trick yourself, but which definitely does have a lot of Buddhist content.
posted by crocomancer at 2:43 PM on October 7, 2006

Mark Epsteins Thoughts without a thinker approaches mindfulness from the angle of psychoanalysis. Interesting, but not always easy.
posted by jouke at 3:08 PM on October 7, 2006

Breath by Breath: The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation is a book I've read two or three times before givng it away. It's not as instantly accessible as Jon Kabat's Wherever You Go, There You Are but equally as inspired.
posted by dropkick at 3:29 PM on October 7, 2006

Perhaps The Art of Living Consciously. About as non mystical as you can get.
posted by bigmusic at 4:39 PM on October 7, 2006

I love Peace is Every Step, by Thich Nhat Hanh, and really, I recommend all of his books. They're beautiful and accessible; it was so easy to really feel the meaning with them.
posted by headspace at 5:44 PM on October 7, 2006

I'd suggest some of the works by Rumi. They're an example of what it's like to have mindfulness, without explicitly talking about it.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 10:52 PM on October 7, 2006

Turning the Mind Into An Ally by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche is a mindfulness training book written by a Buddhist but with a secular tone focusing specifically on the practice of meditation and mindfulness in daily life. It's the book that started my own meditation path (which eventually turned into a Buddhist path despite all my initial skepticism).
posted by bobot at 5:05 AM on October 8, 2006

Second Jack Kornfield (although I only know him from the lecture excerpts Joe Frank included in his late-period radio shows).
posted by Rash at 9:08 AM on October 8, 2006

I have found the works of Cheri Huber and Charlotte Joko Beck to be helpful. Both of them are leaders of Zen communities. Neither one spends much time explicating sutras or otherwise teaching dogma. You are almost as likely to see a quote from the Gospel as from the Dhammapada or Dogen.

A free resource you might find interesting is Douglas Harding's collection of experiments. These experiments are ways to see what you are. It's easy to agree with arguments that at base we are emptiness or the void or whatever but sometimes the experience eludes. These experiments point towards that experience. They are easy to do and quick. This is not a "peak" experience, but rather a "valley" one. I especially recommend the section where he looks at the collection of mystic poetry. If you are interested the web address is www.headless.org.

Les Fehmi is a neurofeedback pioneer. He was one of the original promoters of alpha training back in the 60s. He developed a series of objectless visualizations (Can you feel the space between your eyes?) that promote the production of synchronous alpha waves. His website, openfocus.com, has several of his papers on attention and synchronous alpha waves available for free download. Les Fehmi is himself a longtime Zen meditator. Jim Robbins' book, A Symphony in the Brain, a popular account of neurofeedback, discusses the early research on meditators and alpha waves and discusses Fehmi and his Open Focus awareness exercises as well. Personally, I think the Open Focus exercises are great and worth the time, but even if you're not interested in that, check out the publications as some of the papers on attention might be of interest to you.

The standard books on the brain and meditation are neurologist Austin's two books on Zen, Zen and the Brain and Zen-Brain Reflections.

Also check out this month's Scientific American Mind. Hmmm, might have been last month.
posted by BigSky at 11:32 AM on October 8, 2006