What mindfulness books should we read next? Learning more about mindfulness and applying that knowledge in our daily life is essential for our spiritual practice. That is why we always need to have a list of the best mindfulness books that we can read whenever we have free time.

The books I’m going to mention in this post were written by a renowned Zen Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. He is at the forefront of introducing mindfulness to the western world. His books are written in simple and clear language and teach us the main concepts of mindful living.

#1. The Miracle of Mindfulness

In this beautiful and lucid guide, Zen master Thick That hath offers gentle anecdotes and practical exercises as a means of learning the skills of mindfulness — being awake and fully aware.

From washing the dishes to answering the phone to peeling an orange, he reminds us that each moment holds within it an opportunity to work toward greater self-understanding and peacefulness.

No tricks, no gimmicks, just basic mindfulness that you can carry with you wherever you go, because of the focus on mindful breathing. I quite liked the rhythm of the book – the repetition in writing made the reading feel like a meditative experience. The main part of the book was a helpful exploration of what mindful awareness is in everyday life. The mindfulness exercises provided more specific applications. — Amazon review

Buy on Amazon: paperback or audiobook.

#2. Peace Is Every Step

In the rush of modern life, we tend to lose touch with the peace that is available in each moment.

World-renowned Zen master, spiritual leader, and author Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how to make positive use of the very situations that usually pressure and antagonize us.

For him, a ringing telephone call can be a signal to call us back to our true selves. Dirty dishes, red lights, and traffic jams are spiritual friends on the path to “mindfulness” — the process of keeping our consciousness alive to our present experience and reality.

The most profound satisfaction, the deeper feelings of joy and completeness lie as close at hand as our next aware breath and the smile we can form right now.

Peace is Every Step has helped many of my friends and family members get through rough (or even smooth!) times in their lives. This book is a must-have if you are going through any kind of stressful situation or you are just looking for simple ways to live mindfully. It is organized in very short chapters which are perfect if you want to read one quick chapter a day and then think on it. The messages are easy to understand and provide such accessible wisdom compared to other books of this nature which can be ponderous, new-agey, or overly complicated. My life is better since this book came into my life, and I will never be without a copy. — Amazon review

Buy on Amazon: paperback or audiobook.

#3. Transformation and Healing

Transformation and healing presents one of the Budda’s most fundamental teachings and the foundation of all mindfulness practice.

The Sutta of the Four Establishments of Mindfulness has been studied, practiced, and handed down with special care from generation to generation for 2,500 years.

This sutra teaches us how to deal with anger and jealousy, to nurture the best qualities in our children, partners, and friends, and to greet death with compassion and equanimity.

Thich Nhat Hanh’s commentary is organized into twenty exercises that guide readers through the fundamentals of Buddhist practice and offer insights into mindfulness in daily life.

No one explains the essential elements of Buddhism better Thich Nhat Hanh. Here he continues to examine the basic teachings of meditation as taught by the Buddha and handed down through the Pali Canon. A perfect companion to his book, Breathe! You Are Alive, this work carefully explains for both the novice and more experienced practitioners the nuances of deeper meditation techniques as laid out in the Satipatthana Sutta. Thich Nhat Hanh writes with clarity and makes the joy of meditation accessible to everyone with the desire to find true happiness. — Amazon review

Buy on Amazon: paperback or kindle.

#4. The Path of Emancipation

In May 1998, more than four hundred practitioners from around the world joined Thich Nhat Hanh’s first 21-day retreat in North America in Vermont to experience mindfulness.

The Path of Emancipation, which transcribes this retreat, comprises an in-depth instruction in the “Sixteen Ways of Breathing” from the Discourse on the Full Awareness of Breathing.

Applying the teachings to everyday life, Thich Nhat Hanh shows how it is possible to slow down and get in touch with our breathing. He teaches the practice of mindful breathing, walking, and sitting and how the practice of mindfulness releases suffering and leads to a wholesome and happy life.

This book takes the reader through the dharma talks of a mindfulness retreat. Thich Nhat Hanh is at the top of his game and gives the reader a rare opportunity to receive a thorough and well thought out foray into mindfulness practices and into practices which are guaranteed to be successful if only we are bold enough (and open-minded enough) to embrace the feast that is presented in this gem of a book. — Amazon review

Buy on Amazon: paperback.

#5. Your True Home

Bringing the energy of the true presence into our lives really does change things for the better — and all it takes is a little training.

This treasury of 365 gems of daily wisdom from one of the most beloved Buddhist teachers of our age is a help and support for anyone who wants to train to meet every moment of life with 100 percent attention.

Thich Nhat Hanh shows how practicing mindfulness can transform every area of our lives — and how its benefits radiate beyond us to affect other and the whole, larger world.

I bought this book as a gift (the receiver loves it) and then received it as a gift myself, and I love it as well. Every day there is a short meditation, that is easy to read and understand. I think Thich Nhat Hanh has this amazing ability to help non-Buddhists begin to understand the Buddhist way of living and how to incorporate this wisdom into their own lives. — Amazon review

Buy on Amazon: paperback or audiobook.

#6. Mindful Movements

Initially developed by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh as stretching breaks between long periods of sitting meditation, the Ten Mindful Movements have become a popular tool to reduce stress and tension.

These simple and effective movements, based in yoga and Tai Chi, can increase mental, emotional, and physical well-being, and are suitable for people with a wide range of physical abilities.

Each exercise is fully illustrated by Wietske Vriezen, a Dutch artist, and movement teacher. The book includes a 35-minute DVD of Thich Nhat Hanh and members of his Plum Village Sangha demonstrating the Mindful Movements.

I highly recommend this book for teaching Mindfulness to children. Don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing for adults as well! Thich Nhat Hanh is an expert and has written many books on mindfulness meditation for decades, he is fantastic. Mindfulness and mindful movement are explained in a very simple and fun way. There are really great illustrations, and it comes with a CD. — Amazon review

Buy on Amazon: hardcover or kindle.

#7. Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life

It’s not uncommon for some of us to be in a cycle of guilt and shame when it comes to food. As a result, we spend many hours worrying about what we ate or if we exercised enough.

In this book, a famous Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and nutritionist Dr. Lilian Cheung show us how to end weight loss struggles once and for all.

This book offers practical tips, including a nutrition guide, mindful living plan, and goal setting. Authors help us find the roots of our unhealthy habits and transform our behavior. The book teaches us how to integrate mindful practices into eating, exercise and other aspects of our lives.

Seriously, this book doesn’t force a diet on you, but instead, it teaches you how to be more mindful of your own eating habits. I truly believe that most of our eating problems are because we use foods to numb ourselves. We sometimes use food as an escape from work or as a way to deal with stress. This book teaches you how to undo these practices and to focus on eating for nourishment. — Amazon review

Buy on Amazon: paperback or audiobook.

#8. You Are Here: Magic of the Present Moment

Based on a retreat that Thich Nhat Hanh led for Westerners, this book offers a range of simple, effective practices for cultivating mindfulness, including awareness of breathing and walking, deep listening, and skillful speech.

You Are Here also offers guidance on healing emotional pain and manifesting real love and compassion in our relationships with others.

Simple, warm, direct, and startlingly potent, this book reveals the heart of the Buddhist path and helps us to reconnect with the joy and wonder of being alive, regardless of life’s changing circumstances.

Just what you need to overcome your own fears and sorrows. “You Are Here” explains how to nurture our soul by accepting our negative emotions as part of ourselves. It helps us explain the ways of the Buddha to leave in peace accepting everything that makes us, both the good and the bad. — Amazon review

Buy on Amazon: paperback or audiobook.

Take a look at the selection above and choose one book for your reading list and then let me know your thoughts about it. Or let me know what other best mindfulness books should be included in this list.

How often do we find ourselves in boring situations? Maybe we’re sitting in a waiting room, attending a work meeting, standing in line in a crowded coffee shop, or stuck in a traffic jam. Can we notice how our minds tend to think about something pleasant from our past or anticipate an exciting event in the future? When we jump back and forth in time it gives us a sense of relief, we are no longer stuck in an unpleasant situation but inhabit a delightful illusion of the mind. What we don’t realize is that those moments when we are daydreaming are the times when we train our minds to be absent from the present moment. In other words, we train our minds to be unconscious.

“So I tend to daydream now and then. Can it really be that bad?” I used to think to myself. As I look back, the most unbearable situations for me were taking a subway to and from work, the last hour of the workday, standing in line in the supermarket. To lessen the stress of waiting, I would start thinking about my future plans. I would mentally go over every little thing that I needed to do. This kind of rehearsal gave a little sense of relief because I knew what I needed to do. If I had no particular projects or plans, I would start thinking about something pleasant that happened to me recently, about my friends or family. Another thing I would do was take out my phone and start reading a book. I found this particularly useful because I had no time to read when I was at home, so I used this as an opportunity to catch up with my reading goals.

But these activities served only as a temporary patch, they could never ease the tension completely. And so I would live through this drudgery day in and day out. This feeling of unease and tension, the desire to be somewhere else is what spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle explores with great insight and wisdom in one of the chapters of his book Stillness Speaks, a collection of short teachings for daily reflection and practice.

NOT ENOUGH
by Eckhart Tolle

The mind exists in a state of “not enough” and so is always greedy for more. When you are identified with mind, you get bored and restless very easily. Boredom means the mind is hungry for more stimulus, more food for thought, and its hunger is not being satisfied.

When you feel bored, you can satisfy the mind’s hunger by picking up a magazine, making a phone call, switching on the TV, surfing the web, going shopping, or — and this is not uncommon — transferring the mental sense of lack and its need for more to the body and satisfy it briefly by ingesting more food.

Or you can stay bored and restless and observe what it feels like to be bored and restless. As you bring awareness to the feeling, there is suddenly some space and stillness around it, as it were. A little at first, but as the sense of inner space grows, the feeling of boredom will begin to diminish in intensity and significance. So even boredom can teach you who you are and who you are not.

You discover that a “bored person” is not who you are. Boredom is simply a conditioned energy movement within you. Neither are you an angry, sad, or fearful person. Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not “yours,” not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go.

Nothing that comes and goes is you.

“I am bored.” Who knows this?

“I am angry, sad, afraid.” Who knows this?

You are the knowing, not the condition that is known.

There was a moment when we lost our temper and got angry at someone. Negative feelings took control of our actions and let things spin out of control. There was also a moment when we chose to suppress our emotions, said nothing, did nothing, pretended like everything was ok. These two scenarios are so common that at some point we stopped noticing how we follow either of them in our daily life. What can we do about it? The answer to this question comes in the form of a five-step process to help us pacify negative emotions from the book Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by a renowned Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh.

#1

Sometimes we find ourselves in a difficult long-term situation that can’t be changed right away. The only thing we can do is to endure and take small steps towards positive change. But that doesn’t protect us from waves of negative thoughts and feelings that we’ll experience along the way.

Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us that the first step in dealing with negative emotions is to recognize them. We should anticipate the tide by observing the feeling arising in us and acknowledging that at this moment we’re angry, sad, resentful, anxious. Seeing that we’re in the grip of a negative feeling is a powerful first step in the healing process.

The first step in dealing with feelings is to recognize each feeling as it arises. The agent that does this is mindfulness. In the case of fear, for example, you bring out your mindfulness, look at your fear, and recognize it as fear. You know that fear springs from yourself and that mindfulness also springs from yourself. They are both in you, not fighting, but one taking care of the other.

#2

Once we see the tide of negative emotions, the next step is not to turn away from it, but face it directly. We might be frightened at first. The habitual response is either to let the feeling control us or try to suppress it. Both are harmful to our well-being. When we muster the courage to face the feeling directly, we’ll realize that it’s only the feeling. It’s not who we are in our essence.

It is best not to say, “Go away, Fear. I don’t like you. You are not me.” It is much more effective to say, “Hello, Fear. How are you today?” Then you can invite the two aspects of yourself, mindfulness and fear, to shake hands as friends and become one. Doing this may seem frightening, but because you know that you are more than just your fear, you need not be afraid. As long as mindfulness is there, it can chaperone your fear. … Although your mindfulness may not be very powerful in the beginning, if you nourish it, it will become stronger.

#3

Once we’ve merged with the feeling, be comfortable with it. Don’t let resistance take over and break the healing chain. This is a perfect opportunity to practice mindful breathing. As we breathe in and out, we calm our minds and bodies. We may also notice our feelings taking refuge in the body and manifesting as tension in the chest, pounding sensation in the head, clenching fists, and so on. As we notice this tension, we gently calm it with the power of awareness.

You calm your feeling just by being with it, like a mother tenderly holding her crying baby. Feeling his mother’s tenderness, the baby will calm down and stop crying. The mother is your mindfulness, born from the depth of your consciousness, and it will tend the feeling of pain. A mother holding her baby is one with her baby.

#4

Now that we’re concentrated, calm, and able to see our negative feeling, it’s time to let them go. But how exactly can we do that? This step might be difficult if we haven’t been practicing meditation for a long time or just started our journey. When we let the feeling be, we let it go. There is no resistance in us, only clear seeing, understanding, and even compassion for ourselves and our feelings.

You feel at ease, even in the midst of fear, and you know that your fear will not grow into something that will overwhelm you. When you know that you are capable of taking care of your fear, it is already reduced to the minimum, becoming softer and not so unpleasant.

#5

By letting negative feelings be and releasing them, we gain the ability to look deeply into what caused them. We will discover that the root of negative feelings and unhappiness lies in our perceptions and certain beliefs that are deeply rooted in our subconsciousness. We need to ask why are we holding on to those beliefs and perceptions. Do we really need to control everything? The answer will reveal itself to us once we’re ready.

This is a process similar to psychotherapy. Together with the patient, a therapist looks at the nature of the pain. Often, the therapist can uncover causes of suffering that stem from the way the patient looks at things, the beliefs he holds about himself, his culture, and the world. … The same is true when we use mindfulness to transform our feelings. After recognizing the feeling, becoming one with it, calming it down, and releasing it, we can look deeply into its causes, which are often based on inaccurate perceptions. As soon as we understand the causes and nature of our feelings, they begin to transform themselves.

Applying This Process in Our Daily Life

Now that we know all the steps for dealing with negative feelings we can start practicing them in our day-to-day life. Whenever we confront a difficult situation, we need to remember to see the feeling, become one with it, calm, release and see clearly what caused it. It will be difficult at first but we shouldn’t be discouraged and keep practicing daily.

What do we want out of our meditation practice? At the very least we want to feel calmer and less anxious in our everyday life. But this incessant striving to achieve a measurable result may be the first biggest mistake we make on our path to inner calm. The desire to make meditation work the way we want can become a hindrance if not acknowledged early on.

When I started my meditation practice, I was a bit disappointed after not seeing any significant result early on. I felt more comfortable during sitting meditation and started to notice some negative thought patterns in my mind, but that was it. “There must be more to meditation than this,” I thought to myself.

That was until I read Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn, who is internationally known for his work as a scientist, writer, and meditation teacher engaged in bringing mindfulness into the mainstream of medicine and society. He is a Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he founded its world-renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic (MBSR) in 1979, and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society (in 1995). In this book, he describes seven foundations of meditation that can transform the way we approach meditation and improve our overall experience.

#1. Non-judging

Almost everyone falls into the trap of evaluating their experience during meditation. For example, the moment we sit down and close our eyes we might notice a slight unease or discomfort. In this case a subtle “I don’t like this” thought may pop up in our heads. When that happens, we need to acknowledge the thought but don’t let it take over. It’s a perfect opportunity to stand as an impartial witness and let it be. As soon as we do that, we’ll notice that it’s just a thought, harmless and unobtrusive. It’s a good approach to every judging thought that comes to our minds.

When we begin practicing paying attention to the activity of our own mind, it is common to discover and to be surprised by the fact that we are constantly generating judgments about our experience. Almost everything we see is labeled and categorized by the mind. We react to everything we experience in terms of what we think its value is to us. … When you find the mind judging, you don’t have to stop it from doing that. All that is required is to be aware of it happening. No need to judge the judging and make matters even more complicated for yourself.

#2. Patience

As we continue to sit and meditate, we may also feel rushed to get it over with as soon as possible. This means that we can’t accept the present moment as it unfolds in front of us. We think something more important is waiting for us in the future. As we encounter this tendency, we need to remind ourselves that this is our reality right now and nothing good can come from resisting it. Being patient with our mind is an essential aspect of any meditation practice.

Patience is a form of wisdom. It demonstrates that we understand and accept the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time. A child may try to help a butterfly to emerge by breaking open its chrysalis. Usually, the butterfly doesn’t benefit from this. Any adult knows that the butterfly can only emerge in its own time, that the process cannot be hurried.

#3. Beginner’s Mind

During our first couple of sessions, we might notice that it didn’t go the way we expected. Maybe we wanted relaxation but felt tension and unease. At that moment our minds might tell us that something went “wrong” and we didn’t do it the right way.

When that happens, we need to investigate that thought. How does it know that something went wrong? It implies that we did know how it’s supposed to go and what exactly we should have felt. That’s a false thought which fools itself into believing that it knows more than it actually does. It’s important to bring our beginner’s mind into meditation and not expect any particular result or feeling. We need to become comfortable with not knowing what true meditation feels like and let the moment-by-moment experience guide the way.

An open, “beginner’s” mind allows us to be receptive to new possibilities and prevents us from getting stuck in the rut of our own expertise, which often thinks it knows more than it does. No moment is the same as any other. Each is unique and contains unique possibilities. Beginner’s mind reminds us of this simple truth.

#4. Trust

Cultivating a beginner’s mind is important but we shouldn’t take that advice too literally. It’s just a pointer, something to consider in our meditation practice. It’s just as important to trust our feelings and perceptions at any given moment. We don’t have to get caught up in the authority of other people and blindly follow whatever they say or do.

No one can tell us what we should feel or think. At some point, we’ll have to trust our intuition and if something doesn’t feel right, acknowledge it. We can find common meditation advice that it’s ok to feel discomfort during meditation and that we have to let it be and do nothing about it. But we don’t have to sit through the pain. It’s totally fine to readjust our meditation posture or even get up and take a short walk to relieve the tension.

Developing a basic trust in yourself and your feelings is an integral part of meditation training. It is far better to trust in your intuition and your own authority, even if you make some “mistakes” along the way, than always to look outside of yourself for guidance. If at any time something doesn’t feel right to you, why not honor your feelings? Why should you discount them or write them off-as invalid because some authority or some group of people think or say differently?

#5. Non-striving

We have reasons for practicing meditation and want to achieve a particular result. But when we do that you’re saying that we’re not ok now, that we don’t want to be the way you are right now. That may be the starting point, but the key is to realize that it’s also the finish line. The beginning is the end — they are one. They never were separate. The cultivation of mindfulness is paying attention to what is happening and allowing everything to be because it already is.

In the meditative domain, the best way to achieve your own goals is to back off from striving for results and instead to start focusing carefully on seeing and accepting things as they are, moment by moment. With patience and regular practice, movement toward your goals will take place by itself. This movement becomes an unfolding that you are inviting to happen within you.

#6. Acceptance

This point comes naturally from the previous one. As we stop striving, it’s also important to accept things as they are right now. Resistance creates only more resistance. Acceptance is the first step towards positive change in our lives.

Acknowledging where we are at this moment is a powerful realization that can give us the energy to move on. But that doesn’t mean that we have to take a passive attitude towards life and resign ourselves to whatever is. By accepting our current circumstances, we gain clarity on what we need to do right here and now.

In the meditation practice, we cultivate acceptance by taking each moment as it comes and being with it fully, as it is. We try not to impose our ideas about what we should be feeling or thinking or seeing in our experience but just remind ourselves to be receptive and open to whatever we are feeling, thinking, or seeing, and to accept it because it is here right now.

#7. Letting Go

Jon Kabat Zinn gives a beautiful illustration of letting go by describing how hunters trap monkeys in India. They drill a hole in a coconut, put a banana inside of it, and then secure it to the base of the tree. When a monkey puts a hand through to get the banana, it gets trapped because the hole is too small to let the fist go out.

The same happens in our minds when we can’t let go of thought. As we may notice during meditation practice, our minds tend to hold on to certain thoughts and reject others. When we practice meditation, we should intentionally put aside the tendency to judge and give preferences.

Letting go is a way of letting things be, of accepting things as they are. When we observe our own mind grasping and pushing away, we remind ourselves to let go of those impulses on purpose, just to see what will happen if we do. When we find ourselves judging our experience, we let go of those judging thoughts. We recognize them and we just don’t pursue them any further. We let them be, and in doing so we let them go.

Applying These Meditation Tips in Our Own Practice

Practicing these seven attitudes will greatly enhance our meditation practice. As a supplement, I put together this free worksheet available for download through the link below.