nekokat reviewed Mindfulness in Plain English by Henepola Gunaratana
Review of 'Mindfulness in Plain English' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Hmm. This was completely impenetrable when I was first curious about meditation and looking for good, no-nonsense introductory texts. Now that I have a more established meditation practice, I noticed it on my shelf and decided to revisit it.
I still feel that it's incredibly dogmatic and overbearing for a supposedly 101-level text, but now that I have some basis for understanding, I gleaned some interesting insights from it (such as the distinction between concentration and mindfulness). It gets pretty technical in a way that was off-putting for me as a complete newbie (i.e. too much information too quickly) but might be good for someone at an intermediate level, who has already experienced a bit of meditation and had a chance to get a sense for how they want their practice to grow.
If you're getting into meditation for the first time, I would recommend [b:Full Catastrophe Living|5496611|Full Catastrophe Living|Zach …
Hmm. This was completely impenetrable when I was first curious about meditation and looking for good, no-nonsense introductory texts. Now that I have a more established meditation practice, I noticed it on my shelf and decided to revisit it.
I still feel that it's incredibly dogmatic and overbearing for a supposedly 101-level text, but now that I have some basis for understanding, I gleaned some interesting insights from it (such as the distinction between concentration and mindfulness). It gets pretty technical in a way that was off-putting for me as a complete newbie (i.e. too much information too quickly) but might be good for someone at an intermediate level, who has already experienced a bit of meditation and had a chance to get a sense for how they want their practice to grow.
If you're getting into meditation for the first time, I would recommend [b:Full Catastrophe Living|5496611|Full Catastrophe Living|Zach Savich|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328757896s/5496611.jpg|5564524]. If you're curious about Buddhism, I would recommend anything by Pema Chodron.
If you know an intermediate amount about both of those things, this one might be a good next step -- though for me, I think I'm going to stick with my Headspace app and not worry too much about whether I'm breathing incorrectly.
