How often have you sat down to watch a movie only to spend the entire film scrolling through the news or social media on your phone? Or hung out with your family or friends, but never really listened to what they were saying because you were thinking about work or school or something that happened last month?
This lack of mindfulness happens to all of us. Sometimes we spend much of our day thinking about the past or the future or something else — anything but the present. Over time, this can leave us feeling stressed and overwhelmed. We also miss out on many of the special moments in our life, because our mind is elsewhere.
However, there are times when we experience the exact opposite: focused entirely on the task at hand, or completely present with a loved one, or savoring a glorious sunset over the ocean. These moments, though, often come when we least expect them and disappear as soon as we notice that we are “in the zone.”
Still, with practice, we can increase our chance of being mindful. Over time, this becomes easier and easier to do. Eventually, mindfulness becomes our natural state. We are able to move from moment to moment, noticing the world as it happens.
There are many different ways to develop greater mindfulness. You can learn traditional meditation, either at a local Buddhist center or on a retreat. You can try using an app or wearable device that monitors whether you are distracted. Or you can read books about mindfulness, something I’ve done quite a lot of.
I don’t recommend just reading books, though. Mindfulness is a practice best experienced in the real world. But if you want to learn more about mindfulness and how to apply it to your life, here are several books that might inspire you to start being more mindful.
Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
By Jon Kabat-Zinn. Hachette Books.
This is one of the first mindfulness books that I ever read. It’s also one I keep coming back to. Jon Kabat-Zinn is a professor of medicine who turned mindfulness into a science, and in doing so made it accessible to people around the world.
In this book, Kabat-Zinn does a great job summarizing the Buddhist roots of mindfulness, but he makes it clear that being mindful is something that you can do even if you aren’t a practicing Buddhist. The book moves between meditation instructions — including using the breath as a tool to develop mindfulness — to more detailed discussions of mindfulness. Along the way, he offers words of encouragement such as:
“The breath is always right here, right under our noses. You would think just by chance we might have come across its usefulness.”
The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
By Thich Nhat Hanh. Beacon Press.
This mindfulness book is by Vietnamese monk, activist, and poet Thich Nhat Hanh. Like most of his other writings, this book is brief and concise, but filled with stories, discussions about mindfulness, and exercises that you can try at home. The material is both encouraging and practical, often starting with small steps you can take right now. In one of the chapters, he suggests that you set aside one day a week to focus on being mindful.
“To set up a day of mindfulness,” he writes, “figure out a way to remind yourself at the moment of waking that this day is your day of mindfulness. You might hang something on the ceiling or on the wall, a paper with the word ‘mindfulness’ or a pine branch — anything that will suggest to you as you open your eyes and see it that today is your day of mindfulness.”
This is an excellent book for anyone interested in trying mindfulness meditation or just bringing a little more mindfulness to their life, even if for just one day a week.
Mindfulness in Plain English: 20th Anniversary Edition (Anniversary)
By Henepola Gunaratana. Wisdom Publications.
This is another book that I read early in my quest for greater mindfulness (a quest that has often felt like tilting at windmills). Gunaratana’s book is both inspiring and accessible. He captures the beauty and complexity of mindfulness meditation, but also makes it seem like it is something that anyone can achieve.
The first chapter of the book is “Meditation: Why Bother?” This sets the tone for the rest of the book. And even if you aren’t convinced by the end of the first chapter about the power of mindfulness, you probably will be by the end of the book. Gunaratana breaks down every aspect of mindfulness meditation, from how to sit to what to expect from your mind.
At the end of the book, he talks about the benefits of mindfulness (“What’s in It For You?”) and how to use it throughout the day (“Meditation in Everyday Life”). If you only read one mindfulness book, I would recommend this one.
The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness
By Diana Winston. Sounds True.
Diana Winston, director of mindfulness education at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center, has been meditating since she was a teenager and has been teaching meditation for decades. This experience comes through in her book.
This natural awareness mentioned in the subtitle is, of course, mindfulness. By phrasing it as a “natural” phenomena, Winston helps us realize that mindfulness is something all of us already have; we have only to rediscover it. This starts by “understanding the foundations” of this natural awareness, she writes. We can also look for moments of natural awareness that we have already experienced, whether it’s while playing sports or during creative activities.
Then comes the mindfulness practices, either formal meditation or informal exercises. Eventually, you are ready to bring mindfulness to other parts of your life. Winston writes:
“Once you have the hang of accessing natural awareness and have experience meditating with it, you can bring natural awareness to your mind and make shifts into it during your daily life as often as you remember to and feel drawn to.”
For those who may be discouraged by how brief these moments are, Winston reassures us that it doesn’t matter if they are just three seconds or three minutes. What matters is that you keep at it.
Mindfulness: Where It Comes From and What It Means
By Sarah Shaw. Shambhala.
If you would like to read a little bit more about mindfulness, Sarah Shaw, a faculty member member and lecturer at the University of Oxford, provides a thorough overview of the topic. She starts with the Buddhist roots of mindfulness, tracing how the concept changed with different systems of Buddhist thought.
She argues that mindful attention depends on the context — mindfulness to develop calmness is different from mindfulness during a meditation designed to generate insight. She then moves on to contemporary non-religious mindfulness, like the kind offered by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
This book will be of particular interest to Buddhist students, but maybe by the time you finish the other four mindfulness books, you will be craving a little more in-depth discussion of mindfulness. And if you are still feeling stressed, this book will give you plenty to occupy your restless mind.
