Some of the books on this page are overtly Buddhist whereas others are inspired by the teachings. But what they all have in common is ways to help us improve our lives and achieve more happiness.
Thich Nhat Hanh. What I love about this book is how it shows the core similarities between Christianity and Buddhism. If you currently follow, or were brought up in, a Christian tradition, this book will deepen your faith and show how some Buddhist principles can add to it. Buddhism is not a big fan of religious conversions. From a Buddhist perspective, the core of all traditions is the same (love) so you can find everything you need from any of them, by going deeper into its core. This book is an essential contribution to that for those with a Christian background.
Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life
Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr Lilian Cheung. This book focuses on eating problems and the endless rounds of dieting we often find ourselves in. Using the principles of mindfulness, this book shows how we can create a new relationship with food and how it interacts with our bodies. Many of us have an emotional connection with food, e.g. as a form of comfort or because we associate our size with our self-esteem. Using mindfulness we can see and then sever these connections, thus breaking the cycle of unhealthy eating patterns.
Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child
Thich Nhat Hanh. Many of us had troubled childhoods. But many of us are also troubled adults that don’t realise it is a result of our childhood experiences. Reconciliation shows a way to understand and reconnect with that child, helping us to move forward as balanced adults. It contains introductory teachings, case studies and mindfulness exercises to help us see and understand how our childhood experiences affect us as adults. This is an excellent short introduction for anyone who wants to investigate their childhood to understand how it affects them as adults.
Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha
Tara Brach. Tara’s main premise is that we believe we are broken so are somehow deficient and need fixing, but this is completely wrong. This concept of being inadequate or deficient is what’s at the root of the entire self-help or self-improvement industry. But the reality is that we don’t need fixing, we were made perfect and are complete as we are. It’s society that’s wrong by saying we need to be better, more beautiful, wealthier, a higher achiever, more successful in our career, better parents. But what’s really needed is acceptance that this is wrong and that we have everything we already need. We were born with it, but we need to realise it. This book is a true life-changer.
The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions
Dr Christopher Germer, PhD. Life is hard, but we make it harder on ourselves through undue expectations that can never be lived up to. This means that we spend our lives beating ourselves up, so can never be truly happy as we’ll always perceive ourselves as not good enough. It’s as if we believe that we can only be happy when we are perfect and life does not present any problems to us. That’s never going to happen. By taking a lighter, more accepting and understanding approach to ourselves and those around us, we can achieve that elusive happiness without anything ‘happening’, as we can achieve it through understanding ourselves better rather than beating ourselves up for imaginary ‘failings’. This book is a complete life-changer and should be compulsory reading for everyone alive.
Natural Pain Relief: How to Soothe and Dissolve Physical Pain with Mindfulness
Shinzen Young. Our usual reaction to pain is that it is something ‘bad’ which we need to get rid of. Unfortunately this creates resistance to the pain which only reinforces it. We then take drugs which reinforces the notion of using an external substance to resolve our internal feelings. Neither of these approaches are helpful but by using mindfulness we can, in effect, ‘make friends’ with the pain so that we relate to it in a completely different way. This more friendly way reduces the suffering we feel and aids the physical healing process. The book also comes with an accompanying CD to help with the mindfulness and meditation exercises which form the basis of the practise. Shinzen is a Western Buddhist monk but has found himself drawn towards physical healing using Buddhist principles, scuh as mindfulness.