The books here are grouped into different topics that you are likely to read about or encounter as you learn more about Buddhism and spirituality.
Mindfulness and Meditation
Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Thich Nhat Hanh. Mindfulness is Thich Nhat Hanh’s big thing and this book provides a way of incorporating it into our lives. It shows how we can live more mindfully, thus knowing what we are doing and making us able to make better, wiser choices. The opposite is acting mindlessly, which can lead us into anger, depression, anxiety and repeating destructive patterns of past behaviour. He has written other books with meditations and exercises on mindfulness, including The Miracle of Mindfulness, The Blooming of a Lotus and Transformation & Healing.
The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness
Williams, Teasdale, Segal, Kabat-Zinn. Jon Kabat-Zinn has pioneered a unique approach to the treatment of depression and other stress-related illnesses. Rather than ‘fixing’ us through drugs or long drawn-out talking therapies, we can use mindfulness and meditation to allow us to ‘see’ what we really need to heal. The practise of regular mindfulness and awareness lifts the depressive feelings allowing us to discover our lives again. The book comes with an accompanying CD that can be used for step-by-step mindfulness meditation. This is an incredibly powerful treatment to use if you ever find yourself stuck in a depressive cycle or are prone to suffer from bouts of depression.
Loving-Kindness and Compassion
Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness
Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness
In these two books, Sharon Salzberg shows how compassion and loving-kindness are the answer to all our problems and how we can use them to reduce our own suffering. We often think that these topics are related to other people but one of the major impacts is that it makes our own lives happier. So it’s not just about how we relate to others, it’s how it makes our lives better.
Eight Steps to Happiness: The Buddhist Way of Loving Kindness
I love this book and is one I find myself referring to frequently as a reminder. The 8 steps were originally written as a poem of 8 verses, with each verse representing a step. The book expands on each verse and shows what it really means for us. The basic thrust is about love and compassion for everyone we encounter and the whole world – that’s where true happiness comes from. I prefer the first, older edition as the newer one introduces Tantric Buddhism at the end which doesn’t really do it for me.
Universal Compassion: Inspiring Solutions for Difficult Times
This is written in the same vein as Eight Steps to Happiness in that it comes from ancient verses and poems, but it shows us how to incorporate it into our daily lives. It follows on from Eight Steps to Happiness by developing love and compassion but gives us a framework for how to do it. If you’re looking for a set of ‘rules’ for what to do, this is it.
Anger
Anger: Buddhist Wisdom for Cooling the Flames
Thich Nhat Hanh. Anger as an emotion and a feeling is incredibly destructive and dangerous both to ourselves and others. But it’s not just about flying into a rage , it is a feeling within us which might manifest as depression or sulking at what has happened or what we’ve lost. This book presents a Buddhist way of dealing with anger which involves tenderness and kindes towards ourselves as a starting point.
How to Solve Our Human Problems: The Four Noble Truths
This title lives up to expectations but as a ‘beginner’ Buddhist it won’t be giving the answer you perhaps think you want, i.e. how to get loads of money and have everyone love you. Instead it discusses The Four Noble Truths (a fundamental teaching from the Buddha) and then shows how we can reduce our anger. The truths and reducing our anger really are the way to solve our human problems and this book introduces us to how to do it.
Death and Dying
No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life
Thich Nhat Hanh. In the West, we have a phenomenal fear of death because we believe it means the end of everything. In the Buddhist tradition, it isn’t, it’s just an event in an endless stream of events that happen to us. An understanding and appreciation of this can give us enormous comfort in our life and provide real meaning and direction. It can also help us to meet the death of others in a different way. If you’ve ever wrestled with life’s biggest questions – death and wondering what the point of it all is – this book will help point you to the answer.
The Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying: A Spiritual Classic
Sogyal Rinpoche. You may have heard of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is a guide to the process of dying and rebirth. This book takes it a step further and shows Buddhist principles for living, as well as helping us to understand death and dying.
Emptiness and Selflessness
When you start to read around Buddhism and spirituality, you’ll come across the concepts of emptiness and non-duality frequently. They express the way the world really is, which is different from how we think it is.
The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha’s Heart
Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. This is an excellent introduction to the topic. Thought-provoking and detailed, it gives a full picture of these powerful and profound topics. Like Eight Steps to Happiness, the first edition has more detail and no Tantric Buddhism so is more suited to my preferences.
Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra
The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion
These are Thich Nhat Hanh’s explanations of the teachings on emptiness and non-duality. I found great meaning in both of them and they aided my understanding of the topics, but they are quite advanced and not beginner’s books. But if you have some understanding of these topics then they provide an excellent perspective to help deepen your understanding.
