Recommended Reading and Listening
BOOKS
Here are a few books I recommend.
These are not the standard “mindfulness for business” books. Those books (Mindful Work, Search Inside Yourself, etc.) are useful, but you can find them by Googling. Instead, I’m sharing my personal top-choice books. Here they are:
Full Catastrophe Living or Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.
For countless people, when they hear “mindfulness,” they think “Jon Kabat-Zinn.” A microbiologist by training who began adapting Buddhist meditation practices for clinical pain relief in the 1970s, Kabat-Zinn pretty much founded the modern, secular mindfulness movement. He has remained a beloved leader of that movement ever since.
Kabat-Zinn’s two classic books on mindfulness practice are Full Catastrophe Living, which is more comprehensive but a bit dense and clinical, and Wherever You Go, There You Are, which is a lighter read. Both are great; it’s just a matter of preference.
The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris, M.D.
A guide to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is technically a form of psychotherapy but strikes me as mainly an excellent system of mindfulness training, with emphasis on working with stress, anxiety, and difficult emotions.
The book’s main flaw, in my opinion, is that it downplays the role of meditation. All these “daily life” mindfulness methods work much better when you’ve developed your capacity for mindfulness through meditation. Luckily, you have the other books on this list to compensate.
The Issue at Hand by Gil Fronsdal
The most accessible introduction to Buddhist philosophy and practice I've come across. The Buddhist teachings are the source and inspiration for the modern, secular mindfulness movement, and it's worth exploring where all this stuff comes from. You don't need to identify as Buddhist to find value in these lessons on meditation, mindfulness, and skillful living.
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön
Wise, eloquent advice on mindfulness and self-compassion from the deservedly famous American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön. The book focuses largely on dealing with pain and difficult life situations. I've found this book to be soothing and helpful when I'm feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond by Ajahn Brahm
My current favorite “how to meditate” book. It’s been hard finding one I’d recommend as a standalone guide, without caveats, but this book comes close.
Ajahn Brahm is a fascinating guy. Born in the UK, he earned a physics degree from Cambridge and then decided, "Eh, I think I'll be a Buddhist monk instead." He's a great person to learn meditation from: funny and warm, with a gift for an illuminating analogy (in fact, I've stolen a few of them).
I find that most meditation teachers either over-simplify or over-complicate the practice. Brahm finds a nice middle ground.
Suffering Is Optional by Cheri Huber
One of the most practical books on mindfulness I've ever read.
Huber, an American Zen teacher, walks you through a series of quirky exercises that challenge your worldview and nudge you to explore new perspectives.
You'll need to get past the goofy, "Comic-Sans" type fonts, but I find them kind of charming in their silliness.
Lovingkindness by Sharon Salzberg
The definitive guide to metta (“lovingkindness”) meditation: an enjoyable and potentially transformative practice in which we cultivate qualities of love, friendliness, and well-wishing toward others and toward ourselves.
This book is another “how to” guide I’d recommend pretty much without reservation, but it’s also more than that. Salzberg, a modern Buddhist master, structures the book as a collection of lively and thought-provoking anecdotes and parables, in which she embeds her meditation instructions.
Mindfulness by Joseph Goldstein
Uncreative name, amazing book.
Joseph Goldstein is my favorite living meditation teacher, and Mindfulness is his magnum opus. He takes a famously terse Buddhist text, the Discourse on Ways of Establishing Mindfulness (Pali: Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta), and unpacks it into a deep, detailed, and practical exploration of the many ways to cultivate mindfulness in meditation and in daily life, with the goal of becoming happier, kinder, and more self-aware. As always, Joseph’s writing is warm, wise, and unpretentious.
The book is so detailed, and so broad in its scope, that it’s probably not useful as a beginner’s guide to meditation. But, for people who already meditate, it’s an indispensable trove of insights crossed with a detailed troubleshooter’s manual. Definitely a book to have on the shelf.
Hoofprint of the Ox by Sheng Yen
You’ve probably heard the term “zen” used in casual conversation or in ads (“find your zen,” etc.), but you might not know what it actually refers to. This book is a great way to fix that. It’s an excellent beginner’s introduction to the philosophy and practices of Zen Buddhism, as it was known in Japan, or Ch’an Buddhism, as it was known in China. The author was one of the foremost Chinese Ch’an masters of the 20th century.
You probably couldn’t use this book as a how-to guide for Zen practice — I’m not sure there is such a book — but it’s an interesting and inspiring read.
Our Pristine Mind by Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche
This is the most accessible guide I’ve ever read to the often-esoteric practice of Dzogchen, considered one of the most profound teachings in Tibetan Buddhism. Dzogchen aims to introduce the meditator, through deceptively simple methods, to a state of “pristine awareness” in which negative emotions simply dissolve. Rinpoche wrote the book specifically for the English speaker who isn’t already well-versed in Tibetan Buddhism.
APPS
This is my favorite meditation app, with guidance from some of the world’s most renowned native-English-speaking meditation teachers, including the great Joseph Goldstein, George Mumford, and Sharon Salzberg. It differs from more popular apps, like Headspace, in its emphasis on lessons and interviews with teachers rather than just guided meditations. Some content is free; the rest is available via paid subscription.
A well-made meditation app, with guided meditations narrated by a British former Buddhist monk famous for his (to many people) calming and charmingly-accented voice. Headspace lacks the “longform” content of 10% Happier — the lessons and interviews — but has a larger library of meditations. Some content is free; the rest is available via paid subscription.
PODCASTS
Insight Hour with Joseph Goldstein
An ever-growing collection of recorded talks by Joseph Goldstein, my favorite living meditation teacher and widely considered one of the greatest in the English-speaking world today. All killer, no filler. If you’re going to listen to just one meditation podcast, this is my pick. Though, again, this podcast is nothing but Joseph — no interviews, no guests — so, if you find you’re not a fan of his, there won’t be much here for you.
Affiliated with the app, this podcast features news anchor and meditation evangelist Dan Harris interviewing notable meditation teachers and, occasional, experts on other aspects of mental health and well-being. Harris is a skilled and good-natured interviewer, as well as a serious meditator himself, so he tends to elicit interesting discussions.
(This is a longer description, not because this is a more important podcast, but just because more explanation is needed.)
There’s an interesting subculture arising on the internet, sometimes called “pragmatic dharma,” in which people take an experimental, mix-and-match approach to meditation, combining and modifying elements from different schools of practice and sharing their results online, with a focus on “what works” rather than adherence to tradition. (For what it’s worth, these people seem to be primarily, but not entirely, young, white, male, educated, and often working in STEM.) Having spent time in that scene, I have some reservations and critiques — one thing about experiments is that they sometimes explode — but I also think it’s made useful contributions.
Deconstructing Yourself, a podcast by meditation teacher Michael Taft, is essentially the flagship media program of the pragmatic dharma scene. Like 10% Happier, it’s mainly an interview podcast, but it skews geekier and more technical. The conversations are usually accessible to beginners, but not always. The podcast seems geared toward serious meditation nerds and people heading in that direction.