Meditation Book List
A resource to help you on your mindfulness journey
Listen to this Story
Learning to Listen
Originally, I put together this list for my big brother when he was going through a difficult time. I wanted to share with him the incredible things I’ve learned since starting my regular meditation practice and diving deeper into Buddhist philosophy.
Since then, I’ve shared it with other friends who were looking to explore meditation or going through personal challenges. Reading these books has helped me a lot and if they can help someone else, I’m happy to take the time and share the ones that made an impact on me.
What these books have helped me with is to consciously cultivate a new perspective and to choose my reaction to the circumstances of my life and the behavior of others rather than just knee-jerking in a habitual way, with anger, rejection, self-pity, self-contempt, blaming, loneliness, etc. We cannot change other people or often our circumstances, we can only change ourselves and our reactions.
All the Feels
Meditation isn’t about learning to shut down feelings, but to understand them and to feel them, honor them and let them go when you’re ready. It’s not about ignoring problems or striving to be the perfect person free from flaws. It’s about wanting greater self-knowledge, understanding and compassion, and to fully experience life, the good, the bad, indifferent and boring.
On a personal level I have experienced pain from people close to me. The people in my life who have harmed me have certainly caused me great suffering, but they too have been suffering and could not control their own reactions to their life circumstances, so I have grown to have compassion for them. It has taken a lot of work to move beyond the anger, self-pity, grief, pain, etc, etc, but it is very worth the effort.
Everyone’s experience and journey is different. How to go about reconciling your feelings is up to each individual. Meditation is really just a place to start to dig deeper and learn a new way of approaching old problems. It might not work the same for everyone. People might find different things that help, but however they go about it, I hope that everyone finds some relief from the hurt.
“In the end only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” – Gautama Buddha
Buddhism/Meditation
Here is the list. Reading these books has helped me A LOT. Meditation is an incredibly useful tool in my toolkit for dealing with the stresses and challenges of life. This practice has helped me learn to sit with uncertainty and to treat each new challenge in life with equanimity.
I mostly check out books from the library. The SF library offers a lot of work via app, so I’ve listened to the audiobook version of many of these. The titles link to the book featured or to a collection of the author’s work.
A Path with Heart
by Jack Kornfield
Excellent beginner book. A great introduction to meditation and Buddhism. I read this many years ago and it set a solid foundation for a lot of the work that I have done since.
The Collected Works of Thich Nhat Hanh
by Thich Nhat Hanh
A true poet and a man of deep peace, his ability to communicate Buddhism and the profoundness of life and the sacredness of each moment is unparalleled, truly one of my favorites and one of the greatest spiritual teachers.
- Peace is Every Step
- The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching
- Teachings on Love
- Anger
There are free recorded talks on the Plum Village website.
“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
A glow-in-the-dark Buddha that I keep next to my bed.
Full Catastrophe Living
by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The title is a quote from the movie “Zorba the Greek”, from when the title character was asked if he had a family or had been married. He replies “Yes, the full catastrophe.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn studies stress and people’s reaction to it and teaches meditation as a way of embracing the difficulties of life rather than suppressing them or finding unhealthy coping solutions. A great read.
Self-compassion
by Kristin Neff
This is an all around great book, that helps uproot how your inner voice and inner critic can sabotage you and cause you more suffering. It recommends meditation and a whole course of exercises that lead you through developing compassion for yourself and then sending it outward to people in your life. She talks a lot about shame and how to heal from that with self-compassion.
You may not think that you have much of an inner critic, but you might be surprised if you look a little more and see ways that you do put yourself down and have a running low-level negative internal commentary going on in your head. l I realized there were a lot of ways I was compensating that were unhealthy and that I was more demanding and critical of myself than I thought. It is a very worthy read.
The Wisdom of No Escape and Many Others
by Pema Chodron
Pretty much all the books by Pema Chodron are good. I’ve read a bunch of them, so I mix them up a bit in my mind. Where I think she really stands out is how she breaks down addiction and how things hook us, Shenpa, and how we use them to escape. Also, her explanation of Tonglen breathing, where she describes breathing in suffering and exhaling peace and how you can use this to help yourself and other people going through a difficult time.
– Pema Chodron
Beginner’s Mind/Zen Mind
by Suzuki Roshi
In spite of the title, and the shortness of the book, it’s really more of an advanced meditator’s book, and is excellent at deepening your understanding of Buddhism and meditation and the path of enlightenment. Mind-blowing work. I’ve read it and re-read it many times.
Living Untethered
by Michael Singer
This past fall (2024) I read this book after I listened to a podcast with the author. What I took from this book was that carrying around your suffering is optional. You don’t have to keep reliving it, you can put it down. Our time here is precious, don’t use it dwelling on the pain. This helped me really do a lot of healing. I liked it so much that I read it over again after just finishing it.
“The truth is that most of life will unfold in accordance with forces far outside your control, regardless of what your mind says about it.”
– Michael Singer
The Road Less Traveled
by M. Scott Peck
While not specifically a book related to meditation this book offers a lot of insight into spiritual growth and how love and connection contribute to it. The author presents a holistic vision of how through discipline and effort we can move towards spiritual, emotional and psychological health. His own personal life may not have lived up to his ideals, but that doesn’t discount the wisdom of some of his ideas.
Radical Acceptance
by Tara Brach
A lot of where we get hung up is our desire for things to be a certain way, and when that doesn’t happen we suffer. We keep trying to make the circumstances of our lives conform to our vision but in reality there is a lot that is not up to us. The better we can get at learning to accept our lives as they are the better able we are to find inner peace.
