Book Review - The Zen Habit's Beginner's Guide to Mindfulness

In today’s world, especially with the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election’s smoking gun looming just behind us, it can be difficult to stay mindful. To not let our emotions run away with us when we are speaking with others. To be as honest with ourselves and others as we can and communicate our feelings efficiently with others. To not cling desperately to our ideals. To develop patience and learn to deal with overwhelming feelings. To work on developing our focus and changing our habits for the greater good. The Zen Habits Beginner’s Guide to Mindfulness addresses these topics and provides practical advice for working on them in our own lives.

Leo Babauta (the ebook’s author) is the creator of the Zen Habits website, author of many books, and a vegan who spends the majority of his personal time running, reading, meditating, lifting weights, and hiking. He has been an inspiration to thousands of people by helping them simplify their lives and change their habits through his Sea Change membership program.

The Zen Habits Beginner's Guide to Mindfulness was published solely in ebook format, it is fairly short (only 47 pages), and it contains many helpful words that may help you in your own path toward developing mindfulness. However, as the ebook even mentions itself, the true onus is on the reader. There is only so much a book can do to help develop a meditation practice, work toward changing habits, or develop patience. The true work must be done by the reader.

To address this, Babauta includes in each chapter: a description of the issue (including its common causes), a step-by-step method to address the issue, and an exercise that can be practiced during meditation or day-to-day life. The final chapter of the book focuses on how we can get better, which includes practicing nearly daily, reviewing the exercises, and working with whatever arises.

I greatly enjoyed and valued this ebook, and would have loved to give it five stars. However, there were some typos due to some sloppy editing and a few of the chapters were merely slight variations of copied-and-pasted content from previous chapters. Because of those two things, I decided to ding The Zen Habits Beginner's Guide to Mindfulness by one star. However, I would still recommend this ebook to anyone interested in developing their own mindfulness practice. And in case you don't find them valuable, the author even promises a 100% money back guarantee on all of his books! It is definitely aimed at beginners, but serves as a helpful review for those further along the path as well. I plan to read one or two more of Babauta’s books that take the topic a bit further, but I am glad that I started with this one.

4/5 stars. 47 pages.

Click here to buy the book.

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Book Review – No Mud, No Lotus

No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering is a book written by the Vietnamese monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, which focuses on various aspects surrounding the concept of transforming suffering. The meaning behind the title is that without mud, the beautiful lotus flower could not grow. This is an analogy to life—without suffering, there cannot be happiness. The key is to develop a keen ability to transform one's own suffering, for which Hanh lays out a detailed plan with various helpful techniques.

In the very beginning of the book is a quote and approach which resonated with me that can be used when someone asks a difficult question about suffering that has no end in sight. Hanh explains that during the Vietnam war, when someone would ask when the war would be over, he knew that he could not tell a lie and say that it will be over soon, nor could he say "I don't know", which would only cause the person to despair even more. So he would answer, "Everything is impermanent, even war. It will end some day." I appreciated this advice and will try to put it into practice when addressing others' suffering.

Hanh discusses the question of whether or not the Buddha suffered by saying that since he had a body, feelings, and perceptions (like all of us) he also experienced suffering. Although both physical suffering and suffering of the mind is inevitable, we can suffer much less by "not watering the seeds of suffering inside us." The act of consuming in order to cover up our suffering does not work; we need a spiritual practice to develop the skill and strength necessary to look deeply into our suffering and make a breakthrough.

There are many mantras, meditations, and techniques in the book that can help address suffering. For example, there is the concept of being a mindfulness bell for a loved one—gently squeezing their hand whenever there is something that may trigger their anger or sadness during a difficult conversation with someone else. Or the morning verse for happiness, which is a daily reminder to breathe and become aware that we have twenty-four new hours to live each morning when we wake up.

According to my records, this is the sixth book by Hanh that I have completed. I enjoy his books a lot, and have gotten much benefit from them. However, I do feel that they borrow a lot of content from one another (granted, he has written a myriad of books, so this is to be somewhat expected) and have a lot of overlapping stories and advice between them. I enjoyed this book, although there wasn't much in it that I couldn't have gotten from reading one or two of his other books. I do plan to continue reading Thich Nhat Hanh's works, and I wouldn't hesitate to suggest his books to anyone else. They are very quick and easy to read, and are very helpful. Please do check one of them out when you get a chance.

3/5 stars. 128 pages.

Book Review - Armada

Having read Ernest Cline’s engrossingly-thrilling debut novel Ready Player One several years ago, my expectations were quite high for Armada. It’s difficult to write a spoiler-free review of either book because detailing the plots will undoubtedly ruin the books for some readers, but at its core, Armada is essentially a book about video gamer nerds defending the human race against an alien invasion.

Similar to Cline’s masterpiece, Ready Player One, Armada engages the reader early on—throwing nostalgic pop culture references left and right, introducing compelling characters, and crafting a page turn-inducing plot. Without getting into spoiler-level detail about the book, it’s safe to say that the book will appeal to general nerds, music-lovers, video gamers, and military supporters (or battle aficionados) alike.

With that said, I don’t think that Armada is the same level of quality as Ready Player One (which still remains one of my favorite science fiction novels to date). The plot isn’t as captivating or mind-bending, the characters are somewhat predictable and aren’t as relatable, and the pop culture references got to be a bit too repetitive for my taste. When it comes down to it, Armada is a pretty solid book, but it isn’t one that I’d consider purchasing for my bookshelf (whereas Ready Player One definitely deserves a spot) or even re-reading again.

Cline is clearly a gifted writer and I am going to look forward to following his work into the future. He does have a spot on a very short list of modern, living science fiction authors that I am reading. I’m hoping that he will keep creating content that speaks to me, unlike some other authors that seem to burn too brightly in the beginning of their career and flame out. Only time will tell. Until now, I would advise reading Ready Player One before giving Armada a read, but if you enjoyed the debut novel, you’ll probably enjoy the second book as well.

4/5 stars. 349 pages.

Book Review - Breakfast of Champions

With the completion of Breakfast of Champions, I am now exactly halfway through the chronological reading of all of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. Up until now, Sirens of Titan had been my favorite, but Breakfast of Champions has eclipsed it and risen straight to the top of the pile.

The narrator describes the book as a story of “two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast.” One of the men, Dwayne Hoover, is a deranged Pontiac dealer who comes to believe that he is the only living being in the world with free will (the rest being robots, of course) due to being inside of a science fiction novel written by author Kilgore Trout. Trout is a mostly-unknown (albeit widely published) pulp science fiction writer who appeared in several other Vonnegut novels, who hitchhikes to Hoover’s town to appear at an art convention.

The novel frequently switches focus between Hoover and Trout, with Kurt Vonnegut simultaneously appearing as the author of the book and filling in the narratorial duties. These transitions are exceptionally handled—they help move the story along and are not confusing whatsoever. Common themes in the book include free will, suicide, mental illness, and issues with America and the treatment of its citizens.

Just like Vonnegut’s other novels, the writing itself is simple to read, which seems to be part of his overall style. Generously mixed in with the text are many drawings by the other which give a visual depiction of various objects, such as an anus, flags, a beaver, a vulva, the yin-yang symbol, guns, an electric chair, an apple, and even the sunglasses the author himself wears as he enters the storyline. Like many of the other novels, there are characters from other books which appear, who often have similar, but not exactly symmetrical characteristics across the books.

As I mentioned earlier in this review, I greatly appreciated Breakfast of Champions and would recommend this as the first book a novice Vonnegut reader should check out. It’s funny, smart, and wacky enough to hold your attention, and it’s written simply enough that it is also a quick read.

5/5 stars. 302 pages.

Book Review - Zig Zag Zen

The book Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics is a compilation of articles and interviews written and conducted by several respected people in both the Buddhist and psychedelic communities. The pieces explore the crossovers between Buddhism and psychedelics and offer an honest perspective about whether psychedelic substances have a place in a sincere Buddhist practice, and vice-versa.

Following a foreword written by Stephen Batchelor, a preface written by religious studies scholar Huston Smith, and an introduction written by the book's editor Allan Badiner, Zig Zag Zen is broken into three main sections: "Intersection", which explores the points common to both topics, "Concrescence?", which discusses the coalescence or "growing together" of Buddhism and psychedelics, and "Lessons", which offers advice from the elders in both movements for a beginning psychonaut or Buddhist.

The "Intersection" section covers topics like the Tibetan Book of the Dead and a 1964 psychedelicized version of it called The Psychedelic Experience, the concept of suffering, America's relationship with Buddhism, shamanism, spiritually-influenced artwork, and other various spiritual practices. The authors featured in this section include psychedelic researcher Ralph Metzner, professor Roger Walsh, anthropologist/writer Christian Rätsch, and Allan Badiner, among others.

The "Concrescence?" section begins with a thorough explanation of Buddhist and psychedelic artwork by visionary artist Alex Grey, followed by an explanation by Rick Strassman concerning his groundbreaking DMT research, and then features several chapters on various topics such as "psychoactivism", "leaning into rawness", ayahuasca, cannabis as a harm reduction practice, and a fantastic analysis of psychedelics' potential role in Buddhist practice by writer Erik Davis.

The final section, "Lessons", includes several discussions concerning whether psychedelics are a help or a hindrance on the Buddhist path, features an interview with the well-known psychedelic bard Terence McKenna, the work of Rick Doblin with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), Lama Surya Das' "zen commandments", and more.

The book is extremely well-written and edited, and offers an honest look at whether psychedelics can play a valid role in a Buddhist practice. The authors (and speakers) in the book do not all agree on a conclusion, and so it is up to the reader to decide whether psychedelics would truly assist them in their spiritual path or not. Featured throughout the book are a plethora of breathtaking art pieces in full color. I would advise this book to anyone who has an interest in either Buddhism or psychedelics.

5/5 stars. 240 pages.