Jeremy Mohler

Reading about meditation is a tempting distraction from the practice itself, which is more about revealing wisdom you already have than gathering knowledge.

But reading can inspire you to practice, especially in the beginning, before you’ve been convinced of what meditation can do for you off the cushion, in your everyday life.

Books have been crucial to inspiring and deepening my practice, so I’d like to share three that will help you along “on the path,” as they say.

But first, a warning.It was a book that first turned me on to meditation, Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums, yet I would spend another two years reading and fantasizing about meditation before actually trying it. I read a number of books by the British philosopher Alan Watts, who allegedly talked and wrote about meditation more than he practiced it.

Looking back, with compassion for who I was at the time, I see now that I was more invested in appearing clever than I was in applying the teachings to my life. “Ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality,” wrote the Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa, who has a book on this list.

So, read these books for inspiration, but don’t let them replace regular practice and discussion with others on the path.

And as always, avoid using Amazon — Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest human, doesn’t need any more your money. Try to buy these from your local bookstore or directly from the publisher.

Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach (2004, Penguin Random House)

As a psychologist and meditation teacher, Tara Brach strikes a balance between Western psychology and Buddhism that’s a bit like going to therapy. Of course, no spiritual practice or book can replace therapy with a trained professional — that would be “spiritual bypassing.” Her first book, Radical Acceptance, is an accessible introduction to one of the fastest growing forms of meditation in the U.S., Vipassana, or “insight meditation.”

Brach is second to none in weaving stories about her life and her patients throughout her teachings, and this book is no exception. If her compassionate style resonates with you, try her second book too, True Refuge.

Everyday Zen, Charlotte Joko Beck (1989, HarperCollins)

The tone of this book, by the late American Zen Buddhist teacher Charlotte Joko Beck, is at the other end of the spectrum from Radical Acceptance. While Brach is a nurturing voice, Beck goes straight to the cold, hard reasons why we meditate. The first sentence: “My dog doesn’t worry about the meaning of life.” The rest of the book is about why we shouldn’t worry either. In true Zen fashion, she keeps directing us back to the simplicity of practice and mindfulness.

If I had read this book instead of Alan Watts, I probably would’ve started meditating years earlier than I did — there’s no woo-woo here. If Beck’s minimalism resonates with you, check out Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind further down the list.

Taking the Leap, by Pema Chödrön (2010, Shambhala)

You could read almost any of American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön’s books and be fired up to meditate by the end of the first chapter. Like many teachers in the Tibetan lineages, she emphasizes the bravery that meditation requires. Counterintuitively, it’s not easy to sit and do nothing. We can’t distract ourselves with email or Facebook, and our thoughts, which usually seem so important, begin to appear as they really are, silly and boring.

Where Chödrön excels is articulating what this bravery looks like off the cushion, especially during the hardest times in life, like when someone close breaks your heart or passes away. In fact, her most well-known book is When Things Fall Apart, which I recommend if you’re going through particularly tough times. Taking the Leap is shorter and more accessible, and if it resonates with you, try Chögyam Trungpa’s books below.

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As I’ve written and talked about, meditation is most powerful when practiced daily. For most of us, its benefits fade away during sleep, so we must reset each day with another session, preferably in the morning.

But doing anything other than fulfilling our basic needs—eating, sleeping, drinking water—each and every single day is hard work. And the last thing we need in this society is more work that we don’t get paid for.

So, if your 2019 resolutions and goals include meditating more—or finally meditating for the first time—I’ve got some tips.

Start with an intention, not a goal. My practice began with the intention to sit every day, no matter how little. Some days, I sat 20 minutes in the morning; others, I could only manage five minutes just before getting into bed at night. A few weeks in, I missed a day. But because I had set an intention, I was a little easier on myself, which allowed me to begin again the next day without the weight of feeling like a failure.

If you’re like me—i.e., a human being—the idea of perfection is a fantasy that allows you give up at the first sign of failure. As the saying goes, perfect is the enemy of good.

Meditation is simply sitting and observing, not losing 50 pounds or making a million dollars. It cuts against the direction that our society flows in—it’s about accepting and letting go, not judging and holding on. So, give yourself slack and take your time.

Eventually, settle into a routine. Within a few weeks or months, you’ll find a sweet spot in terms of length, whether it’s 10, 20, or 30 minutes a day. You’ll also get a feel for what time of day gives you the most bang for your buck.

Routine is crucial to developing any habit. It greases the wheels, so to speak, by saving mental energy that would otherwise go towards making decisions—when should I sit today, where, how long?

At the moment, I sit 30 minutes every morning after making my bed and stretching—even when I’m sick or traveling—and most days another 20 minutes in the afternoon. I’ve followed this routine long enough that my day is noticeably more stressful and unfocused if I skip my morning sit. Intention has morphed into discipline, a must-do.

Don’t go it alone. Meditation groups in the U.S. have a long way to go to be more accessible, particularly to people of color, LGBTQ folks, and working people. But when you become bored of your routine—which you will—seeing others sit and go headfirst into the unknown of the present moment can inspire your individual practice.

There are groups in monasteries, centers, and living rooms in most cities and regions, most of which sustain themselves on volunteer effort and donations. Find a public event to drop in on.

Often, you can check out a guided meditation and hear a talk from a teacher without having to say a word to anyone. Or if you want to talk to others, most people love to talk about their practice with other meditators.

If you live in a city, try various lineages and orientations to the practice to see what resonates. Lineages common in the U.S. include: Vipassana (Insight meditation), Zen, and various Tibetan Buddhism orientations, like Shambhala. Many are quite secular and require little commitment, if any.

If you can’t find a group in your area, use a meditation app like Dharma Seed or Headspace to listen to guided meditations. It’s totally fine to lean on guided meditations, especially when you first start daily practice. Find a quiet place and let the guidance play from your phone—though listening with headphones is fine in a pinch. I sat with my phone in my shirt pocket playing Tara Brach’s guided meditations for at least the first six months. The app Insight Timer is great for keeping time once you’re sitting on your own.

Good luck! As always, shoot me an email at jeremy@jeremymohler.blog if you’re struggling.

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Growing up, my favorite quote was this, which I misattributed to Abraham Lincoln: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”

What a miserable way to look at the world.

I’ve spent most of life trying to appear intelligent, clever, on top of things, “with it.” I’ve rarely asked questions, and if I did, it was usually to stump or impress someone.

But I’ve learned through meditation and therapy that this is an attempt to avoid feeling vulnerable, which, I’m also learning, is what matters most in life.

I probably picked up this way of avoiding vulnerability as a kid when, at some point, the curiosity natural to all young people was stomped out of me. I probably asked too many questions to my parents who were working full-time jobs to pay the bills while trying to have lives of their own. There’s also a little toxic masculinity in the mix, as young boys are encouraged to problem solve while showing little indecisiveness and emotion.

We all have this tendency to avoid vulnerability— let’s call it “ego” — it just comes in different forms for different people.

Ego is like an imaginary version of yourself that you carry around with you. This version doesn’t evolve, adapt, or change at all like a real human. It’s who you think others see, who you “really are.” But it doesn’t actually exist. It’s made up of thoughts, which are snapshots of moments that have already passed or worries about a future that might not come. We mistake the snapshots for evidence that we really are a bad person after all, or the best, or an addict, or whoever we think should or shouldn’t be.

“Ego is like a really fat person trying to get through a very narrow door,” writes Buddhist meditation teacher Pema Chödrön. “If there’s lots of ego, then we’re always getting squeezed and poked and irritated by everything that comes along. When something comes along that doesn’t squeeze and poke and irritate us, we grasp it for dear life and want it to last forever. Then we suffer more as a result of holding ourselves.”

Trying to appear intelligent — or nice, or “manly,” or however you try to come off to others — is “holding ourselves.” Sometimes it’s healthy to protect ourselves by setting boundaries with others, especially if you’ve experienced serious trauma. But many of us literally hold ourselves whether there’s a threat or not, tensing our shoulders or stomach or jaw, closing off to the openness of the moment and mystery of this life.

Asking questions is becoming my ticket out of ego, which, for me, sometimes feels like a straitjacket of shyness and cartoon masculinity. The “dumber” the better — if someone references something I don’t know about, I ask them to explain it to me. If I don’t know where someone lives, where they grew up, what they do for work, whether they’re happy, I ask.

You’d be surprised by how many people are walking around dying to be asked about the most important parts of their lives. How many people will light up just because you put the effort into getting out of your own head to ask them to explain something they just said.

It surprised me after a seven-day silent meditation retreat earlier this year when I visited friends on the way home. What I wanted most was to tell them everything that happened, all the feelings I felt, the lessons I learned, the gorgeous views I had while walking around the farm surrounding the retreat center. But they didn’t want to hear about it.

I don’t blame them — they were like all of us, thinking about their own lives , enjoying the moment— but in the moment I felt hurt. I felt small, unseen, alone. Yet — maybe it was all the meditation I had done — I decided to give them what I was yearning for: attention. So, I listened. I tried hard to understand what they were saying, which required me to ask questions. Eventually, they started asking me about the retreat, and I could tell that all of us felt seen, heard, and not alone.

So, here’s my new quote: better to speak and be thought a fool than to remain silent and never be thought about at all.

Ready to get serious about meditation?

Sign up for my weekly email on meditation and bringing mindfulness to work, relationships, and politics.

Listen to the podcast version with more content

My podcast, Meditation for the Masses, takes meditation out of faraway monasteries, expensive retreat centers, and corporate America, and brings it to the things that matter most to people who work for a living—work, relationships, and politics. It’s mindfulness for the hustle and the class struggle.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS | More