Book: Mindfulness in Plain English by Henepola Gunaratana. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.

I was expecting some more but after reading the description again it seems to deliver exactly what it says.

The whole book is about meditation and I would say 50% of it is about focusing on your breathe.

The chapter about loving kindness is also interesting. There are some quotes of Buddha that are really great.

Here are my raw notes about the book:

  • Meditation is not just for holy man. They are holy because they meditate, not the contrary.
  • The real peace comes only when you stop chasing it
  • Investigate yourself. Take nothing as granted. Question everything. Don’t believe in anything because it sound wise or some holy man said, see for yourself.
  • Face reality, don’t try to mask your problems.
  • Suffering is different than pain. Pain is inevitable, you will feel it someday. But suffering you may avoid, be prepared for it.
  • Mindfulness is about the present. If you remember your school teacher, that’s memory. When you become aware of remembering, that’s mindfulness. When you say: “oh, I’m remembering…”, That’s thinking.
  • Concentration is just like a lens, it amplifies your thoughts to go deeper. Use it as a tool.
  • Madama pata who anticipated froid by one thousand years
  • You understand others by understand yourself. Meditation help you with that
  • When you learn compassion for yourself, compassion for others is automatic
  • Buddhism advocates that faith in the sense of believing in something because it’s written in a book, attributed to a prophet that talks to you by some authority figure. Faith is something you have seen it happen within yourself.
  • Meditation is not just for holy man. They are holy man because they meditate, not the contrary.
  • If you start a meditation practice to understand you, nature and life, you will succeed in your practice.
  • The real peace comes only when you stop chasing it
  • The process of meditation is learning to live
  • Investigate yourself. Take nothing as granted. Question everything. Don’t believe in anything because it sound wise or some holy man said, see for yourself.
  • View all problems as challenges
  • When looking to yourself from “outside” you may find some things you don’t like. Selfishness for example.
  • If you hate something, thing about it with generosity if it came to mind when meditating
  • Sometimes people are what they are not because they are bad by instinct, but because the circumstances made them follow this path
  • An angry man was talking to Buddha and offended him. Buddha asked what the guy do when he gives a gift to someone and this person do not accept it. The guy says he takes the gift with him and give to his family. Buddha says that this is what is going to happen now, he does not accept the insults, he can take it back.