Hey friends,
Welcome back to the Meditation School Podcast.
And in this episode,
I want to dive into three books that I absolutely love when it comes to meditation that have really helped me on my path and that I use to help guide my students with different tools and strategies for when they start meditating.
So let's jump right in to the books that I absolutely love and let's start with one of my favorites of all time which is The New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.
I've mentioned in previous episodes about The Power of Now.
It totally changed my life and this one is just as good.
What I absolutely love about this book is the very first page.
And Eckhart takes us back 100 plus million years to when possibly the first ever flower bloomed on earth.
And before there were flowers,
There were plants,
Just plants.
And then he surmises that one day a flower bloomed but it was fragile and then it died.
But at a certain point,
A threshold was crossed and then flowers bloomed all over the world.
Fast forward to human beings.
A flower maybe was one of the first items from nature we used without a utilitarian purpose,
Without a survival purpose.
Maybe we used flowers for art and for beauty,
For sensuality.
And he shares stories about how Jesus taught using a flower and how the Buddha did.
I really love the story about the Buddha using a flower during what they called his silent sermon where he just stared at this flower,
Didn't say a word.
And the story goes that only one monk understood the teachings.
And that monk passed those teachings down.
28 generations later,
This thing called Zen was born.
Out of the Buddha,
Not talking,
Staring at a flower,
Zen was born.
That's such a beautiful story to me.
And so I love this book,
A New Earth,
And Eckhart goes into more of the state of humanity and the human ego and the pain body,
Human pain and suffering.
And it's just a great addition to his first book if you haven't read it.
These books,
This book is kind of old,
Both of his are.
So if you've been in the meditation space for a while,
You've read it,
Most likely,
But we're just reviewing it.
If you haven't,
Give it a shot.
The second book that I really enjoy is Wake Up to Your Life.
And this one is by Ken McLeod,
Or I'm saying it wrong,
Ken McLeod,
I'm not quite sure,
Holding this one up too.
This book I found when I was 17 really made a difference in my life.
And for the last like two years,
I've been looking for this book and I couldn't remember the title.
I kept just thinking it was called Waking Up,
Which is a podcast by Sam Harris and an app.
And I couldn't find it on Amazon or anywhere.
I rented this house in Boulder and the guy had it right on his bookshelf.
And I was so happy when I found it.
One of the things I love about this book is the deep teaching into Buddhism and into the kind of real,
Getting into the real details of the Buddhist tradition and teachings from a very meditative perspective.
And in particular,
I love how he talks about the three forms of suffering that we experience in life and how Buddha's main teaching was recognizing suffering and then recognizing you don't have to suffer.
You can wake up out of suffering.
And that's what the Four Noble Truths are about and the Eightfold Path and beyond.
And he says that there are three types of suffering.
So one type comes from pain,
Physical or emotional.
Another comes from the experience of change,
Of everything changing,
Of us losing ultimately everything in life because at a certain point,
Everything dies,
Falls away or changes.
And the third is from existence itself,
Which is a little bit more nebulous or vague,
But I think we all from time to time have this existential like empty feeling.
Am I alone?
What is this about?
Where am I?
I'm on some random planet floating in the cosmos.
No one knows why we're here.
Someone gave me a name,
But really nobody knows who I am.
I don't know who I am.
And as funny as that is,
It can also cause some existential dread.
I remember when I used to teach every semester at Cornell,
I used to teach meditation there to the staff and faculty.
And sometimes the students until COVID started.
And one time one of the administrators raised her hand and she said,
You know what really stresses me out?
The idea of existence,
Something like that,
And death,
I think it was.
And just a very deep existential energy that she was dealing with beyond what most people were saying was work,
Money,
Family.
She was like,
Death,
Existence is what gets me.
So I think that this book does a great job of addressing some of the deepest human conditions that we all are struggling with.
And he gives some great tools and meditations to work with them.
And then the third book that I really love,
I would say this is probably the easiest read out of the three,
Which is,
And I feel like I always say her name wrong,
But Pema Shidron,
The female Buddhist monk,
Holding it up to the camera,
But the light is too bright.
So I don't think you can see it if you're watching this.
Lovely book.
It's called How to Meditate.
Simple,
It seems like it's actually just her talking put into,
You know,
Taken into a transcript,
Transcribed and put into a book.
And she just gives really gentle,
Compassionate,
Direct teachings of how to sit and how to meditate.
Everything from just settling in into a space when you close your eyes,
To learning how to do things like mental noting.
And I think it's just a really great guide,
Whether you're a beginner or advanced meditator,
To read.
And it's,
The reading of the book itself is meditative.
So like,
As you're reading it,
You can almost feel yourself dropping into the moment and meditating.
Pema has this beautiful,
Just softness about her and her teaching.
And I love it.
If you've listened to me before,
You know,
I always quote her when she says,
Nothing goes away until it teaches us what we need to know.
And I love that teaching.
I love her work.
So those are the three books for today.
I could probably pick a few dozen more,
Maybe in the future I'll do some more episodes on some books I really like.
Just to reiterate them,
It's A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle,
Wake Up to Your Life by Ken Micaliad,
And How to Meditate by Pema Shidron.
Beautiful books,
Maybe one of them will inspire you,
Or maybe you have different taste.
All good.
Thank you for listening,
Watching,
Being here with me.
Enjoy yourself,
And I will see you in the next one.
See you soon.
