The first book in the Mindfulness Essentials series, written by famous Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, takes readers back to the fundamentals of mindfulness practice.
In brief, one-paragraph chapters, Nhat Hanh offers comprehensive instructions, visualisations, and guided breathing techniques in addition to his own experiences and observations. This small book is ideal for people who are new to sitting meditation and for those who want to develop their spirituality.
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About the Author
Thich Nhat Hanh was a well-known peace activist and spiritual teacher worldwide. He was born in Vietnam in 1926, and at sixteen years old, he converted to Zen Buddhism. In addition to teaching for seven decades, he wrote over 100 books, which have sold over four million copies in the US alone.
He brought the mindfulness movement to Western society with his lectures on Buddhism as a means of social and political change, and he was exiled from Vietnam in 1966 for advocating peace.
The largest Buddhist monastery in Europe and the hub of an expanding global network of mindfulness practice centres, the transnational Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism, was founded by him in France. He died in 2022 at the age of 95 in Tu Hieu, his ancestral temple in Hue, Vietnam.
Review
The Mindfulness Essentials has been included on the New York Times extended bestseller list, the Boston Globe bestseller list, the San Francisco Chronicle bestseller list, the NPR bestseller list, and the LA Times bestseller list.
The relationship between inner peace and world peace is demonstrated by Thich Nhat Hanh.
According to His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Thich Nhat Hanh is a holy man because he is pious and modest. He is a scholar with a vast amount of intelligence. If his peaceful intentions were implemented, they would create a monument to humanity, ecumenism, and universal brotherhood.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Read about Silence – Thich Nhat Hanh with this detailed guide!
How to Sit is one of the mindfulness books in Thich Nhat Hanh’s How To series, which is a small collection of books that each address a distinct facet of everyday living, such as How to Eat or How to Walk. This may not be the greatest place to start if you have never read his writings or are unfamiliar with mindfulness and Buddhism in general, but it is also not a horrible place to start.
This book provides a great overview of sitting meditation as a mindfulness practice. It consists of little chapters that include stories, meditations, advice, and some charming illustrations. Even though I largely listened to the audiobook, I still found myself underlining a lot of the text on my Kindle to go over again at a later time.
It’s a brief read—just over a hundred pages and an hour in audio format—but I made an effort to take my time and sit with each chapter. It is quite conducive to introspection. I’m excited to read the remainder of the series and know I’ll go back to it frequently when I need a little encouragement to keep up my mindfulness practice.
Some of my favourite quotes are as follows:
- Calm and peace are infectious.
- Some people appear to do very little, but their presence is essential to the world’s well-being.
- We are composed of non-us elements, just as a flower is composed of non-flower elements.
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Summary
Thich Nhat Hanh# This book provides helpful methods for attaining calm and awareness in daily life and serves as a manual for the sitting meditation technique. Thich Nhat Hanh examines the transformational potential of meditation and offers straightforward methods for sitting in it.