What do you think?
Rate this book
Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers
How to Feel: An Ancient Guide to Minding Our Emotions
A new translation of the Buddha’s teachings on mindfulness—and how it can help us to be less controlled by our emotions
To feel is to suffer. But do we have to suffer as much as we do? Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Buddha discovered that practices of mindfully observing our feelings and emotions can help us gain some distance from them. In How to Feel, Maria Heim provides new translations of essential early Buddhist teachings on mindfulness meditation and connects them to recent findings in psychology and neuroscience. A superb meditation manual and insightful exploration of psychology, the book also provides a brief introduction to Buddhism and features the original Pali-language texts on facing pages.
Drawing from the Samyutta Nikaya, an early canonical collection, How to Feel introduces Buddhist practices of mindfulness. Using them, we can watch feelings come and go like winds passing through the sky. We can observe what causes our negative emotions and learn to shift our attention to other things. We can see where emotions lead us and learn to redirect them. We will still feel, but, with practice, emotions will have less control over us.
Just as they did in ancient India, the teachings in How to Feel offer today’s readers radically new and more enlightened ways to experience emotions.
To feel is to suffer. But do we have to suffer as much as we do? Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Buddha discovered that practices of mindfully observing our feelings and emotions can help us gain some distance from them. In How to Feel, Maria Heim provides new translations of essential early Buddhist teachings on mindfulness meditation and connects them to recent findings in psychology and neuroscience. A superb meditation manual and insightful exploration of psychology, the book also provides a brief introduction to Buddhism and features the original Pali-language texts on facing pages.
Drawing from the Samyutta Nikaya, an early canonical collection, How to Feel introduces Buddhist practices of mindfulness. Using them, we can watch feelings come and go like winds passing through the sky. We can observe what causes our negative emotions and learn to shift our attention to other things. We can see where emotions lead us and learn to redirect them. We will still feel, but, with practice, emotions will have less control over us.
Just as they did in ancient India, the teachings in How to Feel offer today’s readers radically new and more enlightened ways to experience emotions.
- GenresPhilosophyBuddhism
258 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 18, 2025
About the author
Gautama Buddha
212 books1,160 followersGautama Buddha (Sanskrit: गौतम बुद्ध) born as Prince Siddhārtha (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded.
Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition, and first committed to writing about 400 years later.
The time of Gautama's birth and death is uncertain: most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE, but more recent opinion dates his death to between 486 and 483 BCE or, according to some, between 411 and 400 BCE. However, at a specialist symposium on this question held in 1988 in Göttingen, the majority of those scholars who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death, with others supporting earlier or later dates. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet been accepted by all other historians.
See also Siddhartha Gautama.
Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition, and first committed to writing about 400 years later.
The time of Gautama's birth and death is uncertain: most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE, but more recent opinion dates his death to between 486 and 483 BCE or, according to some, between 411 and 400 BCE. However, at a specialist symposium on this question held in 1988 in Göttingen, the majority of those scholars who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death, with others supporting earlier or later dates. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet been accepted by all other historians.
See also Siddhartha Gautama.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 18, 2026
This book is a translation of the Buddha’s teachings that focuses on observing our emotions. It explains that all experiences fall into three types of feelings, them being pain, pleasure, and neutral feelings. Serving as a practical guide, the book teaches us how to observe and regulate our emotional responses, helping us gain awareness and control over how we react and perceive experiences. Rather than being controlled by our emotions, we learn to relate to them with clarity and mindfulness.
April 30, 2026
This book had some really insightful philosophy- but at times I felt the translation was hard to follow due to its repetitive nature with changing of only one or two words in the phrase- I had to reread things often to make sure I got it. Despite that, the sentiment and lessons in the book are extremely valuable and I look forward to reading more books in the “How to..” series.
March 2, 2026
read twice to be nice
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews