Why Can't I Meditate?: how to get your mindfulness practice on track

by Nigel Wellings

There are now thousands of students completing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and other mindfulness programmes around the world. However, on completion many will struggle to continue or will stop, with the intention of starting again in the future. Why Can't I Meditate? addresses this problem. It combines accounts by new meditators of their struggles, and successes, with insights from a wide variety of the most accomplished teachers, representing every school of mindfulness teaching. It identifies, investigates and offers many practical solutions to get our mindfulness unstuck and firmly establish a regular practice. This is a book for anyone who has sat on their meditation seat or cushion and wondered whether they should go on.

Contributors Stephen Batchelor, Rebecca Crane, Christina Feldman, Geshe Tashi Tsering, Choji Lama Rabsang, Willem Kuyken, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Franklin Sills, Philippa Vick and Martin Wells.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Meditation, Spirituality, Psychology, Audiobook, Health

345 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 5, 2015

Reviews

[Edward Watson]

I liked this, and will keep it lying around to come back to. Why can't I meditate? turned into I can meditate! after reading, not because I had become objectively better, but in that I realised that my constant drone of 'Am I doing this right? Am I thinking too much?' was counterproductive, and that I should just go with it. The most useful piece of advice was that having to return to a self-aware present state was an important part of meditation, and you shouldn't scold yourself for needing to do so. You set yourself up to fail if you begin meditation with the expectation of staying perfectly in the present at all times.

[Lauren]

This book was slow going for me, but the information in it incredibly helpful for someone who has meditated before but hasn't kept up a regular practice and wants to.

[Jane]

In spite of the odd title, this is one of the best books on mindfulness meditation I've read. It combines psychology with mindfulness-based stress reduction practices and gives an extensive explanation of the benefits of meditation as well as the reasons that many of us resist continuing a daily practice.

[J.T.K. Gibbs]

I will read and reread this book a few times. Even bought a hard copy of it for references and practice.

[Anita]

I liked this book and found it extremely helpful to start a daily meditation habit I’ve kept up for a couple of months now. I highly recommend if you also want to start a daily meditation habit.

[Kelly Jones]

A quick read that relies heavily on situational examples rather than direct applications and suggestions for increasing meditation/mindfulness. I was expecting more of a how-to, but still enjoyed the book and feel that I got some info out of it that'll be useful as I continue on my quest to become more mellow.

[catherine newman]

Good support

Good sound advice for establishing a meditation practice. Working with the ideas presented has provided me with additional information to carry me through a plateau I was experiencing in my own practice.

[Ajay]

This was not a book for me. This is a book for anyone who is thinking about meditating, who wants to meditate but is finding it hard to start and continue or who has started but has stopped again. It presumes that reader is interested in trying meditation and for whatever motivation (to have a better life or find spiritual progress) wants to pursue it.

Perhaps to someone like that this might be a useful guide, promising to share practical tips to actually dedicate yourself to the practice.

But as a skeptic, who has learned meditation and rejected it. This book doesn't actually speak much about those core motivations, natures, and harder questions.

[Nathan]

I was struggling with this one for a while. Each chapter has a lot of information and it can be overwhelming. That being said I think it's a really great read for people who are interested in meditating or who have had issues doing so. One of my favorite parts talks about how people have difficulty with love and kindness mediation. That many people can get turned off by some of the traditional Buddhist practices and how it can adjust to your needs. It provides context and better coping methods so that we can be more understanding of our meditation struggles.

[David Pulliam]

The first part was not helpful; the list of problems Wellings lists is not something I struggle with, and so felt like he was laying seeds of issues. But as I got into the book more, I found it more helpful: particularly the importance of seeing that you are not achieving a particular goal in meditation or looking for a perfect meditation.

[Patrick]

Very practical and readable. Will keep coming back to this. Highly recommended to anyone interested in meditation.

[Caroline]

Very helpful for those beginning to be interested in mediation and mindfulness

[Sophie Bowns]

It was just a bit of a wordy nothingness for complete beginners. I wasn’t keen....

[Malum]

Good advice for people having difficulty meditating.

[Craig]

Some useful ideas, but too many vox pops.

[Nguyet Nguyen]

It helps me to better understanding about meditation. It has correlation among Buddhism, psychology and yoga.
In conclusion, with explanation from these areas, it is worthy practicing.

[Janani]

3.5

[Aria]

I couldn't listen to this. Sounded like it was read by a machine.

[Mark]

This has been on pause for a very long time. 03 September 2017

[Molly]

a sort of how-to book about meditation, not so much about the technique of it, but about the inner obstacles to establishing a daily practice and how to deal with them. It provides a lot of information about what meditating is like for most people. It is also a sort of psychological self-help book, giving the meditator's approach to them, although it does say that consulting a psychologist is a good idea if you are dealing with a traumatic situation. I found some of the information interesting and informative.