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Brain Training with the Buddha: A Modern Path to Insight Based on the Ancient Foundations of Mindfulness
The essential guide to training your brain for mindfulness--modern, science-based, and with no Buddhism required.
Longtime meditation teacher Eric Harrison intimately understands the benefits of mindfulness, from improved focus and better judgment to relaxation and inner peace. He's helped tens of thousands of students to achieve these goals by rooting his practice in the Buddha's original text on how to meditate and live the Satipatthana Sutta.
Brain Training with the Buddha offers a secular perspective on this ancient wisdom that requires no familiarity with Buddhism itself--only openness to the Buddha's original teachings. Harrison's translation of this sutta (the first in modern English) comes with guidance for anyone looking to train their mind by applying its thirteen steps to mindful living today.
"Brings clear thinking, practical wisdom, and welcome rigor to the widely popular concept of mindfulness." --Publishers Weekly
Previously published in hardcover as The Foundations of Mindfulness
Longtime meditation teacher Eric Harrison intimately understands the benefits of mindfulness, from improved focus and better judgment to relaxation and inner peace. He's helped tens of thousands of students to achieve these goals by rooting his practice in the Buddha's original text on how to meditate and live the Satipatthana Sutta.
Brain Training with the Buddha offers a secular perspective on this ancient wisdom that requires no familiarity with Buddhism itself--only openness to the Buddha's original teachings. Harrison's translation of this sutta (the first in modern English) comes with guidance for anyone looking to train their mind by applying its thirteen steps to mindful living today.
"Brings clear thinking, practical wisdom, and welcome rigor to the widely popular concept of mindfulness." --Publishers Weekly
Previously published in hardcover as The Foundations of Mindfulness
339 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 30, 2021
82 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 10, 2020
One of the better books on meditation that I've read. The book is not a simple how-to (which can be among the most boring books you'll ever read). Rather, it is a lot about how the mind works and why mindfulness can enhance happiness and calmness, etc. It uses this context as a hook on which to hang a few basic steps/techniques of meditation -- but, again, that is not the main thrust of the book.
July 20, 2021
I did enjoy the first 10 chapters of this book. I found the guidance to be easy, logical and incredibly informative. Alas, I did decide to shelf this book for the time being. The second half is really specific and often provides such specific information and history that I find myself disinterested. I'm not sure if it's because my brain has limited capacity with a 20 month-old son, or if it's tired (again toddler :-} ) or if it's just too much minute detail for me. To be fair, the author does "warn" of the book changing tones after chapter 10.
November 7, 2022
2.5 stars. I finished it (audiobook version, which I couldn't find on Goodreads), but I took several breaks because it got a bit tedious at times. Also, I didn't really learn how to train my brain, Buddha-wise; I mostly just got a more nuanced understanding of the distinctions between "mindfulness" and the forms of attention described by the Buddha as essential to enlightenment. It was interesting in many ways, but it isn't really as practical as the title might imply.
December 17, 2021
In his book, Harrison makes the case for secularization of Buddhist practices and philosophies. He takes at times a very utilitarian approach to the practice of organizing and structuring the mind, and through this practice is able to take what is useful and discard the rest. He takes particular umbrage to the idea Buddhist idea that life is suffering and to other Buddhist ascetic ideals of celibacy and freedom from want.
Instead, he focuses on the poorly defined idea of mindfulness, which is partly so due to the poverty of the English language and partly due to sheer imprecision of word choice. He notes that by using the newly-coined term, "mindfulness", many use it as a clunky umbrella term to describe aspects of attention, presence, and non-evaluative acceptance... somewhat lazily rolling them all into one jumbled and awkward idea. We should say what we mean when we talk about mindfulness, and going forward, I think it is worthwhile to have a certain strictness of terms and exactness of vocabulary to describe the mind for both scientific purposes and for purposes of clarity.
There were a great myriad of ideas to grapple with in this book and I'm sure I'll be mulling it over for while yet. One to read again.
Instead, he focuses on the poorly defined idea of mindfulness, which is partly so due to the poverty of the English language and partly due to sheer imprecision of word choice. He notes that by using the newly-coined term, "mindfulness", many use it as a clunky umbrella term to describe aspects of attention, presence, and non-evaluative acceptance... somewhat lazily rolling them all into one jumbled and awkward idea. We should say what we mean when we talk about mindfulness, and going forward, I think it is worthwhile to have a certain strictness of terms and exactness of vocabulary to describe the mind for both scientific purposes and for purposes of clarity.
There were a great myriad of ideas to grapple with in this book and I'm sure I'll be mulling it over for while yet. One to read again.
August 7, 2022
Honestly the best book I have ever read on meditation. He takes as his source (hence the title) the Sattipattana Sutra which is the Buddha's wisdom about meditation. He claims and I think convincingly that he us sort of cleaning up the chaos that meditation in the West has become by going back to the roots.
The meditation style he lays out is a subtle difference, but a huge one in practice. I really enjoyed working slowly through this book and exploring what he puts out there.
He does have significant beef with new age meditation--I mean, me too--and also with Kabat Zinn. He argued JKZ misinterprets sati as shunyata--aware evaluation with emptiness. He doesn't say JKZ is wrong or that MBSR doesn't work. The most he says is that the science is difficult since the studies don't really seem to correlate to each other, etc. He even offers his own translation of the Sutra.
Really it's a great book. At the least you will understand the nuances in terminology like sati and mindfulness. At most you will have new tools to bring to your practice which Harrison argues should not be confined to the cushion or a retreat.
The meditation style he lays out is a subtle difference, but a huge one in practice. I really enjoyed working slowly through this book and exploring what he puts out there.
He does have significant beef with new age meditation--I mean, me too--and also with Kabat Zinn. He argued JKZ misinterprets sati as shunyata--aware evaluation with emptiness. He doesn't say JKZ is wrong or that MBSR doesn't work. The most he says is that the science is difficult since the studies don't really seem to correlate to each other, etc. He even offers his own translation of the Sutra.
Really it's a great book. At the least you will understand the nuances in terminology like sati and mindfulness. At most you will have new tools to bring to your practice which Harrison argues should not be confined to the cushion or a retreat.
September 13, 2023
More of a faint trail than a path
Actual rating = 3.5 stars
The first 1/3 of this book was promising--it was practical, used plain language to distinguish this book's intent, & gave a simplified outline of what you were learning--how to use Buddhist principles to be discerning & live a more aware life.
The last 2/3 were difficult to get through. There were a lot of definitions & terminology. Normally, I am fine with both of these; however, these were used HEAVILY without much to show for it in my opinion. The pace of the book was suddenly halted by a bevy of ancient Buddhist terms & their historical impacts. I am a great admirer of Buddhism, but this abrupt shift in intent really marred its utility for me.
Actual rating = 3.5 stars
The first 1/3 of this book was promising--it was practical, used plain language to distinguish this book's intent, & gave a simplified outline of what you were learning--how to use Buddhist principles to be discerning & live a more aware life.
The last 2/3 were difficult to get through. There were a lot of definitions & terminology. Normally, I am fine with both of these; however, these were used HEAVILY without much to show for it in my opinion. The pace of the book was suddenly halted by a bevy of ancient Buddhist terms & their historical impacts. I am a great admirer of Buddhism, but this abrupt shift in intent really marred its utility for me.
December 19, 2022
I really appreciated the scientific view of something so many people think is so wishy-washy. I loved that he provided multiple points of evidence about how meditation actually isn't wishy-washy at all. It's actually scientifically proven to help.
A really good read for anyone who doubts the validity of meditation and mindfulness
A really good read for anyone who doubts the validity of meditation and mindfulness
August 28, 2024
It’s pretty repetitive, but overall insightful. Mindfulness is discussed from Buddha’s point of view versus Kabat-Zinn’s zen take of it. It’s hard to follow/remember at times, but basically mindfulness is more of paying attention to something and making good judgments rather than having an empty mind.
August 16, 2024
This would be a good one to get a summary of in the future. A few great points in there worth going back to. Especially on valence. Post vipassana was a great time to listen to this because I was pretty into the wordyness of the pali text at the time.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews