Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Dummies

I must admit, I was sceptical at first, how could something as complex as Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) be simplified, but this book does it elegantly.  It begins with a brief 'Contents at a Glance' page and then much more detailed 'Table of Contents' including all the icons used in the book which make it easy to navigate: tips; things to note down and to try, warnings, jargon explanations and tracks to play from the online spoken guided meditation tracks.

The book begins with an introductory part I: a clear explanation of what MBCT is, it's origins and benefits, the problems MBCT can address and what the challenge of taking on the full 8 week course entails

Part II is the 8 week course itself, each chapter covering a single week and each building on the one before to develop becoming mindful of your body and mind and how to deal with setbacks and difficult emotions to enable you to come to a point where you are fully in control of your own physical and mental wellbeing and able to live a life far more connected to your own life.

Part III is on using MBCT for specific afflictions: depression, addiction, anxiety, pain, ageing and the work-life balance.

Part IV enables you to go beyond the book, giving list of 10 ways to expand your mindfulness practice, 10 inspirational people and 10 inspirational places to visit.

All in all a welcome addition to the mindfulness bookshelf, straightforward but not shallow.

Buddhism A Very Short Introduction by Damien Keown


This is an extrememly good book by an expert in the field of Buddhist studies.  It is the third in the extensive Very Short Introduction series of books by Oxford University Press which give well informed insight into complex fields of study.  Despite the compact size of the book it is packed with information and I came away feeling I had a grasp of what Buddhism is and that I was able to access to further information if I wanted it.

Keown opens the book with a set of useful maps showing where the Buddha lived and taught and where the different types of Buddhism are now found, followed by a note on pronounciation.

He follows this with 9 chapters, the first a valuable discussion on whether or not Buddhism can be classified as a religion.  Next come chapters on the life of the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, details of the essential Buddhist concepts such as karma, reincarnation and the written exhorations known as the Four Noble Truths.

In the latter chapters Keown follows the spread of Buddhism out of India and speaks about the place of mediation and ethics in Buddhism.  In the final chapter he discusses how Buddhism has had an impact in the West in the present day and its relationship to new findings in science.

Finally there is a timeline, further reading and index.  The further reading is particularly useful, Keown structures it by subject so, for instance, you know which book to read if you wanted to know more about Buddhism and neuroscience.

The only problem now is that I want to read all the 'Very Short Introduction' books and there are currently 344 of them!

DYSTOPIA #8
Island by Aldous Huxley

Journalist and life long cynic Will Farnaby wakes up to the insistent call 'Attention' after being shipwrecked on the forbidden island of Pala, located geographically somewhere around Bali.  Sent by the head of his paper, oil tycoon Aldehyde, to find out whether Pala will be easy to take over and exploit, Will finds himself in a world where the inner life is cherished and valued and even the birds in the trees have a part to play in reminding the inhabitants of this utopia how best to live and be.   Wonderful and sad.

DYSTOPIA #7
The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi) by Herman Hesse

Like nothing I've ever read before.  The presumably fictional but utterly convincing biography of Joseph Knecht, the man who in the 23rd Century becomes Magister Ludi (Master of the Game) in the Kingdom of Castalia, an elite community who preserved the integrity of humanity when it dissolved into anarchy and dangerous superficiality centuries earlier.  Castalian's are the intellectual elite of their society but they no longer create, rather they study earlier cultural achievement and play the Glass Bead Game, a game that is never completely defined but appears to be an intellectual exercise in pure brilliance of the mind.  The Glass Bead Game taught me a lot both about the need for me to become more centred and the value of meditation, and also the implicit dangers of intellectualism and seperatism.