Very Few Words

This quiet morning I am a woman of few words.  My busy mind is momentarily quieted with meditation, and I’ve got a good latte in front of me, and imminent dawn to contemplate as day breaks.

A new book, Buddhist Boot Camp, arrived in the mail yesterday.  So far, I’m delighted with it.  It is already on my fairly short list of books that have made a difference to me. Books I love are numerous, but the books that have mattered, that have helped me on my path, that have been tools more than entertainment are quite few in number.  I’ve mentioned several of them, and they amount to my ‘recommended reading list’ for getting from “I hate where I am” to “I am going somewhere new and I enjoy who I am becoming along the way”.  Are you a little curious?

Here they are, as of today, in the order I read them:

• Your Greatest Power by Jack Martin Kohe*
• The 4 Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
• Success by Heidi Grant Halvorson
• The Five Elements of Effective Thinking by Edward B Burger, and Michael Starbird
• The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris
• Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn
• Get Some Headspace by Andy Puddicombe**
• Buddhist Boot Camp by Timber Hawkeye

Are there other books I would recommend? Sure, if someone asked; it would depend on what they said they are looking for, or where they are headed, or perhaps what sort of day it was at the time. I love books. I have read many. I enjoy the feel of a bound book in my hands, and the gift of knowledge, wisdom, or story telling from some other mind, in some other place and time, so carefully preserved for me. 😀 These are just books that from where I stand now, appear to have been key to getting to this point, and since I like this point, they become meaningful, and important [to me].

*A note about Your Greatest Power: The first time I read this book I was fortunate enough to read it in a worn and dusty 1st edition (1953?).  It was 1981, I was young and it struck me that could be the most important thing I’d ever read. (I also recognized that I ‘wasn’t there yet’.)  Happenstance put that 1st edition, a different copy, in my hands in a dark moment that became a decision-making point many years later. Like many of the books in my list, there is an implied verb in using the contents of a book as a tool or catalyst for change. Every book in my list could entirely change someone’s life – anyone’s life – but it isn’t the book that makes the change. It is the choices. 😉

**To be fair, Andy Puddicombe, as a source of inspiration, actually belongs just after The Five Elements of Effective Thinking; it was his TED Talk that moved me in the direction of exploring mindfulness with intent and will, and that was just this very year. 🙂