by Cory Muscara
Read by the author
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Or listen at libro.fm
Content: There were two f-bombs and some mild swearing, which seemed odd and out of place. It’s in the mindfulness section of the bookstore.

I’m not entirely sure why I picked this up, other than to satisfy a category in the #ReadICT challenge, but I’m kind of glad I did. It’s a how-to and a why book on meditation, something I tried for a while (about a year, I think) and then dismissed as something “too hard” (sitting still is quite hard for me). I do yoga kind of regularly, once or twice a week, but meditation? Not so much.

But, in this crazy world (and especially after the insanity surrounding COVID), I really kind of needed this. Yeah, it’s another Buddhist mindfulness book, but I liked that Muscara is practical about the whole thing. He does impart Buddhist philosophy: that the idea to “happiness” is to be able to sit with emotion and situations as they are, whether “good” or “bad”, and be able to interact with them without trying to control them. That’s not how I usually think of “mindfulness”, and I appreciated thinking differently. He also gives a huge variety of meditation practices, from what you traditionally think of “meditation” to a practice with your phone (or any technology) in order to interact with it in a more present and mindful matter. I think, for me, the simple question of asking why am I doing things has made the most difference. Why am I scrolling through Facebook? Why am I eating the cake? Why do I feel anxious? It’s helped. That, and doing a body scan practice, which, yes, is a form of meditation, every night.

And I highly recommend it on audio. Cory is a good reader, and it’s beneficial to be able to go through some of the practices as he reads them. It’s a very conversational book, which works well in audio form.

It’s probably not drastically changed my life, but I do have a wider perspective on things, and maybe that will, in the long run, be a good thing.