The 3 meditation books to keep your practice fired up on a deserted island

What happens to a stone with sharp edges on the top of a mountain?

Let's play a little mind game here. You are stranded on a deserted island. Nobody is around except wildlife and beautiful flora and fauna. My first thought is: Great! These are perfect conditions for relaxation and enlightenment! There is just this little issue. Who helps me to stay on the right track towards the unconditioned? 

In the past I had a dream of living an hermit lifestyle, somewhere remote, alone. With all the time on my hand to focus on spiritual growth. But reality will kick in pretty fast. I talked to a monk in a Thai monastery about it, as I was so frustrated with the ordinary monastery lifestyle of duties, work and little time for formal practice. He gave me a little simile: "What do you get, when you put a rock with sharp edges on the top of the mountain? You get a rock with sharp edges even afer decades of weather heavily wearing and tearing it. But what do you get when you throw a rock a with sharp edges into a river with other rocks with sharp edges?" You guessed it right: "The river will move the stones, make them collide, crash, reflect and voila - we have stones with round edges all of a sudden." The moral of the story is: if you want to work on enlightenment and to deflate your ego, solitude migh not be the best setting for it. 

But what if you are on an deserted island, cave or on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere? Guidance can also come in the form of proper books on meditation and enlightenment. 

Here are my 3 favorite books to keep you and your ego in check and to help you advance your spiritual growth:

1) The Mind Illuminated (TMI) by John Yates (Culadasa) is an all encompassing book to guide you from beginner to advanced meditation

John Yates aka Culadasa (1945 - 2021) was a meditation teacher and founder of the Dharma Treasure Buddhist Sangha in Tucson Arizona, USA. He was a dedicated lay practicioner and his biggest achievement, in my opinion, was to press all of his knowledge together with the help of Matthew Immergut and Jeremy Graves into this one book, that consists of basically everything a beginner of meditation needs to know about it. It is well written, has great illustrations and gives readers a clear step by step approach of how to reach the next level of meditation. Here is where "The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness" really shines. It is able to bridge the gap between ancient meditation techniques of the Buddhists and describe it in a way that a non-buddhist is able to understand, digest and apply. I am a big fan of the book and can't recommend it enough to anyone interested in going down the meditation path. The book is around 16 bucks and therefore very affordable (https://amzn.to/3mLrnm0)*. The only downside I would consider is, that if you are a serious meditator already and are looking for specific help with some topics, you might be left hanging. But this is where our next book may be able to shift our practice into the next gear.

More information on Culadasa can be found on his homepage: https://culadasa.com/, the rather acitve reddit channel The Mind Illuminated (reddit.com). The book is also available as an audiobook:

2) Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha (MTCB2) by the self proclaimed enlightened being Daniel M. Ingram is provoking, a slap in the face of all traditionalist, a lighthouse for all secular meditators and and overall overwhelming compendium

 

Daniel M. Ingram is a dedicated practicioner of meditation in all it's forms and claims to have reached the state of enlightenment. In a provocative way, he does put his self-proclaimed title on the book cover, which stirred up not only one, but numerous heated argument with traditionalist Buddhists around the globe. For interested readers: Bhikku Analayos papers "Meditation Maps, Attainment Claims, and the Adversities of Mindfulness" + "The Dangers of Mindfulness: Another Myth?" directed at Ingram can be found here: The Dangers of Mindfulness: Another Myth? (uni-hamburg.de), Meditation Maps, Attainment Claims, and the Adversities of Mindfulness | SpringerLink. All the provocation aside, this books offers hands down the most details on enlightenment stages and how to get from a to b. It is written in a very personal way and explains the journey which Daniel M. Ingram has been on since he got hooked on meditation. Its brutally honest way of writing is a total contrast to The Mind Illuminated. I would consider The Mind Illuminated a classical text book, that tries to distance the writer from the position that is taken on the subject of the book, whereas Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha does the exact opposite. It puts the journey of Daniel into the foreground to illustrate his personal journey to be an example (sometimes good, sometimes bad) for other people. To strive. To fall. To get back up one more time again and again until to the spiritual goals have been reached. I would not recommend the book for beginners, as it can be a bit off-putting, and a bit too much straight forward. But if you have been on the way for some time and have made significant progress in your meditation and are interested in jhana practices in details, this book is a must read and an eye opener.

The book can be read online on Daniel M. Ingrams website in different languages for free: Book — Integrated Daniel or directly on MCTB.org – Page mctb.org| – The home of the evolving Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha. If you want a physical copy, Amazon sometimes has it on stock: https://amzn.to/40nMR5T *.There is an active community around the book on DharmaOverground Discussion - www.dharmaoverground.org. There is an audiobook available, which you can also find on YouTube. But it needs to be added, that there is only an audiobook on the first version of he book available, also referred to as MTCB1.

3) The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah are funny, uplifting, thought provoking and may give the right impulses on how to approach the practice

Ajahn Chah was a popular monk in the Thai Forest tradition. He set up the 2 monasteries of Wat Nong Pah Pong and Wat Pah Nanachat in Ubon in the East of Thailand out of which a big network of affiliate monasteries all around the world have evolved. Some of the rather known monks in this lineage are Ajahn Sumedho and Ajahn Brahm. Jack Kornfield did study under Ajahn Chah, too. What fascinates me about this monk is his unique way of teaching in the moment, that is stern and funny at the same time. There is no other monk crazy enough to get some of his acking teeth removed and then tell his dentist to take the good ones out with it, so "he could be done with it". The reverence of which other monks speak about Ajahn Chah is affirming to me, that he was the real deal. The teachings are not specifying how to meditate exactly to get from one state to the next. But it describes and outlines values, rules and a moral compass, that will set great conditions for the next time we sit down and meditation on the cushion.

All his teachings are available in a 3 book collection called "The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah". The books are not for sale, as it is common in the Thai Forest tradition to give information out for free, as the information contained is invaluable and there can not be put a price on it. The digital version can be downloaded on the Forest Sangha Homepage The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah - Single Volume - Forest Sangha. If you happen to be able to access a Ajahn Chah lineage monastery, you might be able to get either a physical copy in one book or a version with 3 different books in a box. The teachings are medium long and can usually be read in 20 to 30 minutes. If you prefer to let someone else read it to you, then Ajahn Amaro has already done a great job for you The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah Archives - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery. It is also possible to type in "Ajahn Chah" in your Podcast app and get the collection right away. The collection is also available on YouTube:

What would your 3 meditation books be to take on a deserted island to keep your practice fired up?