Living Mindfully

September 14, 2015
This pleasant but cursory beginner’s manual on meditation aims to offer relief from the stresses of life by training the mind and showing how “living mindfully facilitates experiencing reality more comfortably and constructively.” David (Mindful Teaching and Teaching Mindfulness) starts with the simplest formal practices—a single mindful breath, a moment of pause—then reiterates the basic cycle of focus-observe-refocus for incrementally more complex practices of bringing mindfulness to breathing, counting, thinking, feeling, listening, experiencing static sensation, and experiencing dynamic sensation. She then transitions abruptly into real-world informal practice in complex interactive situations, starting with mindfulness during sex and moving to practices of sharing kindness and compassion and learning to respond rather than react in the context of romantic relationships, the workplace, parenting, and dealing with pain and loss. David’s race to broadly cover everything in life after such a careful, specific introductory path will leave the new student feeling lost.