Here’s an excerpt from the post:

“Just one thing” is different from “one thing at a time” or from “don’t take on too many projects”. It’s more … finding the one thought or the one action that will pull me back into … into wherever I need to be.

Into the zone. Into my body. Into a more mindful “hey, this is where I am right now” sort of place (what I’d call “present moment awareness” if this were a meditation class which — hooray — it’s not).”

Love that! Read the whole post here.

Now read this: Zen to Done. Zen to Done takes bits and pieces from David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” and Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and merges them into 10 guiding principles that you can pick and choose a la carte, these are the high-level habits. It then offers specific advice and examples on how to implement these habits. When I read GTD, I did not like having to slog through anecdote after anecdote, and with Zen to Done, you don’t have to. The book is structured so that you can just get the habits down, or just the specifics, or you can read the whole thing. Plus, it’s an e-book, so it’s dirt cheap and you can read it… now!

While you’re there, you might as well check out the Zen Habits Blog. Lots of great stuff on there too.

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi was a Soto Zen priest and the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. He was born 1904 in rural Japan, arrived in the United States to teach in 1959, and died of cancer in San Francisco in 1971.

Description: I have read many Buddhist books, and this one is my favorite. In fact, I have read many books (full stop), and this one is my favorite. ZMBM is mystical and otherworldly yet day-to-day ordinary, it is philosophical and technical yet beautifully poetic and literary, it is challenging and demands your best yet is gentle and patient, it is traditional yet modern, it is serious and sincere yet light-hearted and easy, it is simple yet deep, it is Japanese yet American. To summarize : pimp as muhfgn hell. Steven Mitchell included excerpts from ZMBM in his anthological collection of traditional “enlightened” writings called “The Enlightened Mind”, and it’s easy to see why. My perspective is that these words emerge from the still silent heart of genuine spiritual liberation.

Anecdote: Suzuki Roshi was purportedly a small man with a wry and sometimes mischievous sense of humor. Once, while being transported between Zen temples, he reportedly ordered a burger, and then, saying he wasn’t that hungry, switched lunches with his driver (later admitting that it was because he thought the guy was too attached to being a hard-line vegetarian). Suzuki Roshi’s, a Zen master in his own right, described him as “soft and warm on the outside, hard as stone [in his self-discipline] on the inside”.

Potential Turn-Offs: I’ll leave others to try to cook some up. I can’t think of any. Maybe if your iman declared jihad on all religions besides your own? Aside from fundamentalism like that, if you’re into depth, clarity, beauty, and profundity, this is a good book for you.

What I Got out of it: In the twenty years since I first read it, every time I pick up this book and read a chapter or three, I get something out of it that speaks powerfully and directly to what is going on in my life. The relevant information is usually simultaneously simple, obvious, and everyday-decent, and yet also magical, deep, and paradoxical. I have noticed that my favorite books seem to grow deeper as the years go on, and the deeper I get, and ZMBM was the first book I noticed that seemed to be doing this. I look forward to seeing what as yet undiscovered treasures it will hold for me twenty or thirty years from now.

Learn more about Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki

Nisargadatta Maharaj was born in 1897 with the name “Maruti”, and lived a simple uneducated life, as a husband and shopkeeper in the slums of Bombay, until he died in 1981. He is considered by some however to have attained the supreme state of “moksha” (Sanskrit for “enlightenment” or “liberation”), and to be one of the deepest modern masters of the Hindu school of Advaita Vedanta (emphasizing direct nondualistic realization of truth).

In the words of Advaita scholar Dr. Robert Powell, “Like the Zen masters of old, Nisargadatta’s style is abrupt, provocative, and immensely profound — cutting to the core and wasting little effort on inessentials. His terse but potent sayings are known for their ability to trigger shifts in consciousness, just by hearing, or even reading them.”

Description: If you really want to not just understand the concept, but actually learn how it feels to disidentify with yourself as a finite human being, and to instead experience yourself as an expressive action of the entire universe, then this is your book. Nisargadatta’s teachings are relentlessly confrontational and cosmically and mind-blowing. They take every preconceived notion that you have, and blow them out of the water, stretching you much wider open than you even could have conceived possible. This book is IT, the end point of the whole journey.

Anecdote: The philosopher Ken Wilber points out that many of the modern enlightened masters may have been spiritually liberated but were not fully integrated, i.e. were unhealthy in certain areas of their life besides spirituality. Nisargadatta is an example of this – from his state of enlightenment and his role as part-time role as a guru to many, he also ran a store that mostly sold leaf-rolled cigarettes, chain smoked, and died of throat cancer.

Potential Turn-Offs: If you are new to spiritual practice, this is probably not the book for you – I recommend building up to it with some other books, teachers, and experiences first. First off, a lot of what Nisargadatta teaches in the book is difficult to conceptually comprehend – it’s anything but common sense. Also, I’ve heard it said that the reason why we aren’t all directly in touch with the deep enlightened spiritual truth of life here and now is that it can be so terrifyingly raw. Reading this book may leave you a believer of that theory.

What I Got out of it: Reading I Am That had me finally understand the mystical experience, not as a concept, but, from the inside, what it actually feels like. I can only handle the intensity of the book in three to fifteen page doses, but, after such a reading, I feel immense, clear, transcendent, and unstainable. It doesn’t get any realer. KABOOM, bitches.

Learn more about I Am That, by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Description: The book starts with Dan getting it all right at Stanford. He’s on the gymnastics team, and he’s good. He gets lots of attention from girls, and is pretty much breezing by. Then he meets Socrates, an unlikely gas station attendant who turns his world upside down. Socrates immediately intrigued Dan when he managed to appear on the roof, seemingly by flying. After that, Socrates leads Dan on a journey of self-discovery and challenge that shakes Dan’s assumptions about the world to the ground. Dan goes through periods of cleansing/fasting, meditation, and seemingly magical journeys when Socrates touches his temples.

Anecdote: The book was an easy read. I took it on my commute (by train) and it was easy to pick up and put down. I did find myself looking for lessons in the book, tips, tricks, keys to the kingdom of heaven. Alas, it was just a good story, albeit an inspiring one.

Potential Turn-Offs: Well, there’s a bunch of stuff that seems pretty unlikely unless you already have experience doing energy work, reiki, and reading auras. Dan takes a few trips that are like lucid dreams that Socrates activates just by touching his temple. Frankly, I’m down with reiki, and fine fine, you’ve got an aura, but the Vulcan mind meld is a bit much even for me.

What I Got out of it: While I didn’t start a meditation practice the next day, I did get a chance to be more mindful of my state, my reactions, the way I eat, what I eat, etc. I’d say I got a glimpse of being more intentional and that felt good.

Buy th book: Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman

Growth Potential: Ferriss brings a great mix of his own ideology with specific, usable tips and resources. He makes a convincing argument for why you shouldn’t give the best years of your life working for someone else, on the arbitrary 40-60 hr/week schedule. He then delves into dozens of specific ‘how-to’s from pre-testing products and outsourcing their production, to managing interrupting people who want to ‘chat’ at work. My favorite exercise was called ‘dreamlining’ where you put your dreams into realizable financial goals.

Pop Potential: I think Tim has a better chance of hitting the pop mainstream than his book, although he did achieve bestseller status. He’s a charismatic & good lookin’ fella, and you can see from his blog that he spends a fair amount of his time being active and having fun. The YouTube videos on his site are certainly intriguing enough that one could see a 4hourworkweek TV show in the not-too-distant future. That is if it didn’t require putting more than 2 hours a week into it (he’s got other businesses to run after all).

“Get Real” Potential: Central to the book’s premise is that working in an office, on a 9-5 work schedule and having bosses and stuff is bad. Running around skydiving and traveling while your own business is on autopilot is good. I’d argue that that’s a little extreme as each has its merit. Also, I can’t help but get the feeling that a life with free time during the weekdays, and bopping from country-to-country lends itself to a degree of loneliness. If you don’t talk to your employees, customers and have virtual assistants emailing thank you notes to your friends and loved-ones…um, who are you interacting with?

What I Got out of it: Personal development books often get me real psyched up at first, and then I kind of forget about all that stuff I was going to do to transform my life a few days later. This is the first book that I can really say is a new bible. So much of what the author shared resonated with thoughts I’d had for years but felt ashamed to think. He not only helped me make sense of my intuition, he told me how to make it work. This book served as a catalyst for me to streamline and optimize my life and projects so that I can spend more time doing the things I’m really passionate about.

Learn more about The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferriss

Growth Potential: Fix all your problems in 5 minutes? I’m in.

Pop Potential: Not so sure about Bob Newhart as a spokesperson if only he would stop it with the stuttering I might be able to look past the combover.

“Get Real” Potential: Bob cranks the “get real” potential-o-meter up to 11.

What I Got out of it: A revolutionary take on how to deal with my issues. Bob is truly a guru.

*Ahem* there actually appears to be a book inspired by this video…
Learn more about ‘Stop It!’ Therapy

Don’t Learn more about The Celestine Prophecy Movie

Learn more about The Game