Reddit reviews Focused and Fearless: A Meditator's Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity

• Focused and Fearless. A Meditator's Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity by Shaila Catherine.
  
  Good for beginners with several months experience.
  
  Basically a step by step walkthrough for seeking Jhanic states and insight.
  
  That being said, it has accidentally helped me a lot with zazen which is not seeking much of anything.

• Focused and Fearless. A Meditator's Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity by Shaila Catherine. Beginning to Intermediate.
  
• Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond. A Meditator's Handbook. by Ajahn Brahm. All Levels.
  
• The Attention Revolution. Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind by B. Alan Wallace. All Levels.
  
• The Open-Focus Brain. Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body. by Les Fehmi. Beginner.
  
• Emptiness Dancing. by Adyashanti. Intermediate.
  
• The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment by Adyashanti. Intermediate/Advanced.

I second Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond. It's thorough and inspiring. He's coming from a Theravadan perspective, but he's got a few quirky ideas that I don't think even jibe with his tradition. Very worthwhile book, but you're likely to disagree on a little dogma.

Focused and Fearless always comes highly recommended, but I've only glanced through it.

Leigh Brasington is a teacher who kinda specializes in jhana instruction. The link leads to a page of his recommended links.

Here's a quick overview of jhanas.

This is a multipart youtube talk given by Ayya Khema. I think this is where I'd start, because she gives one of the most lucid overviews I've even heard. Great stuff!

If you want to find the Oneness and bliss back, you can do it with Jhana meditation. You don't need drugs. Jhana is the Buddhist way of connecting with the One and feeling that bliss. There are two great books about Jhana meditation on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0861715608/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/086171623X/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

In addition to 1 hour of meditation a day, you must help the situation with the following:

1. Half an hour of yoga, or simply walking out in nature.
   
2. Half an hour out in the sun (or get some D3, although you also need sun's UV to help lift depression). You can do this while you're doing #1.
   
3. Diet changes (as important): Avoid gluten completely (which is known to creating depressive symptoms). Limit sugar and processed foods, eat more veggies/fruits. Also avoid vegetable seed oils, which promote inflammation: go for coconut oil for cooking (grass-fed butter occasionally), which creates more ketones that benefit the brain (use olive oil for salads). Eat more WILD fish (low-mercury ones), shellfish, and sea vegetables to get more DHA (that also benefit the brain). Consider also supplementing with Magnesium (you can't get enough via food post-Industrial revolution), and CoQ10 Ubiquinol (not Ubiquinone).
   
   Do these four things to yourself, and you will see a major change to your being within 15-20 days.

I learned of the jhanas almost a year ago and they have been my current goal for meditation too. Still have a way to go, but my practice is improving.

I'll suggest to you a book that comes highly recommended and that I have personally enjoyed - that is:"Focused and Fearless". From what I understand the aim of the book is to help you attain the first jhana. I may be mistaken, but access concentration is the biggest challenge for new meditators. Once you're there I think the other jhanas are also attainable. I could be wrong. It's the best advice I can give with what I currently understand.

I just found what looks to be like an incredible audio series from the author as well - and they're free. There's a couple of guided meditations on there too, might have to check them out myself. :)

Or Focused and Fearless which walks you through first 4 jhanas and beyond. One of the most mind blowing (literally) books out there.

Always glad to discuss!

I learn a lot as I try to articulate my understanding and experience. That is one of the reasons I started teaching mindfulness practice.

I've listened to a lot of Alan Watts. I love that he described himself as a "spiritual entertainer" and a "philosophical entertainer". I could listen to him talk for hours. :D

I've also listened to many videos of Tolle, he is a great guy. I haven't read books from either of them.

I've read a little about Huang Po back when I hung out in /r/zen a little. I've since moved on from that place. BTW if you ever go there, maybe you already have, take them all with a grain of salt. I think there is more to learn from the zen texts and meditation than the toxic people in that forum.

'Taking the Path of Zen' by Robert Aiken is really good.
https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Path-Zen-Robert-Aitken/dp/0865470804

'Mindfulness in Plain English' may be the best intro to mindfulness I've read.
https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-English-Bhante-Henepola-Gunaratana/dp/0861719069

'Focused and Fearless' is a very direct and simple guide to Jhana practice, or absorption concentration meditation. It describes very specifically how to reach and identify every level of Jhana.
https://www.amazon.com/Focused-Fearless-Meditators-States-Clarity/dp/0861715608

'The Posture of Meditation' is a great guide to the role your body plays in meditation. It is the most in depth guide on posture, but it can be an intro to meditation in itself. The author teaches that you can read deep mindful states with only correct posture.
https://www.amazon.com/Posture-Meditation-Will-Johnson/dp/1570622329


Most of those talk about actual practice, which I think is the most important.

For philosophy and understanding what is going on I highly recommend this course:

https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-meditation

It is a serious and lengthy course for which you will need patience to sit through lectures. An evolutionary psychologist from Princeton - Robert Wright evaluates Buddhism through the lens of modern psychology.

That was a defining course for me and gave me a lot of motivation to practice whole heartedly.

Right, I don't do the whole nomenclature thing, but labels are sometimes useful for describing exactly what "system" someone is using. Living in the now, so to speak, and not identifying with the mind are definitely great skills to cultivate. If you don't already utilize some form of cognitive behavioral therapy, like REBT, you should look into that because the two complement each other very well.

I'm waiting on:

Mindfulness in Plain English

Focused and Fearless: A Meditator's Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity

Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond: A Meditator's Handbook

They were from the /r/meditation book recommendation thread, and I've been trying to develop mindfulness skills more.

I'm more or less in the same boat. After years of sporadic practice, I've finally managed to stabilize my practice and meditate for 5-20 minutes a day. It's not much, but it's more consistent than any time before in my life. The problem is that I cannot seem to remain focused during the meditation itself. I don't have the feeling I'm doing it correctly (whatever that means) or that it is having any effect on my thoughts or actions at all. Paradoxically, when I meditated less often it seemed to be more effective...

I decided that I want to approach it in more structured way. I've recently bought a book called Focused and Fearless. I'm planning to set some hypotheses, follow along with the exercises in the book and see what happens. Want to join in?