Imitation of Christ
Only the Bible has been more influential as a source of Christian devotional reading than The Imitation of Christ. This meditation on the spiritual life has inspired readers from Thomas More and St. Ignatius Loyola to Thomas Merton and Pope John Paul I. Written by the Augustinian monk Thomas a Kempis between 1420 and 1427, it contains clear instructions for renouncing wordly vanities and locating eternal truths. No book has more explicitly and movingly described the Christian ideal: "My son, to the degree that you can leave yourself behind, to that degree will you be able to enter into Me." With a new Preface by Sally Cunneen, author of In Search of Mary: The Woman and the Symbol. "God is our home but many of us have strayed from our native land. The venerable authors of these Spiritual Classics are expert guides--may we follow their directions home." --Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Stats for nerds
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5mentions
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40% recommend60% neutral
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What Hacker News says
- https://librivox.org/the-imitation-of-christ-by-thomas-a-kem...
A priest friend recommended Thomas a Kempis to me, and I enjoyed listening to this audiobook version. Yes, it's not for the agnostics or the faint of heart, but it is an amazing explication of what it means to be a faithful layman and follower of Jesus.
- A classic, to be sure. Epictetus' style still served as a model for "guide-books" 16+ centuries later. Two of my favorites from the second millenium which bear such influence are Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ (~1420) [1] and Lorenzo Scupoli's The Spiritual Combat (1589) [2], both classics in their own right.
- The Cloud of Unknowing is my favorite monkly advice, though possibly because it's been given a very nice modern English translation (other stuff might be just as good if treated with as much interpretive freedom?). While you'll find immediately that it's talking about attention during prayer, the way distraction is discussed is still really generally useful. Some excerpts here: https://www.theculturium.com/the-cloud-of-unknowing/#attachm...
Thomas Aquinas talked about attention/boredom, I think, but I can't read him unless I'm in a very particular mindset so I don't have much to cite you.
Hm. I looked a bit at some different stuff but the problem is that I can't really recommend e.g. [The Imitation of Christ](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_the_Imitation_of_Christ) unless you're really looking to spend a while with medieval Christianity for its own sake, with the treatment of attention sort of incidental. I will think more and come back to this comment thread if I come up with a better rec. (I'll also note that a tragic portion of this stuff is dead-tree-only)
- I am not much into fiction, my gift depends on the kind of person I gift to, few books I most of the time prefer gifting,
1. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, for those spiritual minds. I am a huge fan of this book, I am traveling this week to Dharamshala to learn about Buddhism after reading this book.
2.Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, for those aspiring young minds.
3. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, for my adventure loving friends. I had an intense desire to see Mt.Everest after reading this book, I traveled to Everest base camp.
4. Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, for everyone, I don't remember how many I have gifted.
5. Imitation of Christ, I have gifted it, but haven't read it myself. It's in my list.
6. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
- While i don't disagree with you, I'd like to share something that recently struck me.
Although I hated the film Tree of Life, there was a pertinent line that has resonated with me since.
"The nuns taught us there were two ways through life - the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow."
"Grace doesn’t try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. … Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it over them. To have its own way."
The penny dropping moment is when you question nature "goodness". Nature is often perceived to be "the pure way", but we often forget that the pure way can be brutal and unforgiving. Nature is the route of the shortest path, highly optimised to survive and flourish often at the cost of others and without compassion. Grace balances nature.
Some of that is quoted from The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis (see Book 3, Chapter 54):
http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/imitation/imb3c51-59.html...
