Name: Insight Meditation
ISBN: 9780717122554

What Hacker News says

DumblydorrDec 2021

Slow down, I don't think "all of those" yoga and mindfulness books claim to be "solid science" and I doubt they're all "not very scientific". You just took hundreds of books, assumed they all claim to be scientific, and attacked them for not being solid. This broad brush painting of two healthy habits' texts is pretty damn lazy writing, friend.

Obviously, yoga is a movement practice and thus, one could write a very practical book about the muscles, ligaments, and tendons, how to foam roll and massage to enhance yoga, how yoga has scientifically proven health benefits, etc.

Similarly for mindfulness, you look at Joseph Goldstein's book Insight Meditation, and it's mostly a combination of stories from his life as a Buddhist in Asia, alongside his learnings from Buddhist teachings. Nowhere does he claim it's scientific nor does he attempt to use pseudoscience. He stays in his lane and the book is a great one.

So, friend, I'd say don't besmirch two very ancient and healthy habits which have aided millions of people, especially when you give zero pieces of evidence while seemingly not actually knowing those fields.

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bumbyJul 2021

You can absolutely find people more qualified for book recommendations on the subject than me, but here are a few:

"Confession of a Buddhist Atheist" by Stephon Batchelor. Useful to me for understanding the cultural context of Buddhism.

Insight Meditation by Joseph Goldstein. I just find Goldstein's style the easiest to comprehend in a field that often comes across as frustratingly esoteric

Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I thought this book is interesting because it draws parallels to Western authors, particularly Thoreau.

Sam Harris's "Waking Up" app may also be worth a listen. Besides the actual mindfulness practice, there are a lot of discussions on theory and he has conversations with a variety of people that come to the topic from different perspectives.

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