I find this an excellent book by the late ex-neuroscientist and meditation adept, that illustrates how the mind works and distils the core of Buddhist meditation into easy to follow steps - the medtiation practice, as always, is the challenge to progress.
I have some The Mind Illuminated guided meditation audio files created by a meditation teacher if anyone is interested.
Has anyone used the book?
I have the book and have read most of it. It’s the best meditation guide I’ve ever read.
That said the end of Culadassas life and the struggles he went through jaded me a bit. IT showed me that someone can be the “best” At mediation and still kinda a crappy person. Stated another way - mediation doesn’t make you a good person and even someone who’s “enlightened” can do really bad stuff and hurt others.
Yes it seems a lot of spiritual teachers go off the path a bit later on.
I have that book. I have read until stage 3 or so. I am honestly not very keen on it…
I was expecting something else. Somewhere in the book (front or back, i can’t remember), it says that it is a “science based” or makes reference to “brain science” or something. As far as I have seen, there is no science in that book. If there is, it is very little and very old. The book will certainly not appeal to those coming from a scientific background. Not for its science at least.
Having said that, it is a good meditation guide and it should be refered as such. A guide. No need to pull the “science” theme.
I would love to have access to your audio files… Can you share?
I have read the whole book and have meditated accordingly for a year or so. I agree that it’s not that science based. But I still found it super cool that it is a very analytical or ‘scientific’ approach in that it is very algorithmic and clear what you do when. There are some parts that are a bit unclear, but all in all I really enjoyed the “if you are there, do that” kind of approach.
Do you have any other book recommendations that are more science based?
