Resources: Books to enlighten

My search for stillness didn't just leap out of my brain one day, fully formed. It has been a slow process of growth, after absorbing many ideas from different sources. I'd like to share with you some of the books which have given me inspiration. Perhaps it'll help you too grow a fertile garden of zen!

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking I love this book with a devoted passion I usually reserve for chocolate. After having spent a entire life trying to 'look on the bright side', having someone turn around and point out that this mostly just leaves us feeling like failures was like a bolt of lightning! He notes that life is rarely blissfully happy, and he provides tools to come to terms with the messy muddy and often uncomfortable disappointments in life.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience The book which started it all. This is not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination. However it explains that moment when life just comes together perfectly and you are feeling at the top of your game, able to do anything, be anything. The author has also quantified how we can enter this "Flow" state. I'll be looking at this in more detail in coming months. Who doesn't want a recipe for happiness and perfection?!

The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living The modern embodiment of gentility and calm: the Dalai Lama. His book is written with wry insights into our modern life and offers some practical advice on separating ourselves from our stressors. Fortunately he doesn't expect us all to renounce our possessions and become a monk in order to gain contented stillness. Some of the narration from the psychiatrist co-author gets in the way, but mostly it serves to provide a Western view of an Eastern approach.

There are a couple of other topics I'd like to add, but I can't declare any one book as being definitive.

1) Mindfulness: the art of being so involved in the current moment that it takes on a clarity and purpose that is fundamental. Simple. Joyful. One of the precursors to the Flow experience I mention above.

2) Zen Buddhism: the Eastern philosophies have spoken of ways to achieve happiness for aeons. But not necessarily in ways that Westerners can understand much less enact. On my to-read list in this category, I am keen to read Life Between the Tigers: Zen Wisdom in Everyday English.

3) Modern faux-psychology self-help books. I'm declaring it a category, and I'm not linking to it because there has just been SO MANY trees killed to produce books purporting to solve your problems instantly. They clearly don't work otherwise there would be no need for the endless production of such books! However, I'm linking How to Be Happy, Dammit: A Cynic's Guide to Spiritual Happiness here because it sounds awesome and funny and no-nonsense; more in the vein of "The Antidote". Indeed, I'm quite keen to read quite a lot of the author's work.

What other books would you pile onto my to-read list? Have you read any of the books I've listed? What did you think? Tell me all! I love books!

(Disclosure: links are all bookdepository affiliate links, because free shipping rocks.)