You can go unbelievably far with the book The Mind Illuminated, that was my primary ressource and generally considered the best way to start, the book describes a 10-stage journey from complete noob to meditative virtuosity, with detailed instructions about the pitfalls and goals of each stage. For any questions you might have the subreddit r/themindilluminated is very active and you can quickly get answers if you post there. The subreddit r/streamentry is also a place for “serious meditators”, in the sense of people who don’t just meditate for stress relief, like people on r/meditation might do, you’ll also likely get your questions answered if you post there, there are some very good meditation teachers who frequent that subreddit, but there’s also lots of very dogmatic people with less-than-stellar epistemic habits. Though that goes with the terrain here, It took me a while to stop being annoyed every time I heard a pali word like “dharma”, that’s just kind of the style of the hardcore meditation subculture, and it’s the price to pay for getting information that would otherwise be restricted to buddhist temples.
There is a “pragmatic dharma” movement consisting of people who mostly care about how to actually achieve results in the real world, largely without imposing unnecessary beliefs. In this vein, check out:
Daniel Ingram and his book Mastering The Core Teachings Of The Buddha, which Slatestarcodex reviewed here. This is the book to read for warnings about what negative effects can arise in meditation, though keep in mind that Daniel describes extremes more than modal effects, and he has a very irreverent style. You can also literally email him with any questions, and he’ll respond, Daniel also goes on lots of podcasts as a guest, which you can find on Youtube.
Shinzen Young has lots of videos on youtube which are helpful, he tries to be scientific, though I think he only partly succeeds. He has a book called “The Science of Enlightenment”, but the title is misleading, and it’s mostly useless for beginners and contains no practical instructions.
Kenneth Folk has a book-in-progress called Contemplative Fitness, which is very good and ties together a bunch of concepts you might have to kind of pick up through osmosis otherwise.
Michael Taft has a very good podcast called Deconstructing Yourself and lots of guided hour-long meditations on Youtube that are very good at introducing new techniques to you.
For specifics about those on-demand states of high pleasure and happiness that I mentioned, Leigh Brasington’s book “Right Concentration” is very lucid.
Sam Harris’ app Waking Up is ok, though be very wary of depending too much on guided meditations. They tend to give you a sense that you’re better than you really are
There is of course a large literature on meditation with a more religious style that is still very useful, and you’ll find plenty of references to many of these books in all of the above. Again, I highly recommend you start with The Mind Illuminated and only check out those other ones if you feel like you want to learn more.
There is also one unfortunate reality: 15 minutes a day won’t cut it. At the beginning 30 minutes a day is a good place to start, and you will see week-to-week improvements with that amount, but eventually you really do need at least 45min or 1h/day in order to see reasonable improvements in the first year. More time spent meditating makes you progress faster, and I settled at a 2h/day comfortable pace. Occasional retreats are also very useful.
I sincerely wish you luck on your journey, it almost certainly won’t be easy, but it is worth it.
You can go unbelievably far with the book The Mind Illuminated, that was my primary ressource and generally considered the best way to start, the book describes a 10-stage journey from complete noob to meditative virtuosity, with detailed instructions about the pitfalls and goals of each stage.
I also like The Mind Illuminated, but would like to add the caveat that I suspect its higher stages (6 and up) to be potentially psychologically risky; see the discussion under the “If introspective awareness is so great...” subheading of this post.
Note, though, that Culadasa John Yates is not uncontroversial.
Yeah, the worst thing about the book is the controversy about the author towards the end of his life, there’s some fraction of people who only want to learn meditation from a seemingly perfect being, and any perceived moral flaw in the author is enough to throw out the whole book, even if the book is merely a very good restatement of very old techniques.
For those who don’t know, Culadasa had an affair and divorce towards the end of his life, as he was dying of cancer, the board of his foundation then voted to remove him from his position as director, then the board quit themselves. Culadasa lost his house, his money, and a large portion of his close students. When these events happened, I was very curious to see how he would respond, what would an expert meditator be like when dying of brain cancer, in immense pain everyday, losing his marriage and disgraced from his esteemed position? So I subscribed to him on patreon, where he was getting a small amount of money for doing a weekly video Q&A with the few patrons that remained, and watched him every week for 2 hours. At no point did he give any sign that he was in any way unhappy (though he certainly seemed to acknowledge that he had made mistakes), he was very tired from chemotherapy, but he never got angry, resentful, or even sad. To the very end he diligently responded to student questions, and seemed to only care about teaching meditation.
I saw an interview with him about the the whole thing. It didn’t stop me from reading the book—and shouldn’t—it provides context.
I am impressed that you followed up on Patreon and thank you for the summary.
You can go unbelievably far with the book The Mind Illuminated, that was my primary ressource and generally considered the best way to start, the book describes a 10-stage journey from complete noob to meditative virtuosity, with detailed instructions about the pitfalls and goals of each stage. For any questions you might have the subreddit r/themindilluminated is very active and you can quickly get answers if you post there. The subreddit r/streamentry is also a place for “serious meditators”, in the sense of people who don’t just meditate for stress relief, like people on r/meditation might do, you’ll also likely get your questions answered if you post there, there are some very good meditation teachers who frequent that subreddit, but there’s also lots of very dogmatic people with less-than-stellar epistemic habits. Though that goes with the terrain here, It took me a while to stop being annoyed every time I heard a pali word like “dharma”, that’s just kind of the style of the hardcore meditation subculture, and it’s the price to pay for getting information that would otherwise be restricted to buddhist temples.
There is a “pragmatic dharma” movement consisting of people who mostly care about how to actually achieve results in the real world, largely without imposing unnecessary beliefs. In this vein, check out:
Daniel Ingram and his book Mastering The Core Teachings Of The Buddha, which Slatestarcodex reviewed here. This is the book to read for warnings about what negative effects can arise in meditation, though keep in mind that Daniel describes extremes more than modal effects, and he has a very irreverent style. You can also literally email him with any questions, and he’ll respond, Daniel also goes on lots of podcasts as a guest, which you can find on Youtube.
Shinzen Young has lots of videos on youtube which are helpful, he tries to be scientific, though I think he only partly succeeds. He has a book called “The Science of Enlightenment”, but the title is misleading, and it’s mostly useless for beginners and contains no practical instructions.
Kenneth Folk has a book-in-progress called Contemplative Fitness, which is very good and ties together a bunch of concepts you might have to kind of pick up through osmosis otherwise.
Michael Taft has a very good podcast called Deconstructing Yourself and lots of guided hour-long meditations on Youtube that are very good at introducing new techniques to you.
For specifics about those on-demand states of high pleasure and happiness that I mentioned, Leigh Brasington’s book “Right Concentration” is very lucid.
Sam Harris’ app Waking Up is ok, though be very wary of depending too much on guided meditations. They tend to give you a sense that you’re better than you really are
There is of course a large literature on meditation with a more religious style that is still very useful, and you’ll find plenty of references to many of these books in all of the above. Again, I highly recommend you start with The Mind Illuminated and only check out those other ones if you feel like you want to learn more.
There is also one unfortunate reality: 15 minutes a day won’t cut it. At the beginning 30 minutes a day is a good place to start, and you will see week-to-week improvements with that amount, but eventually you really do need at least 45min or 1h/day in order to see reasonable improvements in the first year. More time spent meditating makes you progress faster, and I settled at a 2h/day comfortable pace. Occasional retreats are also very useful.
I sincerely wish you luck on your journey, it almost certainly won’t be easy, but it is worth it.
I also like The Mind Illuminated, but would like to add the caveat that I suspect its higher stages (6 and up) to be potentially psychologically risky; see the discussion under the “If introspective awareness is so great...” subheading of this post.
The Mind Illuminated is referred to quite a few times on LW. Note, though, that Culadasa John Yates is not uncontroversial.
Yeah, the worst thing about the book is the controversy about the author towards the end of his life, there’s some fraction of people who only want to learn meditation from a seemingly perfect being, and any perceived moral flaw in the author is enough to throw out the whole book, even if the book is merely a very good restatement of very old techniques.
For those who don’t know, Culadasa had an affair and divorce towards the end of his life, as he was dying of cancer, the board of his foundation then voted to remove him from his position as director, then the board quit themselves. Culadasa lost his house, his money, and a large portion of his close students. When these events happened, I was very curious to see how he would respond, what would an expert meditator be like when dying of brain cancer, in immense pain everyday, losing his marriage and disgraced from his esteemed position? So I subscribed to him on patreon, where he was getting a small amount of money for doing a weekly video Q&A with the few patrons that remained, and watched him every week for 2 hours. At no point did he give any sign that he was in any way unhappy (though he certainly seemed to acknowledge that he had made mistakes), he was very tired from chemotherapy, but he never got angry, resentful, or even sad. To the very end he diligently responded to student questions, and seemed to only care about teaching meditation.
I saw an interview with him about the the whole thing. It didn’t stop me from reading the book—and shouldn’t—it provides context. I am impressed that you followed up on Patreon and thank you for the summary.
Daniel Ingram got also interviewed on the clearerthinking Podcast (reccomended if you have only heard about the mindfullness stuff like I had).