THE PRACTICE OF NOT THINKING: A GUIDE TO MINDFUL LIVING

Author: Ryunosuke Koike

As the author concedes in the Afterword, not many people can put his advice into practice. Being deliberately mindful of what we are doing (speaking, listening, seeing, reading, writing, eating, discarding, touching, nurturing) to the point of monastic placidity (for example, observing the sensation of an itch instead of scratching it) requires years of training and patience. The last section of the book, a conversation between the author and neuroscientist Yuji Ikegaya, provides a particularly interesting exploration of the neuroscience of mediation and mindfulness.