15 Books on Mindfulness for Beginners

by Mia Hayes

Amazon Rating:   4.8/5 stars

“Practicing Mindfulness for Beginners” is a soothing guide designed to help you embark on a transformative journey towards inner peace and self-awareness. This book offers practical techniques to overcome overthinking and turn anxious thoughts into pathways for personal growth and relaxation. With methods that help you unwind and find tranquility, even during hectic days, it introduces beginner-friendly meditation practices that fit seamlessly into any routine.

This guide delves into the profound teachings of Buddhism through simple, everyday actions. These insights are presented in a relatable way, helping readers find calm and clarity in the present moment. The book emphasizes mindful living, with chapters dedicated to mindful eating, breathing exercises and techniques for navigating depression, all aimed at promoting self-confidence and emotional intelligence.

Additionally, “Practicing Mindfulness for Beginners” explores how to truly feel gratitude, moving beyond listing surface-level appreciations. It offers practices that help you deeply connect with and cherish the positive aspects of your life, cultivating a profound sense of thankfulness. Gentle strategies to improve patience and enhance sleep are seamlessly integrated throughout, providing readers with practical steps for enriching their lives and fostering a deeper sense of well-being.

Perfect for anyone seeking mindfulness and personal growth, “Practicing Mindfulness for Beginners” serves as a comforting companion, helping you find peace amidst the chaos of daily life.

by Manhardeep Singh Ahluwalia

Amazon Rating:   4.7/5 stars

Life throwing a curve ball? Embrace these 12 Laws of the Universe to handle life’s toughest situations.

The book is written with a to-the-point language and tone with the intent to reach the reader in a clear way.

12 Laws of the Universe will help you:

• Understand your impact on whole world

• Have awareness of how each one of us are connected

• How to attract your way to success

• Change what is not working for you

• Understand how to get from here to there

12 Laws of the Universe is an intriguing self-realization book. If you like self-improvement, therapeutic, life changing books, then you’ll love Manhardeep Singh’s indispensable book.

by Ram Dass

Amazon Rating:   4.7/5 stars

When Be Here Now was first published in 1971, it filled a deep spiritual emptiness, launched the ongoing mindfulness revolution, and established Ram Dass as perhaps the preeminent seeker of the twentieth century.

Just ten years earlier, he was known as Professor Richard Alpert. He held appointments in four departments at Harvard University. He published books, drove a Mercedes and regularly vacationed in the Caribbean. By most societal standards, he had achieved great success. . . . And yet he couldn’t escape the feeling that something was missing.

Psilocybin and LSD changed that. During a period of experimentation, Alpert peeled away each layer of his identity, disassociating from himself as a professor, a social cosmopolite, and lastly, as a physical being. Fear turned into exaltation upon the realization that at his truest, he was just his inner-self: a luminous being that he could trust indefinitely and love infinitely.

And thus, a spiritual journey commenced. Alpert headed to India where his guru renamed him Baba Ram Dass—“servant of God.” He was introduced to mindful breathing exercises, hatha yoga, and Eastern philosophy. If he found himself reminiscing or planning, he was reminded to “Be Here Now.” He started upon the path of enlightenment, and has been journeying along it ever since.

by NK Wild

Amazon Rating:   5/5 stars

Your mindfulness practice is the key to emotional resilience in a world filled with stress. Research shows that mindfulness enhances clarity, focus, and emotional balance, helping you navigate life’s challenges with ease and confidence.

Most people struggle with mindfulness because they don’t know where to start or how to sustain it. The Mindful Path is here to change that. This guide is designed to support you step by step, providing structure while giving you the freedom to create a mindfulness practice that feels authentic and personal to you.

With weekly themes to anchor your focus, daily blurbs to inspire you, and thoughtful prompts to help you explore your inner self, this journal transforms mindfulness into an engaging and transformative journey.

You’ve always wanted to start. Now is the time to build a rock-solid foundation for emotional resilience—all while having fun along the way.

by Natalie Morgon

Amazon Rating:   4.8/5 stars

Mindfulness is not just an abstract concept or a fad, but a wonderful tool to help you grow and flourish. You can use meditation, breathing exercises, and walking meditation to process through each day. Mindfulness for Beginners takes you as you are and guides you to that next step in your journey with positivity, solid research, and compassion.

Through the pages of this book, you’ll embark on a step-by-step journey to cultivate mindfulness and meditation practices that can be effortlessly integrated into your daily life. Discover the art of being fully present in each moment, immersing yourself in the richness of your surroundings and nurturing a deeper connection to yourself and the world around you.

With insightful teachings, practical exercises, and soothing guided meditations, “ Meditation and Mindfulness for Beginners ” equips you with the tools to navigate the complexities of modern life while maintaining a sense of inner calm and clarity. Explore various meditation techniques, from breath awareness and loving-kindness meditation to body scan and mindful movement, allowing you to find the approach that resonates best with your unique journey.

Whether you’re a beginner seeking to establish a meditation practice or an experienced practitioner looking to deepen your understanding, “ Meditation and Mindfulness for Beginners ” is a comprehensive guide that will inspire and empower you on your path towards inner harmony.

by Sharon Salzberg
Foreword by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Amazon Rating:   4.7/5 stars

Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and find a greater sense of connection with others. Our fear of intimacy—both with others and with ourselves—creates feelings of pain and longing, but those feelings can awaken in us the desire for freedom and the willingness to take up a spiritual path.

Longtime meditation practitioner and teacher Sharon Salzberg draws on Buddhist teachings, wisdom stories from various traditions, her own experiences, and guided meditation exercises to unearth the radiant heart within each one of us. Discover how the practice of lovingkindness illuminates a path to cultivating love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, helping us realize our own capacity for goodness and a new connection with all beings.

This book is part of the Shambhala Pocket Library series.  

The Shambhala Pocket Library is a collection of short, portable teachings from notable figures across religious traditions and classic texts. The covers in this series are rendered by Colorado artist Robert Spellman. The books in this collection distill the wisdom and heart of the work Shambhala Publications has published over 50 years into a compact format that is collectible, reader-friendly, and applicable to everyday life.

by John Yates, Matthew Immergut, and Jeremy Graves

Amazon Rating:   4.7/5 stars

The book that bestselling meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg raves “brings the path of meditation to life,” The Mind Illuminated is the first how-to meditation guide from a neuroscientist who is also an acclaimed meditation master.

This innovative book offers a 10-stage program that is both deeply grounded in ancient spiritual teachings about mindfulness and holistic health, and also draws from the latest brain science to provide a roadmap for anyone interested in achieving the benefits of mindfulness. Dr. John Yates offers a new and fascinating model of how the mind works, including steps to overcome mind wandering and dullness, extending your attention span while meditating, and subduing subtle distractions.

This groundbreaking manual provides illustrations and charts to help you work through each stage of the process, offering tools that work across all types of meditation practices. The Mind Illuminated is an essential read, whether you are a beginner wanting to establish your practice or a seasoned veteran ready to master the deepest state of peace and mindfulness.

by Catherine Duncan

Amazon Rating:   4.9/5 stars

In a fast-paced, turbulent world, it’s often hard to feel vibrantly alive. Constantly living from our minds has led to overwhelming feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression—often manifesting as chronic health conditions. We’re yearning for more peace, love, meaning, and embodied aliveness. We’re yearning for awakening.

Awakening is often portrayed as mysterious, complicated, and dramatic or something that requires traveling to a distant country and sitting at the feet of an enlightened guru. But it’s actually something we can choose to do, by engaging five simple and profound practices:

Coming back to the present moment
Connecting with something greater
Growing our trust
Embodying love
Holding openness

Everyday Awakening integrates the best of spirituality, neuroscience, psychology, and therapy so you can change how you embrace every day, every moment, and every choice.

Drawing from decades of her personal and professional experience in healthcare, spiritual care, and complementary healing, Catherine Duncan offers a wealth of options—including breathwork, meditations, grounding rituals, and other exercises—for bringing each of the five practices into your daily life. You will begin to move from stress to presence, from your mind into your heart and soul.

by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Amazon Rating:  4.6 /5 stars

When Wherever You Go, There You Are was first published in 1994, no one could have predicted that the book would launch itself onto bestseller lists nationwide and sell over 1 million copies to date. Thirty years later, Wherever You Go, There You Are remains a foundational guide to mindfulness and meditation, introducing readers to the practice and guiding them through the process.

The author of over half a dozen books on mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn combines his research and medical background with his spiritual knowledge to help readers find peace and change their lives.

In this new edition, readers will find a new introduction and afterword from Kabat-Zinn, as well as factual updates throughout to address changes in research and knowledge since it was originally published.

After the special tumult of the last few years, as well as the promise of more unrest in the future, Wherever You Go, There You Are serves as an anchor for a whole new generation of readers looking to find their center and achieve their true self.

by Bhante Gunaratana

Amazon Rating:   4.6/5 stars

Author Bhante Gunaratana, a renowned meditation master, takes us step by step through the myths, realities, and benefits of meditation and the practice of mindfulness. The book showcases Bhante’s trademark clarity and wit as he explores the tool of meditation, what it does, and how to make it work.

The reader can gain deeper understanding, inner peace, and clarity through meditation practice with the thoughtful guidance of this classic book. Written for those without any meditation background, but also an essential handbook for established students, Mindfulness in Plain English is a must-have for anyone exploring the benefits of Buddhist meditation.

This expanded edition includes the complete text of its predecessor along with a new chapter on cultivating loving kindness, an especially important topic in today’s world. For anyone who is new to meditation, this is a great resource for learning how to live a more productive and peaceful life.

by Khel Kalyan

Amazon Rating:   4.8/5 stars

A stifling sense of discontent has descended on society as more and more people realise that life as we know it is absurd. Fed up with looking for meaning in pleasure, and realising that much of religion is just as sterile as consumerism, an increasing number of individuals are searching for an alternative they can’t quite define.

Khel Kalyan offers a credible new direction for the rootless, lost, and disconnected to follow. Quickly doing away with obsolete notions surrounding God, ethics, spirituality, and the mysterious business called Enlightenment, he proceeds to illustrate what he calls the “pathless path”. By doing so, he outlines a roadmap to spiritual growth that relies not on blind faith or abrupt changes to your lifestyle, but instead entails a complete transformation of all that you are.

If you know in your gut that there’s something more to life but couldn’t ever put a finger on it, this book is meant for you. You will come to understand that what you’re searching for is not “out there” somewhere: instead, it lies within you, waiting to be revealed.

by Cory Allen
Foreword by Aubrey Marcus

Amazon Rating:   4.7/5 stars

Through his popular podcast The Astral Hustle and online meditation course Release into Now, Cory Allen has helped thousands of people better cope with the stress of daily life through meditation, mindfulness, and mental clarity.

With concise advice and profound simplicity, he manages to cut through the jargon and speak to people where they are, giving them the tools to live in “the wow of now.”

In this accessible and supportive guide, Allen walks readers through the basics of mindfulness–not as something you should do, but as a tool to achieve greater peace of mind, dial down anxiety and stress, and truly feel like yourself. Informed by a lifelong personal journey, as well as insights gathered through podcast interviews with leaders in mindfulness, neuroscience, and philosophy, Now Is the Way is a simple user’s manual for living the life you want, one present moment at a time.

by Pedram Shojai

Amazon Rating:   4.5/5 stars

We’re all struggling to find time in our lives, but somehow there’s never enough to go around. We’re too tired to think, too wired to focus, less efficient than we want to be, and guilty about not getting enough time with our loved ones.

We all know that we feel starved for time, but what are we actually doing about it? Precious little. In The Art of Stopping Time, New York Times bestselling author Pedram Shojai guides us towards success with what he calls Time Prosperity—having the time to accomplish what you want in life without feeling compressed, stressed, overburdened, or hurried.

So how do we achieve this Time Prosperity? We learn to Stop Time. To do that, Shojai walks us though a 100-day Gong, which is based on the Chinese practice of designating an amount of time each day to perform a specific task. The ritual helps you become mindful, train your mind, instill new habits, and fundamentally transform your relationship with time. We can find moments of mental awareness while in the shower, eating a snack, listening to podcasts, and even while binge-watching our favorite TV shows.

He shares how to use Gongs to reprogram your habits, reduce stress, increase energy, exercise the ancient practice of mindfulness, and become a master of your time. Whether you do one per day, a bunch at a time, or read the whole book in one sitting, practicing the Gongs is a dedicated act of self-love that snaps us out of our daily trance and brings the light of awareness to our consciousness. The more we practice, the more we wake up, and the better off we are.

by Thich Nhat Hanh
Illustrated by Vo-Dihn Mai

Amazon Rating:   4.6/5 stars

In this beautiful and lucid guide, Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh offers gentle anecdotes and practical exercise as a means of learning the skills of mindfulness–being awake and fully aware. From washing the dishes to answering the phone to peeling an orange, he reminds us that each moment holds within it an opportunity to work toward greater self-understanding and peacefulness.

by Sharon Salzberg

Amazon Rating:   4.7/5 stars

From Sharon Salzberg, a pioneer in the field of meditation and world-renowned teacher acclaimed for her down-to-earth style, Real Happiness is a complete guide to starting and maintaining a meditation practice. Beginning with the simplest breathing and sitting techniques, and based on three key skills—concentration, mindfulness, and lovingkindness—it’s a practice anyone can do and that can transform our lives by bringing us greater resiliency, creativity, peace, clarity, and balance.

This updated 10th anniversary edition includes exercises, journal prompts, and ten guided meditations available for download online and through scannable QR codes.