Amazon Prime Free Trial
FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button and confirm your Prime free trial.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited FREE Prime delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
$12.62$12.62
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
$5.71$5.71
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: 2nd Life Aloha
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Follow the author
OK
The Mindfulness Survival Kit: Five Essential Practices Paperback – October 31, 2013
Purchase options and add-ons
The Five Mindfulness Trainings (also referred to as “Precepts”)—not to kill, steal, commit adultery, lie, or take intoxicants—are the basic statement of ethics and morality in Buddhism. Zen Master and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh argues eloquently for their applicability in our daily lives and on a global scale. Nhat Hanh discusses the value and meaning of each precept, offering insights into the role that it could play in our changing society.
Thich Nhat Hanh calls the trainings a “diet for a mindful society”. With this book, he offers a Buddhist contribution to the current thinking on how we can come together to define secular, moral guidelines that will allow us to explore and sustain a sane, compassionate, and healthy way of living. The Five Mindfulness Trainings offer a path to restoring meaning and value in our world—whether called virtues, ethics, moral conduct, or precepts they are guidelines for living without bringing harm to others.
- Print length160 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherParallax Press
- Publication dateOctober 31, 2013
- Dimensions4.47 x 0.54 x 6.5 inches
- ISBN-101937006344
- ISBN-13978-1937006341
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Editorial Reviews
Review
—Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
There is a deep malaise in society. When a young person goes out in the world without any help or protection, he absorbs violence, hatred, fear, and insecurity every day, and eventually he gets sick. Our conversations, TV programs, advertisements, newspapers, and magazines all water the seeds of suffering in young people, and in not-so-young people as well. We feel a kind of vacuum in ourselves, and we try to fill it by eating, reading, talking, smoking, drinking, watching TV, going to the movies, or even overworking. Taking refuge in these things only makes us feel hungrier and less satisfied, and we want to ingest even more. We need some guidelines, some preventive medicine, to protect ourselves, so we can become healthy again. We have to find a cure for our illness. We have to find something that is good, beautiful, and true in which we can take refuge.
When we drive a car, we are expected to observe certain rules so that we do not have an accident. Two thousand five hundred years ago, the Buddha offered certain guidelines to his lay students to help them live peaceful, wholesome, and happy lives. They were the Five Mindfulness Trainings, and at the foundation of each of these mindfulness trainings is mindfulness. With mindfulness, we are aware of what is going on in our bodies, our feelings, our minds, and the world, and we avoid doing harm to ourselves and others. Mindfulness protects us, our families, and our society, and ensures a safe and happy present and a safe and happy future.
In Buddhism, mindfulness trainings, concentration, and insight always go together. It is impossible to speak of one without the other two. This is called the Threefold Training: sila, the practice of the mindfulness trainings; samadhi, the practice of concentration; and prajna, the practice of insight. Mindfulness Trainings, concentration, and insight "inter-are." Practicing the mindfulness trainings brings about concentration; and concentration is needed for insight. Mindfulness is the ground for concentration; concentration allows us to look deeply; and insight is the fruit of looking deeply. When we are mindful, we can see that by refraining from doing "this," we prevent "that" from happening. This kind of insight is not imposed on us by an outside authority. It is the fruit of our own observation. Practicing the mindfulness trainings, therefore, helps us be more calm and concentrated and brings more insight and enlightenment, which makes our practice of the mindfulness trainings more solid. The three are intertwined; each helps the other two, and all three bring us closer to final liberation. They prevent us from falling back into illusion and suffering.
The Five Mindfulness Trainings are love itself. To love is to understand, protect, and bring well-being to the object of our love. The practice of the trainings accomplishes this. We protect ourselves and we protect each other.
EXCERPT FROM THE COMMENTARIES:
THE FIRST MINDFULNESS TRAINING
Reverence for Life
Life is precious. It is everywhere, inside us and all around us; it has so many forms.
The First Mindfulness Training is born from the awareness that lives everywhere are being destroyed. We see the suffering caused by the destruction of life, and we vow to cultivate compassion and use it as a source of energy for the protection of people, animals, plants, and minerals. The First Mindfulness Training is a training of compassion, karunathe ability to remove suffering and transform it. When we see suffering, compassion is born in us.
It is important for us to stay in touch with the suffering of the world. We need to nourish that awareness through many meanssounds, images, direct contact, visits, and so onin order to keep compassion alive in us. But we must be careful not to take in too much. Any remedy must be taken in the proper dosage. We need to stay in touch with suffering only to the extent that we will not forget, so that compassion will flow within us and be a source of energy for our actions. If we use anger at injustice as the source for our energy, we may do something harmful, something that we will later regret. According to Buddhism, compassion is the only source of energy that is useful and safe. With compassion, your energy is born from insight; it is not blind energy.
We humans are made entirely of nonhuman elements, such as plants, minerals, earth, clouds, and sunshine. For our practice to be deep and true, we must include the ecosystem. If the environment is destroyed, humans will be destroyed, too. Protecting human life is not possible without also protecting the lives of animals, plants, and minerals. The Diamond Sutra teaches us that it is impossible to distinguish between sentient and non-sentient beings. This is one of many ancient Buddhist texts that teach deep ecology. Every Buddhist practitioner should be a protector of the environment. Minerals have their own lives, too. In Buddhist monasteries, we chant, "Both sentient and non-sentient beings will realize full enlightenment." The First Mindfulness Training is the practice of protecting all lives, including the lives of minerals.
But not to kill is not enough. We must also learn ways to prevent others from killing. We cannot say, "I am not responsible. They did it. My hands are clean." If you were in Germany during the time of the Nazis, you could not say, "They did it. I did not." If, during the Gulf War, you did not say or do anything to try to stop the killing, you were not practicing this training. Even if what you said or did failed to stop the war, what is important is that you tried, using your insight and compassion.
It is not just by not killing with your body that you observe the First Mindfulness Training. If in your thinking you allow the killing to go on, you also break this training. We must be determined not to condone killing, even in our minds. According to the Buddha, the mind is the base of all actions. It is most dangerous to kill in the mind. When you believe, for example, that yours is the only way for humankind and that everyone who follows another way is your enemy, millions of people could be killed because of that idea.
To practice nonviolence, first of all we have to practice it within ourselves. In each of us, there is a certain amount of violence and a certain amount of nonviolence. Depending on our state of being, our response to things will be more or less nonviolent. Even if we take pride in being vegetarian, for example, we have to acknowledge that the water in which we boil our vegetables contains many tiny microorganisms. We cannot be completely nonviolent, but by being vegetarian, we are going in the direction of nonviolence. If we want to head north, we can use the North Star to guide us, but it is impossible to arrive at the North Star. Our effort is only to proceed in that direction.
Life is so precious, yet in our daily lives we are usually carried away by our forgetfulness, anger, and worries, or we're lost in the past, unable to touch life in the present moment. When we are truly alive, everything we do or touch is a miracle. To practice mindfulness is to return to life in the present moment. The practice of the First Mindfulness Training is a celebration of reverence for life. When we appreciate and honor the beauty of life, we will do everything in our power to protect all life.
Product details
- Publisher : Parallax Press; Revised edition (October 31, 2013)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 160 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1937006344
- ISBN-13 : 978-1937006341
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 4.47 x 0.54 x 6.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #343,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #265 in Buddhist Rituals & Practice (Books)
- #2,222 in Meditation (Books)
- #2,370 in Spiritual Self-Help (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022) was a Vietnamese Buddhist Zen Master, poet, and peace activist and one of the most revered and influential spiritual teachers in the world. Born in 1926, he became a Zen Buddhist monk at the age of sixteen. His work for peace and reconciliation during the war in Vietnam moved Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. In Vietnam, Thich Nhat Hanh founded Van Hanh Buddhist University and the School of Youth for Social Service, a corps of Buddhist peace workers. Exiled as a result of his work for peace, he continued his humanitarian efforts, rescuing boat people and helping to resettle refugees. In 1982 he established Plum Village France, the largest Buddhist monastery in Europe and the hub of the international Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism. Over seven decades of teaching, he published a hundred books, which have been translated into more than forty languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book's content helpful and inspiring. They find the mindfulness trainings and Buddhist ethical teachings explained in detail. The book is described as a wonderful, rewarding read with a lovely and easy-to-understand style.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book helpful and inspiring. They appreciate its focus on mindfulness trainings and Buddhist ethical principles. The book provides clear explanations of the three precepts, with concrete practices. Readers say it's a great way to look at mindfulness and includes suggestions for simple daily practices.
"...It doesn’t tell stories and focuses on the mindfulness trainings in great detail and other Buddhist ethical concepts in modern plain language and..." Read more
"Love this handy little book! Really clarifying some ideas for me and inspiring me" Read more
"An easily understood interpretation and application of the Five Mindfulness Trainings. Especially good for beginners in the practice." Read more
"...It is amazing how an apparently simple book can be so deep in many teachings and daily life practices...." Read more
Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They find it enlightening and inspiring, clarifying ideas and practices. Readers recommend reading from the Plum Village tradition and appreciate the metta prayer on page 75.
"Love this handy little book! Really clarifying some ideas for me and inspiring me" Read more
"Another gem from Thay. Love the metta prayer on page 75. So concise and includes suggestions for simple daily practices...." Read more
"...Recommend reading from the Plum Village tradition." Read more
"This is a very nice read up for the five essential practices. It's presented in a neat and tidy package, simple and unassuming...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's style. It is written in a straightforward manner and presented in a simple yet effective way.
"...It's presented in a neat and tidy package, simple and unassuming...." Read more
"In typical TNH style, written in a way that is easy to understand yet challenges the gray matter makes the reader ponder all the ramifications of..." Read more
"What can I say, it's Thich Nhat Hanh; always at his best, and simply lovely." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2019This is very different book than other books by Thich Nhat Hanh.
It doesn’t tell stories and focuses on the mindfulness trainings in great detail and other Buddhist ethical concepts in modern plain language and the connection to practical practices that help realize them.
If I had to take one book of Thich Nhat Hanh to deserted island this would be the one.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2023Love this handy little book! Really clarifying some ideas for me and inspiring me
- Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2024Changed me for the better.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2014An easily understood interpretation and application of the Five Mindfulness Trainings. Especially good for beginners in the practice.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2015Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh guides beautifully us through the five Buddhist precepts adapted to our current time in the form of the five mindfulness trainings. It is amazing how an apparently simple book can be so deep in many teachings and daily life practices.
The global ethics proposed in this book are wonderful and I believe that everyone interested should read it so that we can have a happier future together.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2015Another gem from Thay. Love the metta prayer on page 75. So concise and includes suggestions for simple daily practices. Very happy with Thay's new editor Rachel Neumann. As a student of Thay's for 7 years, and reading dozens of his books, I feel very grateful for the big wisdom in this little book.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2022Clear about what are the five mindfulness trainings, how to practice them and the expected results of their practice. Recommend reading from the Plum Village tradition.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2019I took the 5 mindfulness trainings and I have found this book to be very helpful.
Top reviews from other countries
- PeterReviewed in Canada on February 6, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Simple, Relatable Approach to Buddhism
Thick Nhat Hanh boils Zen Buddhism down into 5 straightforward practices and elaborates them. Very easy and approachable guide to the steps to take to build a Buddhist practice.
- DazmeisterReviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars BeAutifully written
Read this to understand that to apply thought and love to your actions and words each moment in each day has an impact on you and others.
Just to smile all day changes your feelings that run thru you.
This left me knowing that my greatest pleasure is to serve others with mindful words and actions.
Even those you feel have hurt you.
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 27, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended for simplicity
Bought this as a gift for partner - he loved it. Nice and simple explanations. I enjoyed dipping in to it too!
- JPReviewed in Canada on November 1, 2014
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good book
After going on retreat last year this book serves as a great reminder of the importance of the five mindfulness trainings. Thay weaves together the trainings and loops and a section on philosophical differences of different ethical systems
- Sandra RaeReviewed in Canada on June 27, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars Thich Nhat Hanh is always a 5
Thich Nhat Hanh is always a 5. He puts Buddhist philosophy and psycology into eveyday language accesible to anyone seeking.