The Practice of Not Thinking cover art

The Practice of Not Thinking

A Guide to Mindful Living

 Preview

Get 30 days of Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30-day free trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options
Buy Now for £7.99

Buy Now for £7.99

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

What if we could learn to look instead of see, listen instead of hear, feel instead of touch? Former monk and bestselling author Ryunosuke Koike shows how, by incorporating simple Zen practices into our daily lives, we can reconnect with our five senses and live in a more peaceful, positive way.

When we focus on our senses and learn to re-train our brains and our bodies, we start to eliminate the distracting noise of our minds and the negative thoughts that create anxiety. By following Ryunosuke Koike's practical steps on how to breathe, listen, speak, laugh, love and even sleep in a new way, we can improve our interactions with others, feel less stressed at work and make every day calmer. Only by thinking less, can we appreciate more.

© Ryunosuke Koike 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

 Buddhism Spirituality Meditation

Critic reviews

Practical and life-changing ways to get out of our heads and back into really living (Susannah Taylor)
Offers a variety of Buddhist techniques to help us feel calmer every day . . . Nothing has changed . . . and everything has changed . . . I feel calmer and more centred (Rose Costello)
All stars
Most relevant
I got a lot from this book. I don’t usually leave reviews, but I was a bit taken aback by some of the other comments for this very helpful book.

I noticed one remark about the narrator’s voice that I found a little harsh. Personally, I didn’t pay much attention to the voice at all—it’s clearly a Japanese voice, which makes sense given the author. Ryūnosuke Koike is a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest and writer, and the book was originally published in Japanese before being translated into English. I imagine the narrator is someone familiar with both Japanese and English, which feels appropriate for reading this text—perhaps even a student of the author.

I also came across a comment suggesting that this Zen Buddhist priest doesn’t understand Buddhism. I won’t engage further on that, but as a Buddhist practitioner myself, I didn’t find any reason to think the author misunderstood the teachings.

Overall, I found it a very helpful and practical book. It is instructive, and for anyone who is determined to live from the heart, with discipline and mindfulness, I think it could be a valuable resource.

very helpful book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book seems to be a long list of puritanical pronouncements and commandments on correct thoughts and correct behaviour. It’s the opposite of what one might expect based on the title and description.

Old fashioned and didactic commandments

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The author of this book appears to conflate mindfulness and awareness with avoidance, advocating taking steps such as avoiding blogging to avoid experiencing disturbing emotion and to avoid commenting on things that do not please us. This cannot be right action. The world, outside and in exists whether we withdraw from it or not. In avoidance, our opportunities for growth and to grow together diminish.
Buddhism teaches a continuous process of self inquiry and experience and yet this author is prescriptive and presumptive, offering simplistic conclusions and explanations for complex phenomena. It is disappointing that a lifetime of meditation should have yielded this result.

Buddhism is not avoidance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The content of this book is completely ruined by the irritating voice if the narrator. She appears to be emulating a five year old and seems at great pains not to pronounce her t’s at the beginning of words - is this actually mistakenly encouraged in audio narration? She pronounces them fine if they appear in the middle of a word so if it is on purpose she has failed. Whether on purpose or not it is extremely annoying and very distracting from the actual content, and she does her best to dumb down the message of the book with her babyish voice. I persevered with it as the book was recommended to me and I didn’t have time to sit down with the book. The content is useful but a lot of it was lost on me due to the irritation I experienced. On balance I don’t think it was worth the challenge, But with a different narrator it would be a nice book. Thankfully it wasn’t a very long book.

Excruciating narration.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Nothing about what the title says. Endless advice about how to write posts on social media. Nothing about how to learn how to not think. Weird and boring.

Very disappointing - title was misleading

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.