BOOKS
Piero Falci is an author and educator who believes that the inner work that leads to personal awakening and transformation is indispensable to create a better world for all. He is an explorer of the mysteries of life who loves to observe, reflect, and write, and who not only aspires to live a life that matters, but also hopes to inspire others to do the same. He is devoted to helping individuals have insights that may expand selflessness and compassion and lead to the growth of kindness and care for all sentient beings and the natural environment. He is a promoter of peace who believes in advancing the idea that Heaven is here if we want it to be.
www.PieroFalci.com pierofalci@gmail.com
MINDFULNESS FOR A BETTER MIND, LIFE, AND WORLD
Mindfulness for a Better Mind, Life, and World is a 3-book series that compiles three hundred and sixty-five essays about mindfulness and how its practice has the potential to improve our lives and the world in which we live. The three books in the series are:
Book One – A Better Mind: Can Mindfulness Make Us Wiser?
Book Two – A Better Life: Can Mindfulness Make Us Happier?
Book Three – A Better World: Can Mindfulness Save Us From Ourselves?
This 3-book series contains answers to questions such as, “What is mindfulness? How do I overcome the difficulties of the practice? Can mindfulness bring about happiness?”And considering the current state of affairs in our world, it invites us to ponder: “Can mindfulness reduce humanity’s savageness and insanity and bring us to our senses? Can mindfulness inspire us to change our violent ways and stop the destruction of our natural environment? Can mindfulness save us from ourselves?”
These books are for all who aspire to live more mindfully and bring more sanity, equality, and peace to our world. It is of the utmost importance that we pause and engage in deep thinking to clarify what kind of world we want to live in and how to bring it about. Many vital discussions need to take place as soon as possible, and I am convinced that mindfulness can help us immensely in this mighty endeavor.
Feel free to read the short articles in this series in any order that feels right to you. And since these three books assemble exactly three hundred and sixty-five essays and poems, I encourage you to create your own Year of Mindfulness by reading and pondering on one essay or poem a day throughout the course of one year.
I hope that reading the three books in this series will inspire you to practice mindfulness, live more mindfully, and be a force for good in our world. May you have many mindful moments every day of your life.
Mindfulness is a word that means different things to different people. I begin the first volume of this series explaining the distinction I make between mindfulness meditation and mindful living. If we equate mindfulness to a sport, then mindfulness meditation is the practice and mindful living is the game. As anyone who plays or follows sports knows, practice is important, but what we do in practice is of less consequence than our performance during the games: that’s what really matters.
Similarly, it’s important to prepare ourselves to live more mindfully, and this is what the practice of mindfulness meditation does. But we have to keep in mind that the practice is not an end in itself: our ultimate goal is not to become excellent meditators, but to become better human beings who bless the world with our presence.
In this first book of the series I explain what mindfulness meditation is, and introduce a series of mindfulness exercises.
I put in plain words how our minds work, and how the expanded awareness and insights that come from the practice make us better able to answer life’s challenges more wisely, and, in doing so, not only improve the quality of our lives, but also create a better world for us all.
I hope that reading the three books in this series will inspire you to practice mindfulness, live more mindfully, and be a force for good in our world. May you have many mindful moments every day of your life.
I begin the second volume of this series explaining that happiness does not have to come by as an accident in our lives: we can create our own happiness by living more mindfully and by incorporating certain behaviors and attitudes in our daily lives. If we are always waiting for the next thing to be happy, then we will never be truly happy. We can train ourselves to increase the enjoyment of our journeys by practicing N.A.S.A.—an acronym that reminds us to intentionally Notice, Appreciate, Savor, and Absorb the good things in life.
I also recommend reflecting often on the advice for good living that stems from these nine words that begin with the letter L:
1 – Look deeply.
2 – Listen attentively.
3 – Learn unceasingly.
4 – Lead compassionately.
5 – Laugh profusely.
6 – Love wastefully.
7 – Live fully.
8 – Let go of everything.
9 – Leave an
honorable legacy.
I exhort each one of us to discover their purpose in life and follow their bliss, accepting their Call to Adventure and living out their Hero’s Journey. I offer advice on how mindfulness meditation and mindful living can improve our physical, mental, and emotional health, and explain how the understanding of the stages of faith development can free ourselves from the limitations imposed by organized religions and allow us to enjoy richer and more fulfilling spiritual journeys.
Finally, I invite us to reflect on our impending physical death and understand how the deep and omnipresent awareness of the impermanence of all beings and things improves the quality of our lives.
I hope that reading the three books in this series will inspire you to practice mindfulness, live more mindfully, and be a force for good in our world. May you have many mindful moments every day of your life.
I begin the third volume of this series with an invitation to imagine ourselves looking at Planet Earth from above, as if we were astronauts. As all the people who have been in outer space have realized, we are here, all of us, sharing this one fragile and beautiful planet, and for that reason it is imperative that we put an end to all senseless fighting and work together to preserve the Earth, our only home.
Since we are all interrelated, I argue that the practice of mindfulness is not selfish. As our practice transforms us into kinder individuals, it ends up benefiting others. And it is also clear that our concern, care, and action to promote the welfare of others benefit all of us.
Mindfulness meditation and mindful living can be that missing element that will bring us to our senses and put us on the path of promoting the well-being of everyone on this planet.
In this volume we explore how mindfulness meditation and mindful living can contribute to save us from self-destruction.
It invites us to look deeply and realize the insane ways we have been conducting ourselves, and calls upon us to expand our thinking, see new possibilities, and roll up our sleeves and take on the work of reorganizing how we have been living on this planet, so we stop harming one another and the Earth.
It emphasizes, among other things, the importance of skillful parenting and it exhorts all of us to learn how to communicate, solve conflicts, and confront injustices using nonviolent means.
Finally, it invites us to ponder on the idea that Heaven is here, if we want it to be.
I hope that reading the three books in this series will inspire you to practice mindfulness, live more mindfully, and be a force for good in our world. May you have many mindful moments every day of your life.
A Better Life in a Better World
