Review: Medicine Buddha/Medicine Mind by Charlene Diane Jones
*I received a copy of the book from the author in exchange for an honest review
As a person who has spent a lot of time reading about psychology and negative mindset problems and found it extremely helpful, I couldn’t pass when I was offered to read and review this book. It’s been years since I’ve read my first psychology book, written by the great Russian psychologist Vladimir Levi, and had my whole idea of me turned upside down. Since then, I’ve learned to recognize and got rid of many issues that poisoned my life; and I never stopped learning and wanted to dig deeper and deeper. Medicine Buddha/Medicine Mind: An Easy-to-Understand Exploration of the Healing Power of Your Mind does just that: it explains how our brains work with visualization, and how any process or action looks ‘from the inside’. For me, it’s extremely helpful to understand the logical explanation behind any process. That’s how I like my self-help books, practical and simple, telling me HOW it works instead of what I should do to change that. Because as I found out, once you understand something, it doesn’t have any power over you anymore. The problem just falls away, and you can see the world a little bit clearer. In the book, the author shares her story, her journey to enlightenment and a life without suffering. She tells us about neuroscience in an easy and comprehensive way, only the facts that we need to know to understand how visualization and meditation really work and why. The brief history of neuroscience in this book is fascinating and would be of interest to anyone who wants to know more about how the human body works. “The more you do or think or feel something, the easier it is to do, think or feel the same thing.” This alone explains perfectly why it’s so hard to let go of your usual thoughts, involuntary reactions to outer events, and build a healthier mindset. It’s just easier to think the same thoughts or feel the same way over and over again, but it doesn’t mean this is how it should be. No, we can and should reprogram our minds and hearts to help ourselves be happier every moment of our lives. While this book will be especially interesting for those who practice meditation, I think that a bigger audience will certainly find something helpful in it as well. I certainly did; and once again, I’m amazed by how the right information reaches me just when I need it, when I’ve been searching for something like this in many different self-help books. A big thanks and best of luck to the author, and I hope this book reaches everyone who needs to read it!
