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It’s getting a little ridiculous how many fantastic books are coming out soon, and it seems like every day I hear about 2-3 more.

I can barely keep up, and reading books is literally my full-time job!

That being said, in my latest YouTube video, I give a brief review of Dan Koe’s 2nd book (his follow-up to The Art of Focus, which was my favorite book last year out of exactly 100 books).

In that same video, I also pass along details of a book that I just heard is coming out in October, one that might be my most-anticipated book of the year!

You’ve probably heard of the author. He’s coming out with his 3rd book, and I am unbelievably excited about this one.

But then again, I do tend to get carried away when it comes to books!

Speaking of getting carried away…

I completely forgot to make my monthly donation of $1 for every Premium Member of The Reading Life to the literacy charity First Book ! As in…it totally slipped my mind.

So I donated $66 this month, bringing the total I’ve donated (because of you guys!) up to $409! So that’s pretty cool!

But hey, let’s get into tonight’s book breakdown!

Down below we join Ajahn Chah, Thailand’s best-known meditation teacher, where we’re talking mindfulness, finding our way out of suffering, and turning people into trees…

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This Book is For:

*People who want to learn how to let go, unburden themselves from the weight of the world, and finally stop taking life so seriously all the damn time.

*Anyone who is interested in Eastern philosophy, especially the practices of meditation, non-attachment, and non-striving - each of which can lead to a higher quality of life, filled with positive experiences and lasting peace.

*Intermediate and/or experienced meditators who want to deepen their practice by exposing themselves to the wisdom and perspective of one of the most relaxed, most good-natured, and most humorous teachers of modern times.

Summary:

Ajahn Chah is Thailand’s best-known meditation teacher, and I challenge you to look at this guy’s picture and not smile. It’s damn-near impossible.

Honestly, achieving enlightenment is probably easier than suppressing a smile when you look at any photo of Chah. And it’s not that he’s particularly funny-looking or anything! It’s because he positively radiates happiness, joy, and love of life.

People like Ram Dass and Jack Kornfield have been fans of Ajahn Chah’s for a long, long time, too, and I was introduced to him via my friend Jon Brooks. The dude has yet to steer me wrong with a book recommendation, and so it was no surprise that I ended up loving Food for the Heart as well. Five pages of excellent notes later, and here we are!

Food for the Heart combines many of Chah’s most powerful teachings on things like meditation, calming the mind, dealing with people, and eliminating the causes of suffering. All of these are classic Buddhist themes, of course.

What struck me, however - besides his intimate, often hilarious style, and his obvious joie de vivre - was that a lot of his ideas have found expression in some of the most important books in the Western canon as well.

I’m thinking here of Chah’s “three characteristics of existence,” (below) which one can just as easily imagine finding in the pages of Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. Both Aurelius and Chah - effortlessly grouped together in the same breath - claim that it’s impossible to go through life without experiencing any problems, so maybe we ought to expect them!

At the end of it all, Chah just says, “Hey look, guys” - I’m paraphrasing, of course - “I’ve been learning this stuff as I go along, same as you, and I haven’t found too many answers. Everything is uncertain; suffering exists and it’s coming for you eventually; nobody really knows what the hell is going on.

But there’s beauty and life and strength and love and awesomeness everywhere you look, and you’re going to miss it if you’re not right here, right now, living. So let’s dive in!”

That’s a message that resonated with me quite strongly, as I’ve come to appreciate that, in life, we find what we’re looking for. If we’re looking for evidence that people are unjust, cruel, bitter, and mean, we’re going to keep encountering people who are unjust, cruel, bitter, and mean. Buddha knows there’s no shortage of such people! And yet…

And yet, the opposite is also true. You have only to look for it.

Modern neuroscience has caught up with Chah’s ideas here in this book, and in the following Key Ideas, we’ll be exploring the three characteristics of existence, why the disordered mind can never lead itself out of confusion, and why you should turn people into trees, among other things.

The thing to keep in mind though, is that if thousands of years of lived experience and philosophical introspection, millions of dollars of research funding, and hundreds of thousands of hours of experimentation all converge on similar truths and beneficial practices for discovering the truth, overcoming suffering, and finding joy in life, they’re worth discovering for yourself.

READ THE FULL BOOK BREAKDOWN HERE

Key Ideas:

#1: Understand What Monkeys Are Like

I don’t want to give the impression with anything I say here that negative experiences and hardships can just be ignored until they go away. Or that horrible people don’t exist, that you can just “think positive” all the time, or that everything’s always going to come easy.

Part of what will arm you against adverse events and challenging people and situations, though, is simply being aware of their existence, their true nature.

Ajahn Chah learned not to offer suffering a seat in the house of his mind, but he knew what suffering was. He understood the nature of it. He understood how terrible life can make you feel sometimes, and how horribly some people will treat you - people you trusted, and maybe even people you loved.

What you can never do, however, is hide from reality, or pretend that things are anything other than they are. Chah’s humorous image of the monkeys is meant to get you to stop trying to change the people around you, and instead work to understand them.

That way, you’re not swimming against the current. You’re not trying to pave the ocean, or smooth the surface of the water with a flatiron. You harbor no illusions about the true nature of the people with whom you’ll come in contact - and you accept that that’s the way they are. You don’t have to like them, you don’t have to spend time with them, you don’t have to do anything! Just let monkeys be monkeys…and then go about your day.

#2: Trees Are Better Off Than We Are

It would be kind of ridiculous to go around saying things like, “That tree is too short!” or, “That tree is hollow!” We never judge trees for not growing or appearing according to our standards. Yet we do this to people all the time.

We say "He's not good enough," or, "She doesn't meet the requirements." But the trees are simply trees; like Ajahn Chah says, they’re better off than we are!

Never once have I criticized a tree or a cliff or a cloud for being misshapen or “defective” in some way. I mean, have you ever seen a cloud that wasn’t absolutely perfect just the way it is? Why do we assume that people are any different?

#3: Your Work is Right Here

In the final analysis, we can never, ever run away. At least not psychologically. Wherever you go, there you are, and the only way to become unstuck is to unburden yourself of what you’ve been carrying around all this time.

Literature and bodybuilding both back me up on this point. Stay with me here!

First, bodybuilding. Muscle growth is an adaptation to stress. Muscles don’t actually grow inside the weight room, but after you’ve broken down the muscle fibers in the gym, gone home, and recovered.

As you recover, your muscles grow bigger and stronger in an attempt to handle the greater load next time. And so if you want bigger muscles, you have to stress them out more than you ever have before. Progressive overload is the name for this principle, and it works.

More than that, though, you have to endure what Arnold Schwarzenegger called the “pain period,” or that part at the end of the set that really sucks. Where you almost literally can’t take it anymore, and want nothing else other than to put the weight down.

But if you do lower the weight, your muscles aren’t forced to adapt. They have no reason to grow bigger and stronger, because you’re “running away.” You have to go through the pain period if you want to grow.

In exactly the same way, Dante, in his visionary poem, The Divine Comedy, depicts the exit out of Hell as being located at the very center. Meaning, Dante and his guide, Virgil, have to travel through each level of Hell in order to reach the exit. They had to go through the “pain period” if they wanted to grow, too.

There are many more examples I could call upon to substantiate this further, but the essential point remains: your work is right here. You don’t get to bypass the pain period. You don’t get to avoid any of the levels. Not if you want to grow. So, your work is right here. And if you’re going through Hell? Keep going.

READ ALL THE KEY IDEAS HERE

Book Notes:

READ ALL THE BOOK NOTES HERE

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Action Steps:

#1: Identify the Causes of Suffering

If we know what causes suffering, then we can just…stop doing those things!

This is easier said than done, of course, but the answer to a lot of our problems is simply to stop doing those things that create those problems in the first place!

We know that when we lie, cheat, get angry, buy stuff we don’t need, etc., we’re going to suffer in the future. Those are among the many things we recognize as the causes of suffering, and yet we still do them!

As is the case with so much in the area of personal development, self-awareness is crucial. I doubt that most people dislike themselves so much that they knowingly go out and cause themselves pain. Either now or in the future.

This is mostly an unconsciousness process. But like Carl Jung said, the unconsciousness must be made conscious, or else it will rule your life and you will call it fate.

So identify what is causing the suffering in your life (naturally, this is more than a weekend activity!) and eliminate those things immediately.

Tell the truth, live within your means, treat other people with kindness, etc., and you will be cutting off suffering at the very source. And when you inevitably fall off the path? Get back on it!

#2: Turn People Into Trees

Above, we talked about how ridiculous it would be to be overly critical of trees that didn’t develop properly, due to lack of light, lack of water, etc. Yet, we criticize people like that all the time - people who have undergone specific sets of negative experiences that have led them to behave in suboptimal ways today. That, Chah says, is equally ridiculous.

So practice turning people into trees. Begin to see how maybe this person didn’t receive enough light (metaphorically speaking), or that one didn’t receive all the care and assistance they needed to develop properly into a personable, compassionate human being today.

That doesn’t mean you let them walk all over you; it just means that you offer some understanding and patience that perhaps they aren’t used to receiving.

#3: Allow Just One Thing Into Your Mind

Imagine that in the “house of your mind,” there is only one seat, room for only one emotion to “sit down.” Chah taught that if, in the seat of our mind, happiness, joy, patience, or compassion, etc. is already present, then when anger, jealousy, hatred, and all those other nasty emotions show up, they won’t have any place to sit down. Having no place to sit down, they will just leave!

READ ALL THE ACTION STEPS HERE

This Book on Amazon:

Food for the Heart, by Ajahn Chah

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OK, that’s it for now…

I’ve got plenty more excellent book recommendations coming your way soon though!

And if you want to learn how I’ve built an audience of 160,000+ followers across social media, became a full-time creator, and how I’m rapidly growing my audience and my profits in 2025, join us inside Creator Launch Academy and that’s exactly what I’ll teach you — we’d love to have you in the community!

With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your day!

Until next time…happy reading!

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

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