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Rating: 
Summary: When you get past 'just sitting'
Review: Take the subtitle very seriously: "From Mindfulness to Insight Contemplation " Each meditation tradition has its recommended methods for relaxation (which takes a few months to do well), then you develope concentration (a year or so), then 'mindfulness' (also called 'prajna', several years). Frankly, only committed meditators get this far, but if you do, this is the good stuff, "Insight". This book is a wonderful technical manual on the zen/ Ch'an/ Dzogchen approach to Insight meditation via "emptiness" ('sunyatta'). These are abstract concepts, but this book explains the methods clearly and even logically, where other books I have seen just fall apart in the attempt. No mysticism here. Any zen practicer will be happy to have this book. May I eat my cushion if I have misled you.
Rating:
Summary: When you get past 'just sitting'
Review: Take the subtitle very seriously: "From Mindfulness to Insight Contemplation " Each meditation tradition has its recommended methods for relaxation (which takes a few months to do well), then you develope concentration (a year or so), then 'mindfulness' (also called 'prajna', several years). Frankly, only committed meditators get this far, but if you do, this is the good stuff, "Insight". This book is a wonderful technical manual on the zen/ Ch'an/ Dzogchen approach to Insight meditation via "emptiness" ('sunyatta'). These are abstract concepts, but this book explains the methods clearly and even logically, where other books I have seen just fall apart in the attempt. No mysticism here. Any zen practicer will be happy to have this book. May I eat my cushion if I have misled you.
Rating:
Summary: This book explains meditation perfectly--in one chapter.
Review: This is a wonderful brief introduction to Buddhist thought, but what makes it stand out is the first chapter. If you meditate, and wonder if you are "doing it right," in a few pages you will have a good understanding of what meditation is about--and it's reassuring. Don't try to empty the mind, don't get discouraged at all those random thoughts. Just observe and be aware. This book is encouraging and warm and profound.
Rating:
Summary: This book explains meditation perfectly--in one chapter.
Review: This is a wonderful brief introduction to Buddhist thought, but what makes it stand out is the first chapter. If you meditate, and wonder if you are "doing it right," in a few pages you will have a good understanding of what meditation is about--and it's reassuring. Don't try to empty the mind, don't get discouraged at all those random thoughts. Just observe and be aware. This book is encouraging and warm and profound.
Rating: 
Summary: Best of the 4 I've read
Review: This is far and away the best of his 4 books I've read (Thundering Silence, Creating True Peace, and Anger). As a student of Dzogchen, I see tons of parallels with the author's Zen approach. Even better, as a scientist, I greatly enjoyed his use of modern scientific views as parallels to Buddhist thought and theory. Of course, both Mindfulness and Insight Meditation are used in virtually all types of Buddhism including Theravada (Southeast Asian or Southern Buddhism) and Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism--a type of Northern or "Mahayana"). There are many currently available Tibetan books on these two which have far more details and more pithy descriptions IMHO. Even Dzogchen and Mahamudra books describe them and promote their continued usage. Still, this is a good book with some different information (less duplication than some of TNH's other works). It has quite a good deal of useful information in its few pages. I gave a copy as a gift to a friend. This one is worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: transformative reading
Review: With clear explanations and lucid analogies, Thich Nhat Hanh points the way to an understanding of the "historical dimension" of every day life and the "ultimate dimension" of true reality, and shows that these two are not different from each other.
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