Life Hacks from The Buddha by Dr Tony Fernando

THIS week’s top pick for readers will help one transform into a calmer, happier and more chilled-out version of oneself in a chaotic world by offering practical and easy-to-follow lifestyle tips on how to find peace and contentment. This book is a Myanmar translation of Dr Tony Fernando’s original work, Life Hacks from the Buddha, by the writer Zaw Win Kyu (Pyinmana). ‘The Buddha already outlined the best ways to handle the challenges we face today over 2,500 years ago. The Buddha’s teachings reveal that human stress, anxiety, and suffering are nothing new. The life hacks from the Buddha will help you find the stability and contentment you need to calm your mind, create more peaceful living environments, and enable you to work at your best,’ the author stated. The book highlights 50 practical life hacks. It is not purely a religious text but a self-development book combined with modern science. This book explains to the reader how to quieten the mind with methods of mindfulness to focus on the present and reduce anxiety, create peaceful environments with guidance on lifestyles that bring peace to one’s surroundings, sleep better (as a psychiatrist, how to deal with sleep deprivation), and cultivate compassion and contentment through simple mental exercises. Although the book cover features an image of the Buddha, its unique point is that it combines the Buddha’s ancient wisdom with modern science, making it accessible even to non-Buddhists. In Chapter 1 titled Chasing Happiness, the book begins with this passage: We live on a beautiful blue and green planet called Earth. This planet revolves around a star called the Sun, which is located in the Milky Way galaxy – one of perhaps one hundred or two hundred billion galaxies in the universe. Everything in that universe is made of matter and energy, and those things never settle as they are always changing, moving and active.’ “Think as honestly as you can about a time in your life when everything seemed to be at its best. That time might be your wedding day (or your divorce day), an unforgettable day, the best meal you’ve ever had, the day you received your first paycheck, the day you owned your first home, or the day your sick child is discharged from the hospital. Now, think about how long that wonderful feeling lasted. Did it last minutes, hours, or days? How long did it last before your mind shifted its focus to something else that needed to be done?