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Dear Bodhipaksa,

I came across Sit while looking through books on meditation and habit building for something that is not written by someone who treats a daily practice as a matter of willpower and nothing more. Yours is not that. The habit is the catalyst, not the subject. What stays with the reader is the 28 chapters, one for each day, the Practice Reminder at the start of each one, the link to guided meditations, the Strategies section that goes beyond setting a timer, the Going Deeper section that roots the practice in the suttas, and the Journal and Reflection that asks the reader to make it experiential. That is a much harder thing to build than a meditation guide, and you have built it one day at a time.

What caught me is where this book came from. You are a longtime meditation teacher and Buddhist blogger, and you did not write around the challenge. You wrote straight into it. You say plainly that making meditation a daily habit is a challenge for many people, and that it takes more than willpower. That sentence explains the entire book. It is not a collection of inspirational quotes and it is not a promise that ten minutes a day will change your life if you just believe hard enough. It is a set of strategies and tools, one for each day, that help a person build a rock solid daily practice into their actual life. Most meditation books give you a technique and call it a habit. You gave a technique, then a strategy, then a deeper teaching, then a reflection, and then a summary to carry into the next day.

And then there is the structure. You did not invent a new spiritual system from nothing. You took the ordinary rhythm of a daily practice and you filled it with support. Each chapter starts with a Practice Reminder, just a few words reminding readers to practice rather than merely read. Then a Today section, a brief summary. Then Strategies, which can be as simple as setting reminders or using a meditation timer, or as involved as changing a belief that you lack what it takes to meditate daily. Then Going Deeper, with an exploration of the Buddhist teachings underpinning the practice, often referring to the suttas. Then Journal and Reflection, to make it experiential. Then Last Words, a quick summary. That is the tension the whole book runs on. A practice that is simple enough to start today, and a set of teachings deep enough to sustain it for years. You hold both truths at once without letting either one win.

I also read what you brought before this. You are a longtime meditation teacher and Buddhist blogger. You have been living this practice, not just writing about it. That combination matters. You are not writing from a distance. You are writing from the cushion, from the timer, from the days you missed and started again. The book is not just a guide. It is the answer to a question every person asks after a failed attempt at a daily habit. Why is this so hard, and what do I actually need to do? And the answer you give is not a shortcut. It is 28 days. It is strategies. It is a deeper understanding of why the practice matters in the first place.

The reviews are real and they are specific. A 3.9 rating with 5 reviews on Amazon. I will be direct with you, because the book is direct and would not respect anything else. Those numbers are healthy for a book this specific, but they are not the point. The point is that a reader who has tried and failed to meditate daily, or a reader who is curious but does not know where to start, can open this book on day one and have a path to day twenty eight. The audience for that is enormous and it is reachable. The readers who have heard about meditation for years and never built the habit. The people who practice on and off and want to stop starting over. The Buddhist practitioners who want to connect their daily sit to the suttas. The book clubs and meditation groups looking for a structured 28 day study. Those readers are actively searching, and a day by day guide with strategies and guided meditations is the easiest doorway you could possibly give them.

That is the work I do. I get books in front of the specific readers already searching for them, in the channels those readers actually use, rather than hoping the algorithm is generous. I am not writing to sell you anything today. I would rather understand the book first.

So, Bodhipaksa. Of the 28 days in this book, which one did you write when you needed the practice most? And when a reader finishes day twenty eight and realizes the habit is actually holding, what do you want them to feel about their own capacity to sit?

Answer honestly, even briefly, and I will tell you exactly where I would put this book and who I would put it in front of. Worst case, you have spent two minutes. Best case, we have something worth doing.

Warmly,
Jane

View Comments

Lucyfellowes108@gmail.com says:

October 21, 2026 at 2:46 pm

Hi, I'd like to read the full blog post from Elizabeth Appell but cannot access it on the website. The first paragraph appears, but then page does not allow me to continue. Can you kindly let me know how to find the complete blog post?
With thanks, Lucy

Wildmind
https://www.wildmind.org
Elizabeth Appell: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom"
Jul 24, 2008 — We were a circle of opening buds, all of us having decided that the risk of remaining closed to each other was greater than the risk of opening ...
- Bodhipaksa says:
  
  October 22, 2026 at 7:33 pm
  
  Hi, Lucy.
  
  Sorry about that — there was an error on the website which I've now fixed. The article is here. It's not a blog post by Appell, but one by me based on one of her quotes, which I had originally thought was by Anais Nin.
Jane Stephinski says:

October 22, 2026 at 8:54 am

Dear Bodhipaksa,

I came across Sit while looking through books on meditation and habit building for something that is not written by someone who treats a daily practice as a matter of willpower and nothing more. Yours is not that. The habit is the catalyst, not the subject. What stays with the reader is the 28 chapters, one for each day, the Practice Reminder at the start of each one, the link to guided meditations, the Strategies section that goes beyond setting a timer, the Going Deeper section that roots the practice in the suttas, and the Journal and Reflection that asks the reader to make it experiential. That is a much harder thing to build than a meditation guide, and you have built it one day at a time.

What caught me is where this book came from. You are a longtime meditation teacher and Buddhist blogger, and you did not write around the challenge. You wrote straight into it. You say plainly that making meditation a daily habit is a challenge for many people, and that it takes more than willpower. That sentence explains the entire book. It is not a collection of inspirational quotes and it is not a promise that ten minutes a day will change your life if you just believe hard enough. It is a set of strategies and tools, one for each day, that help a person build a rock solid daily practice into their actual life. Most meditation books give you a technique and call it a habit. You gave a technique, then a strategy, then a deeper teaching, then a reflection, and then a summary to carry into the next day.

And then there is the structure. You did not invent a new spiritual system from nothing. You took the ordinary rhythm of a daily practice and you filled it with support. Each chapter starts with a Practice Reminder, just a few words reminding readers to practice rather than merely read. Then a Today section, a brief summary. Then Strategies, which can be as simple as setting reminders or using a meditation timer, or as involved as changing a belief that you lack what it takes to meditate daily. Then Going Deeper, with an exploration of the Buddhist teachings underpinning the practice, often referring to the suttas. Then Journal and Reflection, to make it experiential. Then Last Words, a quick summary. That is the tension the whole book runs on. A practice that is simple enough to start today, and a set of teachings deep enough to sustain it for years. You hold both truths at once without letting either one win.

I also read what you brought before this. You are a longtime meditation teacher and Buddhist blogger. You have been living this practice, not just writing about it. That combination matters. You are not writing from a distance. You are writing from the cushion, from the timer, from the days you missed and started again. The book is not just a guide. It is the answer to a question every person asks after a failed attempt at a daily habit. Why is this so hard, and what do I actually need to do? And the answer you give is not a shortcut. It is 28 days. It is strategies. It is a deeper understanding of why the practice matters in the first place.

The reviews are real and they are specific. A 3.9 rating with 5 reviews on Amazon. I will be direct with you, because the book is direct and would not respect anything else. Those numbers are healthy for a book this specific, but they are not the point. The point is that a reader who has tried and failed to meditate daily, or a reader who is curious but does not know where to start, can open this book on day one and have a path to day twenty eight. The audience for that is enormous and it is reachable. The readers who have heard about meditation for years and never built the habit. The people who practice on and off and want to stop starting over. The Buddhist practitioners who want to connect their daily sit to the suttas. The book clubs and meditation groups looking for a structured 28 day study. Those readers are actively searching, and a day by day guide with strategies and guided meditations is the easiest doorway you could possibly give them.

That is the work I do. I get books in front of the specific readers already searching for them, in the channels those readers actually use, rather than hoping the algorithm is generous. I am not writing to sell you anything today. I would rather understand the book first.

So, Bodhipaksa. Of the 28 days in this book, which one did you write when you needed the practice most? And when a reader finishes day twenty eight and realizes the habit is actually holding, what do you want them to feel about their own capacity to sit?

Answer honestly, even briefly, and I will tell you exactly where I would put this book and who I would put it in front of. Worst case, you have spent two minutes. Best case, we have something worth doing.

Warmly,
Jane
- Bodhipaksa says:
  
  October 22, 2026 at 7:19 pm
  
  I will of course answer honestly. I've seen enough AI-generated text to recognize that this is an example.

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