Resources
These are a few resources that may be useful alongside the group — books, practices, and teachers that draw from the same well our work together draws from. The list is intentionally short. It’s not meant to be comprehensive, just to point toward some genuine doorways for those wanting to explore further.
A touchstone
Vidyamala Burch’s You Are Not Your Pain (with Danny Penman) has been a particular influence on the shape of this group. Drawing on her own decades of living with severe spinal injury, Burch offers a practical mindfulness-based approach to chronic pain and illness — including guided practices for working skillfully with difficulty rather than against it.
It’s not required reading, and we’re not a study group for the book. But if you find yourself wanting to go deeper into the approach this group draws on, it’s the most direct doorway.
Burch also co-founded Breathworks, an organization offering structured mindfulness-based programs for people living with pain, illness, and stress. Worth knowing about if a more formal course alongside or after the group would be helpful.
From my teacher
Venerable Tarpa, my teacher in the Secular Buddhist Tradition, offers a program called Skillful Living — practical contemplative tools for navigating everyday life with greater clarity and ease. His teaching has shaped how I hold this group, and I commend it warmly to anyone wanting to go further with the kind of practice we draw on here.
Further reading
How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness by Toni Bernhard. Bernhard, a former law professor, became seriously ill in mid-life and writes from inside the experience, drawing on Buddhist practice. Less clinical than Burch, more first-person — a different voice on similar ground. Her earlier book, How to Be Sick, is also widely loved.
Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn. The foundational text of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), which is the lineage Burch’s work emerges from. Substantial and thorough — more of an undertaking than the others — but a deep resource for those who want to understand where this approach comes from.
The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh. A warm, accessible introduction to the foundations of Buddhist practice — including the teaching of the Two Arrows that gives this group its name. No prior background required.
From the tradition
The image of the second arrow comes from a short teaching attributed to the Buddha, known as the Sallatha Sutta — The Arrow. It’s brief and worth reading directly. A good translation is freely available from Access to Insight.
Practice support
For those wanting guided audio practices to use between meetings, Tara Brach offers a large library of freely available guided meditations, many of which address pain, difficulty, and self-compassion directly. Her work is well-loved in the broader contemplative community and pairs well with the orientation of this group.