Buddhism – Plain and Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day

Finally got around to this Zen classic after years of hearing about it. What struck me immediately was how Hagen strips away the incense, the rituals, and the 'funny clothes' to get to the core of what it means to be awake. This isn't a book about becoming a Buddhist; it's a book about seeing. He uses plain English to explain why our minds are constantly 'leaning' toward the future or the past instead of just being in the here and now. I loved the section on the afterlife where he basically says it doesn't matter because we haven't even figured out how to live in the present. To be fair, some might find the lack of specific 'methods' frustrating, but I found the conceptual clarity refreshing. It’s a passionate, quick read that I know I’ll return to whenever my mind starts to get cluttered with nonsense again.

Buddhism is often presented as this mystical, exotic thing, but this book brings it right back to the ground. There are no rules here, just observations about how we create our own suffering by refusing to see things as they are. I felt a real sense of peace reading Hagen’s take on the 'stream' of existence. He doesn't want you to kill the Buddha; he wants you to stop looking for a Buddha outside of your own awareness. This is easily the most straightforward spiritual book on my shelf. It’s concise and gets straight to the point without any 'sciencey' filler or neuro-babble that seems to be popular in modern mindfulness books. If you want to understand the basic tenets of Buddhism without the baggage, start here. It’s plain, simple, and deeply thought-provoking.

Ever wonder why most spiritual books feel like they’re trying to sell you a costume? Hagen does the opposite. He tells you to take the costume off. This is a brilliant, stripped-down look at what the Buddha actually taught before 2,500 years of tradition got layered on top. I appreciated his 'secular' approach; you don't have to believe in anything to get value from this. He just asks you to look at your own experience. The way he describes how we 'lean' into our expectations instead of just seeing what is right in front of us changed how I view my daily commute. It’s not about being a 'better' person; it’s about being an awake person. It is a quick read, but it holds a lot of weight. Highly recommended for skeptics.

The chapter on the afterlife is worth the price of the book alone. Hagen essentially argues that obsessing over what happens after we die is just another way of avoiding the reality of right now. It’s a bold, no-nonsense take that I found incredibly refreshing. He presents Buddhism as a philosophy of 'seeing' rather than a system of belief. I've found myself re-reading certain passages just to sit with the simplicity of his words. It’s not a 'how-to' guide with 10 steps to enlightenment, which might annoy some people, but that’s the whole point. You can't follow a map to somewhere you already are. This book is a passionate plea to wake up and stop living in a dream of your own making. It’s authentic, direct, and remarkably clear.

What sets Hagen apart from other spiritual teachers is his refusal to lean on dogmatic crutches. In my experience, most introductory texts get bogged down in history or cultural traditions, but this stays focused on the philosophy. He presents the idea of 'no-self' in a way that is actually digestible for a Western audience. I particularly enjoyed the distinction he makes between religion and a way of life. It’s not about believing in something; it’s about observing reality as it is. My only minor gripe is that the prose can be a bit repetitive at times. He repeats phrases about 'the whole' and 'seeing' quite often, which might be a Zen teaching tool, but it felt a little circular in the middle chapters. Still, it’s an excellent, non-preachy entry point for anyone curious about mindfulness.

Wow, this was exactly the mental reset I needed for the new year. Hagen manages to explain the Four Noble Truths without making them sound like ancient commandments. He frames them as practical observations about the human condition. I’ve read a few books on Zen before, but his explanation of 'no-self'—specifically the idea that we aren't a noun but a process—really clicked for me this time. Truth is, we spend so much time worrying about the future that we miss the only moment we actually have. The book is very thin, but it’s dense with ideas that make you stop and look at the wall for twenty minutes. My only complaint is the repetitive nature of the second half. It felt like he was trying to fill a page count, but the first 80 pages are gold.

As someone who prefers a secular approach to meditation, I appreciated how Hagen avoids the sciencey traps of modern NüBü writers. He doesn't try to prove Buddhism with an fMRI scan. Instead, he focuses on the raw philosophy of perception. The book is written in very plain English, making it accessible even if you've never heard of dharma before. To be fair, he does get a little repetitive with the 'mind leaning' metaphors toward the end, and some of the logic regarding the lack of a permanent self felt a bit dismissive of human memory and trauma. But as an introduction to the core concepts of Zen, it’s top-tier. It isn't preachy, and it doesn't ask for your devotion. It just asks for your attention. Definitely worth a spot on the bookshelf.

After hearing so much about Hagen’s approach, I found it a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, his writing is accessible and he avoids the usual esoteric jargon that makes these books a chore. I liked the anecdote about the soft-top car and the raccoon—it made the concepts feel lived-in. However, by the halfway mark, it felt like he had run out of things to say. He kept repeating the same few phrases about 'awakening' and 'the truth waiting to be seen' over and over again. It started to feel less like a philosophy and more like a collection of mantras. Is Buddhism really this simple? I felt like I was being told what I was doing wrong without being given any actual tools to fix it. It’s a good primer, but I think I need something with more meat on its bones.

I really wanted to like this, but I couldn't get past the condescending tone. Hagen uses this analogy of a scared little boy at an X-ray machine to explain our fear of consciousness, and it felt incredibly patronizing. He tells the reader 'it won't hurt,' as if he’s some enlightened parent and we’re all just confused children. The logic felt full of holes, too. He argues there is no separate self and that we aren't the same person we were at age six because our atoms changed, but that’s just a leap in logic that ignores how experiences carry forward. To suggest there is zero connection between our past and present is just silly. Plus, the formatting was distracting—italics and capital letters seemed to be thrown in at random. For a book that claims to be simple, it felt unnecessarily smug.

The writing style in this book drove me absolutely up the wall. Every other sentence has an italicized word for emphasis, which makes the whole thing feel like being yelled at by a very calm person. It felt incredibly repetitive; I think he said 'you must experience the here and now' at least fifty times. There’s almost no actual content here—it’s just a handful of abstract ideas stretched out over 150 pages. One minute he says distinct objects don't exist, and the next he's giving advice on how to live your life. How can I live a life if I don't exist? The contradictions and leaps in logic were too much for me to handle. I was looking for a clear guide, but instead, I got a mediocre collection of 'deep' thoughts that don't actually offer any solutions.