A review by davissandefur
Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence--A Complete Guide to the Groundbreaking Wheel of Awareness Meditation Practice by Daniel J. Siegel

2.0

I admit to skimming most of the second 2/3 of the book. The biggest issue with the book was that it could have easily been half as long (or less!). The points are repeated so many times in each chapter, and almost always exactly word-for-word, that one could almost spout off the whole discussion by rote at the end of one. Furthermore, apart from being redundant, the text was overly wordy. At times it seemed like the author was getting paid by the word, and was trying to make things purposefully complicated (maybe he wanted to confuse us so we'd go pay for a seminar with him near us?) The over convoluted sentences, and belabored points really turned me off of sitting down and reading it, leading me to skim. Furthermore, none of the author's research was ever cited. He claims research proves all this stuff, but never once directs the reader where to go to find it. To me, this is a huge red flag, even though I do believe the author's claims about it being backed up by science. The only things that were cited were books he directly quoted from, which is not a good way to write anything relating to popular science (and *especially* if your book has the subheading "The Science and Practice of Presence").

That said, the Wheel Practice does seem interesting, though it doesn't seem that much different from many other meditative practices in the world. I'd be willing to try one of the recorded sessions on the author's website (which he dropped as often as he could -- it does seem like he *really* wants us to take a seminar) and see how it goes, but it doesn't seem like much new was presented in this book besides the author's way of marketing meditation practices. It's a shame, really, as I thought it could be much more interesting.