Deeper Mindfulness

Mark Williams and Danny Penman released Deeper Mindfulness in 2023 as the follow-up to their bestselling Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World. The book centers on a concept from early Buddhist psychology that modern neuroscience has rediscovered, the feeling tone, or the immediate sense of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral that arises in every moment before conscious thought takes over. Williams, who co-developed mindfulness-based cognitive therapy at Oxford, argues that learning to sense this background tone is the deeper layer of practice that keeps people from sliding back into anxiety and rumination. The book pairs the science with a structured program of guided meditations, walking readers through how to catch the feeling tone in real time and loosen its automatic grip on mood and behavior.