At the Tables of Life Series

The foundational book of the series — how to meditate, taught the way Kim Milone teaches it. Meditation with Mercy is a short, trauma-aware, eight-week guide grounded in the shamatha-vipassana tradition and drawn from forty years of practice across Buddhist, Christian, secular, and integrative paths. It teaches one practice, sitting meditation, in the plainest possible terms, with concrete off-ramps for the moments that overwhelm, an honest line between ordinary boredom and real intensity, and beginning again treated not as failure but as the heart of the practice. Its radical claim gives the book its name: mercy — the unearned kindness we usually wait to receive from someone else — is something you can grant to yourself, from the very first sit. No mysticism, no productivity pitch, and no need to leave your own faith at the door. Everything else in the series grows from here.

A concise, practical companion that takes the meditation taught in Meditation with Mercy and translates it for social work — among the professions burnout culture grinds down hardest. In secular, ethics-intact language, it brings the framework — Regulate, Reflect, Release, Return — to the real conditions of the work: home visits, mandated reporting, charged family meetings, impossible caseloads, and the quiet toll of secondary trauma. With short, repeatable practices and a kit of social-work-specific cards for the moment, it offers not one more wellness checkbox but a sustainable way to stay present, discerning, and humane over a career. Built to stand on its own, and to deepen alongside Meditation with Mercy.

A practical companion that carries the meditation of Meditation with Mercy into the work of mediators and other conflict-resolution professionals. It brings the framework — Regulate, Reflect, Release, Return — to the particular demands of holding a charged room: staying steady when a session turns hostile, telling the difference between guiding a process and steering an outcome, honoring party self-determination, and setting down what is not yours to carry. With brief, usable practices and profession-specific cards, it supports the steadiness, impartiality, and ethical clarity that good practice depends on — standalone, and stronger read with Meditation with Mercy.

A practical companion that brings the meditation of Meditation with Mercy to the legal profession, which carries some of the highest rates of stress, anxiety, and burnout of any field. It applies the framework — Regulate, Reflect, Release, Return — to the realities of legal work: the hostile email, the high-stakes negotiation, the billable-hour grind, and the habit of measuring one's worth by whether one prevails. With short practices made for use in the moment and a set of lawyer-specific cards, it offers a steadier, clearer, more sustainable way to carry demanding work — without pretending the conditions themselves are fine. Complete on its own, and a natural next step from Meditation with Mercy.

The deeper book of the series — a scholarly synthesis Kim has taken her time with. Where Meditation with Mercy teaches you to meditate, At the Tables of Life asks what meditation is for, drawing the great traditions into conversation — Buddhist, Christian, secular, and integrative — and showing what each is ultimately after. It develops the framework in full as four movements — Presence, Reflection, Letting Go, and Returning — grounds it in equanimity and compassion, and carries the practice off the cushion to the "tables" where life actually tests us: work, conflict, caregiving, grief, and the inner table we bring to them all. It is, quietly, a lived synthesis — a work of both study and four decades of practice — and the fullest statement of how these paths come together.

The comprehensive practice companion to At the Tables of Life: an eight-week guided journey with the full toolkit of practices — sitting and walking, reflective writing, releasing the day's residue, meeting our parts — and four "doors" into contemplative life: secular, Buddhist, Christian, and integrative. It offers structured guidance for practicing on your own or in a group, including how to choose a tradition, a teacher, and a community wisely. Newcomers may want to begin with Meditation with Mercy; this workbook is where you go to practice wider and deeper.