That one is great. Especially worth recommending in a place like this where I'd expect more people than average would prefer a resource that isn't full of religious stuff one might not agree with.

I loved it, as while this book was written by a Buddhist monk, apart from an odd reference here and there, the book is a "manual" first and foremost. It describes the mechanics of mindfulness meditation, rather than the Buddhist spiritual basis for it. It doesn't make any promises of supernatural results, and in general is a reasonably painless read for atheists or people who otherwise don't share the authors beliefs. The only mentions of Buddhism is for historical context.

In a similar vein, I'd recommend Gil Fronsdal's "Introduction to meditation" series of podcasts: http://www.audiodharma.org/series/1/talk/1762/

They're a great companion to Mindfulness in Plain English, and they're also largely religion free and no-nonsense.

mindful meditation is currently popular in western medicine. the idea is that you sit somewhere peaceful, close your eyes, and think about your breathing. pretty much immediately you're going to start thinking about something else, so you gently notice, acknowledge that you're distracted, put the thought aside, and go back to thinking about your breath.

that's it, basically. you repeat that and you slowly get better and catching the thoughts and not thinking them. there are then various claims made about benefits that arise from doing this.

disclaimer - i'm just describing mindful meditation, which i use and find helpful (it's easy to do and may reduce stress). the recording itself is a bit gushing / over-enthusiastic for me in places, but it's an interview with someone connected to mindful meditation. there's a walk-through of what i describe above from about 19:45.