Every so often, a book appears that has a special value for people who are students of the nature of reality. Joseph Goldstein teaches meditation as a method of experiencing things as they are, entering the remarkable flow of the mind/body process. This work, comprised of unusually clear instructions and discourses given during a 30-day Vipassana meditation retreat, is a day-to-day journey into Mind.
Two popular American Buddhist teachers provide an overview of insight meditation, offering a “skillful blend of pragmatic instruction, psychological insight, and perennial wisdom” (Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence) In Seeking the Heart of Wisdom, Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield present the central teachings and practices of insight meditation in a clear and personal language. The path of insight meditation is a journey of understanding our bodies, our minds, and our lives, of seeing clearly the true nature of experience. The authors guide the reader in developing the openness and compassion that are at the heart of this spiritual practice. For those already treading the path, as well as those just starting out, this book will be a welcome companion along the way. Among the topics covered are: • The hindrances to meditation—ranging from doubt and fear to painful knees—and skillful means of overcoming them • How compassion can arise in response to the suffering we see in our own lives and in the world • How to integrate a life of responsible action and service with a meditative life based on non-attachment Useful exercises are presented alongside the teachings to help readers deepen their understanding of the subjects.
A leading meditation teacher and the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society offers “an intelligent, thorough, startlingly clear” overview of Buddhism and Western vipassana practice” (Los Angeles Times) In Insight Meditation, Joseph Goldstein provides an overview of Buddhist practice and its context generally while focusing on vipassana meditation specifically. He covers what the path itself is composed of, how to practice, what freeing the mind is all about, how karma works, the connection between psychology and dharma practice, and a look at what selflessness really is. The concluding chapter is a detailed exploration of how to practice in the world, touching on topics like the art of communication, family relationships, work and livelihood, dying, and how to really be of benefit to others.
This book is a comprehensive and practical guide to Buddhist meditation, providing a complete introduction for beginners, as well as detailed advice for experienced meditators seeking to deepen their practice. Kamalashila explores the primary aims of Buddhist meditation: enhanced awareness, true happiness, and liberating insight into the nature of reality. This third edition includes new sections on the importance of the imagination, on Just Sitting, and on reflection on the Buddha.
An introductory guide to Insight meditation, offering exercises from two master teachers and a look into how this practice leads to compassion and a deeper understanding of self. Insight meditation is a Buddhist practice that opens the way to profound awakening in our daily lives. This introductory guide offers wisdom about how this path cultivates compassion, strengthens mindfulness, and leads to a deeper understanding of ourselves and others. It also includes exercises from these two master teachers, developed from their meditation retreats taught around the world. Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield are the founders of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and each has authored many books on meditation.
Achaan Chah spent many years walking and meditating in the forest monastery of Wat Ba Pong, engaging in the uncomplicated and disciplined Buddhist practice called dhudanga. A Still Forest Pool reflects the quiet, intensive, and joyous practice of the forest monks of Thailand. Achaan Chah’s humble words, compiled by two Westerners who are former ordained monks, awaken the spirit of inquiry, wonderment, understanding, and deep inner peace. Attachment, according to Achaan Chah, causes all suffering. Understanding the impermanent, insecure, and selfless nature of life is the message he offers for human happiness and realization. To vividly grasp the meaning of attachment leads us to a new place of practice – the path of balance, the Middle Path.
A “wonderfully accessible” interpretation of the Buddha’s teachings on breathwork in meditation, from a leading insight meditation teacher (Joseph Goldstein, author of The Experience of Insight) Freedom from suffering is not only possible, but the means for achieving it are immediately within our grasp—literally as close to us as our own breath. This is the 2,500-year-old good news contained in the Anapanasati Sutra, the Buddha's own teaching on cultivating both tranquility and deep insight through the full awareness of breathing. In this book, Larry Rosenberg brings this timeless meditation method to modern practitioners, using the insights gained from his many years of practice and teaching. With wisdom, compassion, and humor, he shows how the practice of breath awareness is quietly, profoundly transformative—and supremely practical: if you're breathing, you've already got everything you need to start.
Insight Dialogue is a way of bringing the tranquility and insight attained in meditation directly into your interactions with other people. It’s a practice that involves interacting with a partner in a retreat setting or on your own, as a way of accessing a profound kind of insight. Then, you take that insight on into the grind of everyday human interactions. Gregory Kramer has been teaching the practice (which he originated) for more than a decade in retreats around the world. It’s something strikingly new in the world of Buddhist practice—yet it’s completely grounded in traditional Buddhist teaching. Kramer begins with a detailed presentation of the central Buddhist teaching of the Four Noble Truths seen through an interpersonal lens. Because dukkha (suffering or unsatisfactoriness) is often most forcefully felt in our relations with others, interpersonal relationships are a wonderfully useful place to practice. He breaks the Noble Truths down into component parts to observe how they manifest particularly in relationship to others, using examples from his own life and practice, as well as from his students’. He then goes on to present the practice as it’s taught in his workshops and retreats. There are a few basic steps to the practice, deceptively simple to describe: (1) pause, (2) relax, (3) open, (4) trust emergence, (5) listen deeply, and (6) speak the truth. The sequence begins following a period of meditation, and includes periods of speaking, listening, and mutual silence. Kramer includes numerous examples of people’s experience with the practice from his retreats, and shows how the insight gained from the techniques can be brought into real life. More than just testimonials for how well the practice "works," the personal stories demonstrate the problems that arise, the different routes the practice can follow, and the sometimes surprising insights that are gained.
"I set out to study and practice Vipassana meditation in India fifty years ago. Then, as now, I characterized myself as both a spiritual seeker and a writer. During the six months that I sojourned in meditation centers and monasteries, observing the strict rules of retreat, I nevertheless spent several hours a day feverishly filling notebooks by lamplight with tightly packed script legible only to me, recording my internal experiences. I wanted to tell a story, because I am by nature a story teller, but on my return to America I was a bit disconcerted to find that my detailed accounts read like data recorded by a naturalist hidden in the bush observing the behavior of a strange creature in the wild, information that would have little interest to anyone except an extreme specialist in the field. Up until then my unpublished works were lightly fictionalized autobiographical accounts of my young life, but fiction wouldn’t be accurate enough to tell this tale. Instead, I created a protagonist, a bit of a hero, who was both me and not me, Eric Lerner. I re-created the external world of people and teachers and places he’d encountered, as well as ideas and beliefs adopted and discarded. In other words, a setting and a plot. All of it was real, or real enough, the product of memory and interpretation, a new veracity. A memoir." —Eric Lerner Italy, March 2023 __________________________ “With a guru, in monasteries, and isolated for weeks at a time in forests, [Lerner] practiced the Buddhist art of vipassana or ‘insight meditation.’ From exercises which took him ‘inside his body’ to undo knots of pain, he progressed through various stages of awareness... Sensitively and convincingly written, his self-absorbed book nearly succeeds in describing the ineffable.” —Publishers Weekly “Journey of Insight Meditation not only gives a fine introduction to Vipassana but sets a standard of excellence for spiritual journals of its kind. It is so good because Lerner is highly aware of the difference between the twin pitfalls of over-enthusiasm and over-analysis. His book is readable, thought-provoking and very real. Strongly recommended.” —Library Journal “Lerner captures with exquisite clarity the psychological underworld of the hardcore meditator. With candor and warmth he shares the pain, agony, occasional ecstasy and hard-earned insight he found as a student of Vipassana. His is a compelling travelogue of the mind.” —Daniel Goleman, author of The Meditative Mind: The Varieties of Meditative Experience “I have shared many of the teachers, friends, and experiences of which Eric Lerner writes in this meditation diary. His characterization of the death gasps of our romanticism about self and journey I find to be a chillingly lucid and refreshingly accurate account of what is.” —Ram Dass
The practice of Vipassana or insight meditation was described by the Buddha as the “direct way” for the overcoming of all sorrow and grief and for realizing Nibbana, the state of perfect liberation from suffering. The essence of this practice consists in the four foundations of mindfulness: mindful contemplation of the body, feelings, states of mind, and mind objects.
