Lawrence LeShan - How to Meditate: A Guide to Self Discovery

I began meditating in 1974 as a senior in college, curious about this seemingly exotic practice. I read a few books for background, including The Perennial Philosophy and The Three Pillars of Zen, headed up into the foothills near my home with my bamboo flute and long hair, sat down in the tall grass, and tried to stop my mind. Good luck with that! The grass was moving in the wind, and my mind was moving even more. I was focusing on the sensations of breathing: chest rising, chest falling, up and down, up and down. Against that steady backdrop, the roaring cascade of thoughts and feelings and weird little mental movies was painfully obvious. It wasnt any different from my usual stream of consciousness. Meditation simply made it apparent. If this was my mind, why couldnt I turn it off? It was frustrating.

But other things were happening as well. There was a relaxing and a calming in my body. I could step back from the rushing stream of consciousness to watch it, like I was sitting on the banks of a river rather than being swept away by it. Sometimes worries or frustrations or old hurts from childhood would bubble up to the surface, and these, too, could flow along, easing and releasing and passing away. My breath rose and fell and thoughts and feelings ebbed and flowed, and these changes revealed by contrast an underlying open spaciousness of awareness that was itself unchangingand was accompanied by a stable sense of happiness, love, and peace. This felt like a place to rest, a place to stand, a place to receive life and meet it. Even though meditating was often challenging, it felt like coming home.

Of course, back then I had little idea about how to meditate. As I was fumbling about in 1974, Lawrence LeShan was publishing his classic book on this subject. Its a quiet masterpiece. It never shouts. Dr. LeShans words are calm and warm and clear, and they quiet the mind as you read them.

But he will never put you to sleep. The combination of calmness and alertness that he says is the essence of meditation also characterizes his book. He takes us on a tour of the worlds contemplative traditions, moving nimbly from the prayers of Christian saints to the mantras of Hindu ascetics to the Koans of Zen Buddhists. His critiques of false gurus, weekend enlightenment training, and airy-fairy hocus-pocus are sharp and funny, and as relevant today as they were to those riding the waves of human potential in the 1970s. He also covers secular meditative practices, such as progressive relaxation and observing the breath, that have become widespread in the past several decades and used routinely in workplaces, classrooms, and hospitals.

Dr. LeShan describes in crisp practical detail how to do a variety of meditative exercises. He explains the differences among methods and their benefits and potential pitfalls. But his book is not a mere cookbook. He embeds his central topicthe how of meditationin a fascinating discussion of the what and especially the why of meditation as he explores mystical experiences, the collision of science and religion, shifts of perspective in the middle of everyday life, and the longing for a reliable happiness. Throughout all this, wonderfully, he does not tell a reader which practice to do. Or more exactly, he tells the reader to do whatever practice is most enjoyable and fruitful. He is informal, friendly, and encouraging. Still, he pulls no punches as he emphasizes the need for effort and sustained practicelikening meditation to physical exercise: if we want the results, we need to do the work. His honesty is refreshing and it makes his advice credible: we can trust the results of meditation since well have earned them.

These changes in the mind involve changes in the body, particularly in the brain. At the time this book was written, scientists had found already that regular meditation produced physical results, including deep relaxation, reduced stress physiology, and shifts in brain wave patterns. Over the past several decades, weve learned that meditation also builds up neuronal connections in key regions in the brain:

prefrontal areas behind the forehead that help regulate attention, emotion, and action

the insula, on the inside of the temporal lobes, which promotes self-awareness as well as empathy for others

the hippocampus, deep in the center of the head, which is vital for putting things in context and calming down stress reactions

Additionally, meditation increases activation in the left prefrontal cortex, which is associated with a greater focus on opportunities and more positive emotions. Long-term practice also seems to protect the telomeres that form caps at the end of the chromosomes deep in the nuclei of every cell in the body. This is an important finding since telomere shortening is linked to age-related illnesses and mortality.

Meditation changes the brain in part through its quintessential training of attention, which William James described as the education par excellence. Neurons that fire together, wire togetherespecially for what we pay attention to. Attention is like a spotlight, illuminating what it rests upon and, like a vacuum cleaner, sucking that information into the nervous system. This is experience-dependent neuroplasticity, the material nervous system designed by evolution to be changed by the immaterial information moving through it. In meditation, we keep attention on what is useful and disengage from what is not. In this process, we gradually learn to be more mindful while also cultivatingliterally in the brain and bodythe wholesome qualities of what weve meditated upon, which might be a sense of calm strength, compassionate wishes for others, or an intimation of something sacred, even divine.