Ainslie Meares on Meditation.
Dissolve tension, anxiety & pain. Tap your inner wealth.
Includes Relief Without Drugs* & poems written by Meares.
by Owen Bruhn
Foreword by Pauline McKinnon
Cover graphic design & photograph restoration. Sarah Bruhn
ISBN 978-0-6481084-0-5
About the Author (and Editor)
Owen Bruhn , BSc Hons, Grad Dip Occ Hyg, Grad Dip Erg, MAIOH, CPMSIA is an OHS Practitioner and Stillness Meditation Practitioner who utilises the principles of the Egoscue method and is certificated in the Primal Blueprint. He lives with family and dogs in Melbourne.
Dedication
To all Meares' Stillness Meditation teachers who are spreading something precious and who should be encouraged.
To my family (including the Capital Letter Queen) for reading various drafts and patiently allowing completion of the print and epub versions of this book.
Disclaimer
It may be hazardous to heath not to relax and live in a calm way.
You, the reader, have a responsibility to seek out and listen to the best advice available. Follow sensible advice. Disregard advice which is the opposite. This all applies to this book. This book is intended for general information only. It should not be used as a substitute for consulting a qualified health practitioner. Neither the author nor the publisher can accept any responsibility for your health or any side effects of methods in this book.
Copyright
Owen Bruhn 2016. Except as provided by the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced, communicated to the public without the prior written permission of the copyright owner or CAL.
* Section 2 is a Condensation of Relief without Drugs by Ainslie Meares that is copyright property of Australian Consolidated Press originally published in The Australian Women's Weekly 1968. The use of this work has been licensed. Except as permitted by the Copyright Act, you must not re-use this work without the permission of the copyright owner or CAL. Editorial comments inserted in distinctive font in Section 2 are copyright property of O. Bruhn.
+ Sample poems are reproduced from the following poetry books written by Ainslie Meares: From the Quiet Place, The Wealth Within, Cancer:Another Way?, Dialogue on Meditation, Thoughts, Prayer and Beyond, My Soul and I, A Kind of Believing, A Way of Doctoring, Lets Be at Ease, Man and Woman, and The Silver Years. The sample of poems is reproduced so that readers may taste them, and having done so, be encouraged to source one or more of these books.
This ebook is based on the hardcopy version but has been adapted to suit the eformat.
Footnotes
Print book - footnoted references are at the bottom of the same page.
Ebook - footnotes in text are hypertext links.
Relief Without Drugs by Ainslie Meares
Print book- RWD is in a different fonts in the hardcopy book. Font selection varies by device and user preference and so this has not been able to be done in the ebook.
Ebook - a black dotted line extends down the side of the page. Editors remarks are in italics. The editor's summaries in the Relief Without Drugs Section also have the same dotted line and have been adapted slightly.
Sample Poems by Ainslie Meares
Print book- Poetry was in a distinct font in the hardcopy book. Font selection varies by device and user preference and so this has not been able to be done in the ebook.
Ebook - a black dotted line extends down the side of the page.
It is recommended that the user use a smaller font size to gauge the length of the lines before enlarging the font so that the poetry fits the screen. This is important as using too large a font that truncated the lines of poetry so they are displayed over 2 lines will interfere with reading the poetry as Ainslie Meares intended it should be read.
Other differences
The order of Sections in the book differs from the print version. The foot notes remain accurate but retain the numbering from the print version. There has also been some minor editing.
Many who pick up this book will do so because they remember the innovative work of Dr Ainslie Meares across a range of psychological and physiological interventions. Many will attribute life transformation to his ideas and way of doctoring and are grateful; many know his name and would like to learn more, and some less informed may well have argued against him. Regardless of readership, this work is a testimony to Meares genius as he opened doorways in the Western world to the recognition of meditation as a practice for wellness and also to what we now know as mind-body medicine.
In Ainslie Meares on Meditation Owen Bruhn provides a summary of information on this topic for 21stC readers. An avid and competent researcher and committed advocate of Meares work, Bruhns condensation of this substantial task is admirable. Within this book you will discover Meares writings from his earliest through to those written close to his passing in 1986. Among these, Owen Bruhn has also discovered a range of Meares little known writings and publications previously difficult to source, along with observations of value but not necessarily part of the essence of his final teaching.
Included in this book is a distilled version of Meares classic Relief Without Drugs, written for the public and first published in the U.S.A. in 1967. That work is still sought after and very difficult to purchase today so Ainslie Meares on Meditation provides a significant section of that knowledge. Section 3 of Bruhns book summarises Meares entire body of work on meditation and includes an overview of the typical exercises suggested for those without access to a teacher together with Meares inimitable style of making the stillness experience more general.
Ainslie Meares work evolved via an extraordinary and diverse journey to reach its end point. In his book Owen Bruhn has kindly given credit to me in following that tradition. While my work and my writings on Stillness Meditation Therapy authentically replicate Meares core teaching, this book by Owen Bruhn provides the map, the way by which Meares arrived at his conclusive style of meditation. I highly recommend this book to all who aim to live and teach a better life.
Pauline McKinnon, Melbourne 2017
Table of Contents
I remember hearing about Ainslie Meares' work in the media from perhaps 1970 onwards. Eventually, I realised that this eminent doctor, meditation researcher and teacher worked in the same city I lived in. I decided to find out if he would teach me that which I felt was missing from my own exploration of eastern arts. He granted my request. During my attendance at his classes I witnessed his last step to simpler prompts (discussed in book). Back in mid-1984 it was a change I accepted and thought no more about.
In recent years, I sustained an uncomfortable injury. Various physical treatments did little but, use of the principles of the Egoscue method stabilised my injury and has helped maintain a good quality of movement. Eventually, someone suggested I try visualising relaxation and I decided to verify my meditation practice.
This is where the story really begins, in 2014, after I attended the Stillness Meditation Therapy Centre. This deepened my own practice and reinvigorated my interest - which only increased after I commenced the SMT teacher training course. I already had about 20 of Meares' books and acquired copies of the rest as well as all his articles if any were missed they were pretty well hidden. So began a bibliography. At the repeated suggestions of others this became a book about the man and his method.
