Sluyter - Natural meditation: a guide to effortless meditative practice

Praise for Natural Meditation

If you thought you didnt have the time, focus, or discipline to meditate, this book is for you. The approach is both simple and fun, but dont be fooled. Its powerful because its doableand truly transformative.

LISA OZ, host, The Lisa Oz Show

Dean Sluyter is in the grand tradition of authors who interpret traditional enlightenment teachings and apply them to modern Western life. This book accomplishes that task with a rare combination of insight, clarity, wit, and pragmatic common sense.

PHILIP GOLDBERG, author, American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation

If you were going to read one book on meditation, this would be the one."

SHIVA REA

Ive attended Deans sessions, and this book captures their spirit: relaxed and accessible, with a pop culturetinged playfulness that pulls you in and puts you at ease.

LISA LEEMAN, producer, Crazy Wisdom, and codirector, Awake: The Life of Yogananda

With simplicity, wit, and clarity, Dean Sluyter debunks the misconceptions and offers a user-friendly practice that will put you in the Ahhhhhhh space, regardless of circumstances. He is truly the Wizard of Ahhhhhhhs. This book will help you find the spacious grace in your life.

STEVE BHAERMAN, aka Swami Beyondananda, author and cosmic comic

Dean Sluyter dispels many myths about meditation with clarity, eloquence, and insight. Without recourse to spiritual cliche or jargon, he shows that meditation is natural and effortless, and can be practiced by anyone who simply wishes to avail themselves of the peace that lies in the depths of their being at all times and under all circumstances.

RUPERT SPIRA, author, Presence and The Ashes of Love

Dean Sluyter demystifies a timeless practice that brings lasting peace.

MC YOGI

With a welcome, down-to-earth approach, Dean Sluyter alternates clear instructions with plain-English explanations of why an average Joe (or Jane) would want to meditate in the first place. The result is an accessible, wise guidebook to practice, from an experienced writer and teacher who understands the process from the inside out.

SUSAN KAISER GREENLAND, author, The Mindful Child

Also by Dean Sluyter

Why the Chicken Crossed the Road and Other Hidden Enlightenment Teachings

The Zen Commandments: Ten Suggestions for a Life of Inner Freedom

Cinema Nirvana: Enlightenment Lessons from the Movies

JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN

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Copyright 2015 by Dean Sluyter

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sluyter, Dean.

Natural meditation : a guide to effortless meditative practice / Dean Sluyter.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-698-16587-8

1. Meditation. 1. Title.

BL627.S59 2015 2014039692

158.1'2dc23

Neither the publisher nor the author is engaged in rendering professional advice or services to the individual reader. The ideas, procedures, and suggestions contained in this book are not intended as a substitute for consulting with a physician. All matters regarding your health require medical supervision. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising from any information or suggestion in this book.

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For Yaffa
... i and i... sky into sky...

Where there is effortlessness, there is peace.

Sri Mooji

1. Meditation for the Rest of Us

Please try this:

Turn your head to the left. See whatever you see.

Now turn your head to the right. See whatever you see.

OK. You saw two different views, but what remained the same?

Now scrunch up your shoulders into an awkward position. Feel whatever you feel.

Then drop them back into a comfortable position, and feel whatever you feel.

Two different feelings, but what remained the same?

What always remains the same?

Please recall leaning forward to blow out the candles on (lets say) your seventh birthday cake. There were the glowing flames filling your visual field... their warmth against your face... the sound of your family shouting, Make a wish!... the smell of sugary icing and melting wax... the feeling of being inside a highly excited seven-year-old body.

Now recall hanging out with friends at seventeen. All the sights and smells and sounds were different: maybe cigarettes... beer... pizza... wisecracks... loud music. You had a different voice, and you were in a different body, one with hair in new places and prone to recurring storms of sexual arousal. Your range of emotions was very different, with levels of sarcasm and romantic desperation unknown at age seven. But what remained the same?

And now please recall the last argument you were in. Recall eating dinner yesterday. Falling asleep last night. Opening this book a few moments ago. Different, different, different. But what remains the same?

Heres a hypothesis:

No matter how much our experiences change, one thing always remains the same: the presence of an experiencing awareness, which we call I.

Running through every moment of your life, whether youre perceiving your senior prom or your retirement party, is that one threadthe conscious presence thats there to perceive it all, the sense of an awareness or I, the simple knowingness by which all these impressions are known, right now and always. Its just yourself, and its self-evident.

Now, do you have one special I-awareness to experience the view to your left and a different one for the right? Is there one for the awkward feeling when you scrunch your shoulders and one that takes over when you relax them? Clearly not. (To confirm that, scrunch up one shoulder while you leave the other one down.) So its also self-evident that its the