Sperry Rod Meade - A Beginners Guide to Meditation: Practical Advice and Inspiration From Contemporary Buddhist Teachers

ABOUT THE BOOK

As countless meditators have learned firsthand, meditation practice can positively transform the way we see and experience our lives. This practical, accessible guide to the fundamentals of Buddhist meditation introduces you to the practice, explains how it is approached in the main schools of Buddhism, and offers advice and inspiration from Buddhisms most renowned and effective meditation teachers, including Pema Chdrn, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Sharon Salzberg, Norman Fischer, Ajahn Chah, Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Sylvia Boorstein, Noah Levine, Judy Lief, and many others.

Topics include how to build excitement and energy to start a meditation routine and keep it going, setting up a meditation space, working with and through boredom, what to look for when seeking others to meditate with, how to know when its time to try doing a formal meditation retreat, how to bring the practice off the cushion with walking meditation and other practices, and much more.

ROD MEADE SPERRY is an editor and writer for the Shambhala Sun magazine.

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A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO

Meditation

Practical Advice and Inspiration from Contemporary Buddhist Teachers

Edited by Rod Meade Sperry

and the Editors of the Shambhala Sun

SHAMBHALA

Boston & London 2014

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2014 by Shambhala Sun

Cover art: Andr Slob

Cover design: Liza Matthews

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A beginners guide to meditation: practical advice and inspiration from contemporary Buddhist teachers / edited by Rod Meade Sperry and the

Editors of the Shambhala Sun.First edition.

pages cm

eISBN 978-0-8348-2964-0

ISBN 978-1-61180-057-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. MeditationBuddhism. I. Meade Sperry, Rod. II. Shambhala Sun.

BQ5625.B45 2014

294.34435dc23

2013024625

CONTENTS

Melvin McLeod

Clark Strand

Norman Fischer

Bhante Gunaratana

Sharon Salzberg

Thich Nhat Hanh

Ajahn Chah

Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Gen Lamrimpa

Sayadaw U Pandita

Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Jack Kornfield

Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo

Sylvia Boorstein

Thich Nhat Hanh

Noah Levine

Blanche Hartman

John Daishin Buksbazen

James Ishmael Ford

Lewis Richmond

John Tarrant

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

John Powers

Pema Chdrn

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama

Judy Lief

Pema Chdrn

Chkyi Nyima Rinpoche

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Larry Rosenberg

Karen Maezen Miller

Gaylon Ferguson

Cyndi Lee and David Nichtern

Andy Karr

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Carolyn Rose Gimian

Pema Chdrn

I wish to thank so many people for the inspiration and guidancedirect and indirectthat made the honor of working on this book possible for me.

Thank you to Beth Frankl, my editor at Shambhala Publications, and to Melvin McLeod, Andrea Miller, Jim Gimian, Andy Karr, and all my colleagues at the Shambhala Sun Foundation.

Thank you to John Golebiewski and Oliver Glosband at Shambhala Publications for all their assistance. Thanks also to Tracy Davis for her copy editing and to Liza Matthews and Andr Slob for their cover work.

Thanks to all the fantastic teachers whose essays are collected in this book.

Thank you, James Ishmael Ford, Larry Rosenberg, Barry Boyce, Josh Bartok, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Maddy Klyne, and Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche. Thanks too to those whove come into my life one way or another (some, over the Internet!) who, while not formal dharma teachers, have been inspiring if only by example.

This book is dedicated to all beings, not least of all dogs and worst horses, those among us who feel we have a long, long way to go when it comes to the meditators path.

Lastly, thanks to Maura Meade Sperry, for your loving, good heart. You are the best.

Welcome to A Beginners Guide to Meditation. This is not an advanced meditation book, nor is it a complete, definitive presentation of all the possible approaches to Buddhist meditation. Such a thing might not be possible in a hundred books, let alone one. Instead, what this book is meant to be is sufficient, meaning that these writings by eminent contemporary Buddhist teachers should be more than enough to get you started meditating with regularity and confidence. What youll find here is meant to help you to get clearer about meditationeven excited about itwithout becoming overwhelmed.

Many books on Buddhist meditation focus on a particular school, approach, or technique. A Beginners Guide to Meditation keeps in mind that there are so many different practices under the rubric of Buddhist meditation because there are so many kinds of people. What might work best for one person might not work well for another. My hope is that the sampling of teachings gathered here will help you find an approach that works for you.

If youre just getting started, it might be helpful to reflect on the reasons people want to meditate. Meditation is, of course, a timetested method for reducing anxiety and coming to terms with the short- and long-term mental afflictions that we all face. Ultimately, though, theres more to get from it than just an increased sense of calm. The more you stick with the practice, the more you stand to gain insight into what makes you tick and find more cohesion and connection with the people in your life, too. A meditation practice can help you in a number of ways:

slow down and break patterns of obsessive or compulsive behavior

connect more with loved ones and be more present with others in general

come to terms with loss, addiction, and ill health

foster better health and body awareness

create a foundation for further investigation into Buddhist concepts

Part 1, Lets Get Started, presents the practice in its simplest form so that you can see from the beginning that meditation is entirely doable and really not anything extraordinary. From there, youll get advice and guidance to help you start your practice off right.