Book Review: How to Meditate

How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with your Mind

Pema Chödrön

Tags: Transitions, Tools for Transitions

Book Cover Summary: Pema Chödrön is treasured around the world for her unique ability to transmit teachings and practices that bring peace, understanding, and compassion into our lives. With How to Meditate, the American-born Tibetan Buddhist nun presents her first book exploring in depth what she considers the essentials for a lifelong practice. More and more people are beginning to recognize a profound inner longing for authenticity, connection, and aliveness. Meditation, Pema explains, gives us a golden key to address this yearning. This step-by-step guide shows readers how to honestly meet and openly relate with the mind, embrace the fullness of our experience, and live in a wholehearted way as we discover: - The basics of meditation, from getting settled and the six points of posture to working with your breath and cultivating an attitude of unconditional friendliness - The Seven Delights―how moments of difficulty can become doorways to awakening and love - Shamatha (or calm abiding), the art of stabilizing the mind to remain present with whatever arises - Thoughts and emotions as “sheer delight”―instead of obstacles―in meditation “I think ultimately why we practice is so that we can become completely loving people, and this is what the world needs,” writes Pema Chödrön. How to Meditate is an essential book from this wise teacher to assist each one of us in this virtuous goal.

Reinventurer's Review: I have tried meditation several times in my life with no success. I believe it is because I was doing so to eliminate “suffering” in my mind. Low and behold, that’s not what meditation is all about. The purpose of meditation, writes Pema Chödrön, is to stay with ourselves without labels and in compassionate openness. In other words, pain and pleasure are a part of life we cannot avoid or eliminate. The root of suffering and happiness is the mind.

I believe another reason I failed at meditation before is my monkey mind. Being present and staying in the moment is not one of my fortes, and you must be “in the moment” to be fully “awake” in meditation. What I like about Chödrön is that she gets it. She continually writes about being gentle, patient, and keeping a sense of humor as you learn to meditate. She also calls it a “practice” because even a Buddhist nun has thoughts during her meditation practice that are “like the weather—‘just passing through’”.

This book is for anyone who would truly like to get a grip on their wandering mind and the emotions attached to the stories we create in our heads. Sleep comes easier. Anxiety dissipates quicker. And each day I find myself lingering just a little bit longer in the moment than I ever have before.

Questions to Ponder and Discuss:

What points about the technique of meditation did you find foreign to you? Which points resonated with you and which points seemed counter to your lifestyle or just counterintuitive?

What did you learn about your mind and thoughts in Part Two?

What changes have you experienced with your emotions and what techniques do you think are responsible for that change?

What was your experience working with sense perceptions during meditation?

In what ways has meditation begun to open your heart to include everything?