Meditation for Beginners

Have you ever thought about trying meditation, but didn’t know how to get started? With Meditation for Beginners, trusted teacher Jack Kornfield shows you how simple it is to start–and stick with–a daily meditation practice.

“Insight” or vipassana meditation is the time-honored skill of calming the spirit and clearing the mind for higher understanding. Now, in this course created especially for beginners, Kornfield offers a straightforward, step-by-step method for bringing meditation into your life.

Using the meditations included in this book, you will discover how easy it is to use your breath, physical sensations–and even difficult emotions–to create tranquility and lovingkindness in your everyday life. These simple, elegant practices are so easy to learn that you will begin enjoying the benefits immediately–while laying the foundation for a lifetime of inner discovery and awakening.

“With humor and insight, Jack Kornfield patiently explains the Buddhist way to bring deep spirituality into your everyday life.”
–TRICYCLE magazine

Table of Contents:

Chapter One: The Ancient Art of Meditation
Chapter Two: Why Meditate?
Chapter Three: The Benefits of Meditation Practice
Chapter Four: Meditation 1: Connecting with the Breath
Chapter Five: Meditation 2: Working With Sensations in the Body
Chapter Six: Meditation 3: Working With Feelings and Emotion
Chapter Seven: Meditation 4: Witnessing Your Thoughts
Chapter Eight: Meditation 5: Forgiveness Meditation
Chapter Nine: Meditation 6: Loving Kindness Meditation
Chapter Ten: Meditation 7: An Eating Meditation
Chapter Eleven: Meditation 8: A Walking Meditation
Chapter Twelve: Meditation and Social Responsibility
Chapter Thirteen: How to Cultivate a Daily Meditation Practice

Excerpt:

Meditation for Beginners offers the central trainings and teachings found in the best Buddhist monasteries translated for Western society. In Meditation for Beginnings, you will find some of the simplest and most universal of the practices of meditation–in particular, the practices of mindfulness and lovingkindness.

The point of these teachings has nothing to do with becoming a Buddhist, or learning any Eastern ceremonies or rituals or bowing. The point is that you learn how to work with meditation in order to find benefits from it in your life. When we take time to quiet ourselves, we can all sense that our lives could be lived with greater compassion and greater wakefulness. To meditate is to support this inner potential and allow it to come forth into our lives.