Customer Reviews

Beginner's Mind: Three Classic Meditation Practices Especially for Beginners

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It looks like this item may be out of print now (I got mine from the library), but if you are interested in meditation, it is a great deal to snap up while used copies are available at an even better price. The information is well-presented and thorough, and the authors are easy to listen to. If you are like me, the quality of the voice on an audiotape can really affect your experience, especially when listening to meditation sessions repeatedly. The two guys, Shinzen Young and Jack Kornfield, speak rather slowly and might irk some, but for me the overall impression was gentle and clear, not too irritating. I found Ms. Salzberg's voice very pleasant and conversational. As of this date, it looks like all three of these individual audiocassettes/CDs are still available individually on Amazon, and you can also hear sound samples of the authors (in some cases, the same work) at the Sounds True website.

Jack Kornfield gives a good introduction/explanation in Meditation for Beginners and leads some meditation that I could use repeatedly. His is a good introduction to meditation for people who are fairly new to it, as advertised. As noted above, he speaks fairly slowly. He sounds just a bit like the late Mr. Rogers of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, with the same air of gentleness and good humor.

I have only used the Shinzen Young tape, Meditation in the Zone, once so far, and I actually felt more energy working out while listening to the first tape, with its inspiring explanation/introduction, than when using the second tape meditations while working out, but I expect I would get used to the techniques. They are similar to those Shinzen Young uses to address pain in his Break Through Pain audiobook/CD/book, and I have found these techniques helpful for pain. One of the parts I liked best was his description of the incredible endurance achieved by Native American Sun Dancers, who are able to dance for days. I have sometimes noticed at parties that I can dance for hours without feeling tired at all, so I can easily believe in the Zone as an attainable state.

I particularly liked Sharon Salzburg's introduction to metta practice, Lovingkindness Meditation. This is more of an education/explanation of metta than guided meditation sessions (i.e., she does not have long, substantive, discrete meditation sessions, but works brief examples into her explanation), but I found the explanation so good that it provided an excellent intro to metta, which I subsequently felt like I could practice on my own. Ms. Salzburg's presentation is detailed, conversational in style, and easily accessible to Westerners without seeming like a simplification, sentimentalization, or co-opting of the original practice. Her examples and stories given along the way make metta seem doable and practical, not like some overly idealized level of compassion that is impossible for many of us to reach. Highly recommended.

In addition to the three complete sessions listed, this set also includes a sampler called In Their Own Words (at least on my edition) with excerpts of other Sounds True authors, giving enough of a selection to give you an idea of whether you'd like this person's work. The authors included are: John O'Donohue; Marion Woodman; Stephen Levine; Thich Nhat Hanh; Julia Cameron; Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.; Ken Cohen; Rabbi David Cooper; Andrew Harvey; Caroline Myss; Jack Kornfield; and Pema Chodron. And again, the Sounds True website has sound samples available for many of their authors' CDs and cassettes--something Amazon should really be doing too.

This was my first audio tape on meditation, and I find it to be a very good introduction and have come back to it every now and then. This audio tape set contains three different talks by three different authors, who all have been long time practioners and teachers of the art of meditation. Each author presents a combination of lectures and guided meditations.

1. Meditation for Beginners - Jack Kornfield. This is a wonderful introduction to meditation, which covers sitting postures, and combines the breathing and bodyscan techniques. I highly recommend this as the first lecture on meditation. I also saw Jack Kornfield's lecture on videotape. He's one of my favorite meditation teachers.

2. Loving Kindness (Metta) Meditation - Sharon Salzberg. I didn't fully appreciate this the first time around, but Metta is a very good meditation for healing. After listening to other tapes on Metta, I developed a greater appreciation for it, and enjoyed the lecture by Ms. Salzberg more the second time around. "Love thy enemy" is a very difficult concept to absorb :-)

3. Meditation in the Zone - Shinzen Young. This is a great approach to killing two birds with one stone: "Get your physical exercise and your mental/spiritual exercise at the same time." I love this the very first time around because it's hard to find time to do both every day. I use the guided meditation part of the tape frequently while jogging on the trail or on the treadmill.

Overall, I found this audio tape set to be a great value ($20 from Amazon). I only complaint is that it's not available in CD audio form in this combination. For more money, you can buy the individual CDs for the talks by Jack Kornfield and Shinzen Young. Because I often listen to the guided meditations periodically, the CDs are much more convenient to use.