Customer Reviews

How to Meditate: A Guide to Self-Discovery

5 star:		(23)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this book in order to have a basic yet comprehensive guide to mediation. I had dabbled a little in the practice over the years and knew the basic breath-counting/mantra technique. But I was looking for additional guidance, having already picked up (and discarded) the "Idiot's Guide to Meditation." For me, that book and others like it spend too much time on details of chakras, postures, and energies. I wanted something broader, something that concentrated on the internal, spiritual aspects of meditation rather than on the specifics of different traditions. All religions have their own schools of meditation, and I wanted commonalities, not New Age cliches. I found what I wanted it in this book.

Leshan, a trained psychotherapist, and researcher presents a concise, comforting, and comprehensive guide to the subject. He's very eclectic in his approach--his sources include Christian mystics, Zen Buddhists, and Hindu yogis. He points out what they all have in common, takes what's useful from each traditiona, and distills them into something that's workable for a beginner. He dispels many of the myths that surround meditation-as-fad in our society and stresses the role of individual discipline. He suggests the general outlines of programs, but leaves the actual choices up to you.

The only problem that I had with this book is probably related to its original date of publication--1973. Back then, meditation was still a "way-out" hippie practice that most people looked upon with suspicion. As a result, Leshan goes to considerable lengths to justify the practice for skeptical Westerners. He does a good job with this, but nowadays those parts of his book are less necessary. Nonetheless, this book retains its value as a classic guide to meditation. For me, at least, it's a keeper.

Although Lawrence LeShan has degrees from three universities, he writes with a simple, completely straightforward style. The first section is on the benefits of meditation. And the next section describes how to do four different kinds of meditations.

If you are interested in meditation and you want the author to get right down to business, this is your book. LeShan says what he has to say in 137 pages. I'm the author of the book, Self-Help Stuff That Works, and I'm an expert on what works and what doesn't. Meditation works, and LeShan's instructions are effective and practical. I highly recommend this book.

LeShan wrote How to Meditate years before the hundreds of popular books presenting easier, more simplistic approaches to meditation. And being a scientist himself, LeShan was compelled to stick to a more clinical, validated -- and thorough -- approach. How to Meditate is an excellent volume for those who've been meditating for a period of time and are interested in expanding into different forms of meditation. LeShan provides sufficient background and helpful lessons for each form. Take note that his approach is not touchy-feely and his writing is borderline austere. This is a slim, but informative book you can refer back to year after year.

I wanted to begin practicing meditation again after some years of absence, and wanted a different approach than the Transcendental Meditation I learned in college. I stumbled onto this little book, and it has been absolutely wonderful. It's an overview, and they'll tell you it's just for beginners, but a year later, and probably 10 more "sophisticated" books later, and a lot of time spent meditating, I find myself coming back to LeShan time and time again. He drifts a bit into speculation about the paranormal, but for the most part his teaching is direct, simple, applicable and inspiring. If I was forced to choose only one meditation book from my shelf, this "basic" and wonderful book would probably be the one.

I stumbled across this little book in the 1970's and have been recommending and sending it to friends, relatives, and acquaintances ever since. It is what it is: an introduction to meditation for beginners and the curious. It is simple, straight-forward, practical, unpretentious, and easy to read and comprehend. Therefore, it is the perfect starter book. It offers an introduction to a variety of meditative techniques but, rather than advocating any of them, urges readers to experiment with the different techniques until what is most comfortable and/or productive for them. After reading it and determining a favored technique, the reader can move on to something heavier. One of the things I have always liked about LeShan is the fact that, in this book, he acknowledges some of the more (potentially) startling by-products or side-effects of meditation but does not emphasize them. This may be a disadvantage as well as an advantage, but this is an introduction to some meditative techniques, not an encyclopedia of meditative practices.

Anyone interested in exploring meditation should have this book and give it a try. Since it was written there has been considerable research into the benefits of anti-stress practices. The medical community is beginning to catch onto the non-intrusive, non-addictive, non-injurious benefits of meditation as an antidote to stress. Perhaps you should, too. With this book and some practice you can learn to take a chill instead of a pill. And if it does not offer enough for you, at least it provides some direction to finding out what will be.

Read the book. Practice the techniques for a month or two. The benefits from the breathing exercises alone, if you honestly and consistently apply them, will lead you to extoll the virtues of this little, big book that is still influential more than twenty-five years after it was first published.

Because I have been recommending HOW TO MEDITATE for many years, it seems appropriate to add it to my reviews on amazon.com. This little book is packed with great advice on meditating, including a variety of techniques, suggestions for overcoming difficulties with them, and background information to meditation in general.

So many books have been written on meditation since LeShan first published this book in 1974 and this is still the best one I've seen to date. No need to pay for a mantra, get sophisticated instruction, or subject yourself to a guru. Settle into silence and yourself with these instructions and discover which one works best for you.

~~Joan Mazza, author of DREAM BACK YOUR LIFE; DREAMING YOUR REAL SELF; WHO'S CRAZY ANYWAY; FROM DREAMS TO DISCOVERY; THINGS THAT TICK ME OFF; and EXPLORING YOUR SEXUAL SELF (May 2001) in The Guided Journal Series.

I found this book recently when I started my search for a how to meditate book. I am surprised this book has not hit the best sellers lists. You are introduced to all different types of meditations with suggestions on which might be best for you, and step-by-step how-to's. It is an excellent book, that seems to be ahead of its time when it comes to spiritual healing and how to make it in this stress-filled world. I STRONGLY recommend this book to anyone who would like to get an overview of the different types of meditation, and learn how to do the type(s) that appeal to them. Does anyone know how to contact Lawrence Leshan? Please let me know

This is a simple and deceptively sophisticated book on meidtation well suited to the Western reader. Dr. LeShan de-mystifies meditation and makes it accessable to everyone. He gives a clear description of the techniques of several different types of meditation, and tells you how to decide which is the best one for you. His discussion of the pitfalls and poorly qualified gurus hits a home run

If you are initiating yourself in meditation, I think this is a great book for you. It teaches you how to do it, its effects, etc. I found the chapter "Integration of Psychotherapy and Meditation" very interesting, and the breathing meditations very helpful and relaxing.

'How to Meditate' was fun to read giving a easy to digest overview of how one goes about meditating. I felt the book to be a bit short on why one would meditate and a little over zealous on the mystical (and even paranormal) side of meditation. And this despite his repeated insistence that a student not become side tracked when encountering such phenomenon.

I personally feel that I would like to read a bit more about personal experiences with meditation. The book isn't very long and the quantity of useful information is even shorter. But the book does serve to motivate the reader to begin her quest of 'self-discovery' and then goes on to give him the tools.