Lunchtime Enlightenment: Modern Meditations to Free the Mind and Unleash the Spirit - at Work, at Home, at Play [Hardcover]

Pragito Dove (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 17, 2001

Demystifying the practice of meditation, Pragito Dove presents an enjoyable and uncomplicated way to find relief from our busy, overstressed daily lives. Adapting ancient traditions-both Eastern and Western-into a modern and accessible approach, Dove explains how to bring awareness to our everyday actions by meditating while eating, working, laughing, humming, or just standing still. She uses practical, down-to- earth strategies, simple reminders, and flexible plans to help everyone- from beginners to advanced meditators-develop an individualized practice that includes relaxing, practicing nonjudgment, developing patience, discovering trust, and opening up to love and compassion.

"I highly recommend this extraordinary book." (Margot Anand, author of The Art of Everyday Ecstasy)

"A reminder that spiritual practice can be a natural, spontaneous part of everyday life. Pragito Dove is a wise, gentle guide." (Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Healing Words and Reinventing Medicine)

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

We need meditation now more than ever, according to Pragito Dove in Lunchtime Enlightenment. Dove, who has 20 years of experience in stress management and mediation counseling in the San Francisco area, believes that "Meditation can give us the inner anchor, a touchstone of sanity in an increasingly crazy world." As modern-day life becomes intensely scheduled and busy, meditation is a sure-fire way to find "the serenity and joy we seek," says Dove. Her teaching skills are evident in her easy-to-follow meditation instructions. Some meditations involve sitting (no worries--she discusses comfortable postures) and take more than an hour. Others take less than five minutes, and all can be done at just about any time of day. The resounding message is that meditation can easily be incorporated into daily life, whether it is a workplace, backyard, bustling airport, or bedroom. Simply "eating with awareness" or "sitting beneath a tree" can lead to lunchtime calm, if not enlightenment. Dove even shows readers how to meditate while dancing, running, jogging, or working out at the gym. While Dove's spiritual wisdom shines in the later chapters--as she demonstrates how mediation creates more trust, forgiveness, faith, and compassion--you never feel as though Dove has a mystical or religious agenda. More than anything else, this excellent book (with a deceptively gimmicky title) helps us slow our minds down, so life stops passing us by. --Gail Hudson

From Library Journal

Dove, a consultant and trainer in stress management and meditation, has written an interesting and useful treatise on how to introduce meditation and its benefits to busy contemporary lives. She suggests a wide range of techniques, including silence, solitude, movement, and stillness. Her techniques have proved popular in practice with corporations and the general public, and there is good reason to think that her book will find a grateful audience as well. For most collections.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (May 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670894575
• ISBN-13: 978-0670894574
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,737,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Manic Meditation, June 18, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Lunchtime Enlightenment: Modern Meditations to Free the Mind and Unleash the Spirit - at Work, at Home, at Play (Hardcover)

From the title and cover image, this book looks like it might contain useful and enlightening tips on making room for meditation during an active work day. And it does--for about four pages in the middle of the book. Otherwise, it's chock-full of esoteric practices like the laughing meditation (Sit on the floor and force yourself to laugh for an hour--who has time for that?). Dove's introduction is more telling than she realizes. As a freelance consultant, she has plenty of time to roll on the floor in forced hysterics. While I appreciated the mid-day mindfulness exercises and the gently encouraging tone in which they're written, there's little else of value here for the on-the-go professionals that are the book's target.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Breath of Fresh Air, October 22, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Lunchtime Enlightenment: Modern Meditations to Free the Mind and Unleash the Spirit - at Work, at Home, at Play (Hardcover)

Pragito Dove's book Lunchtime Enlightenment truly is a breath of fresh air. Her meditation suggestions involve breath, the body, movement, laughter, celebration, being in touch with the moment, and being in the heart. Her suggestions are practical and down to earth, but , in my experience,they are also personally tranformative. Everything she talks about is good medicine for troubled times.I highly recommend this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Warm, informative, practical, December 2, 2003

By 

Molly "Master Certified Coach and Bad Princess" (SUQUAMISH, WA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lunchtime Enlightenment: Modern Meditations to Free the Mind and Unleash the Spirit - at Work, at Home, at Play (Hardcover)

I receive numerous requests to review books and audio products in The New Leaf, and I am always grateful for the opportunity to learn something new that may also be of value to readers. Often, books languish in the "to read" stacks that decorate my office. Sometimes one calls to me.

So it was with Pragito Dove's welcome book, Lunchtime Enlightenment. And once I had started the Introduction, I was hooked.

In clear, conversational tones, Dove tells exactly why meditation is not only practical but possible without denaturing it or reducing it to a mechanical recipe for climbing another step on the ladder of serial self improvement. (I don't know about you, but I get tired of that damn ladder!)

One caution. dove begins her introduction by describing a day in which she spends more than two hours in various meditative practices. My first reaction was, "Right. I'll be doing that in my next lifetime." Fortunately, I kept reading and learned that this was by no means the rule in her life nor was it the message in her book. Like most of us, there are many days on which she uses practices of just a few minutes duration. Her message is emphatically not that you need to give up your life in order to meditate, but rather that you can use mediation as a living resource - one that can take different forms for different functions and in different circumstances, informing your life rather than replacing it.

I look forward to reading the rest of the book and learning many of the techniques in it. Congratulations, Pragito, on a job well done.