Customer Reviews

Meditation-The Complete Guide

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This is a great book. Brand new on the market, and just what's needed. It gives a great overview of meditation, and doesn't force you to think there's only ONE way of meditating (which there isn't). I saw an advance copy of this book, and just loved it. Will DEFINITELY recommend it to my customers, and I'm proud to have it on my shelves.

This book would be good for someone who is curious about meditation and confused about all the different things they hear. there is a quiz to determine what KIND of meditator you are that I think would be relieving for people who have scary thoughts about meditation.
It covers trance dancing, drumming, shamanic journeying, yoga asanas and yoga breathing, mantras to show you meditation need not be boring ! But it also covers gardening, crafts,nature , walking meditations, creative visualizations.
Also covers Prayer, Taoism, Buddhism, Zen, tantrism and Islam meditations.

So things that a beginner would not think of as a type of meditation can see that there are lots of ways to meditate !!!

MUST for someone who says "But I can't meditate ! "

I was quite pleased with this book until I got to the section on Islam. I happen to a have PhD on the subject but the mistakes in that section should be obvious to most anyone.

The book says Islam spread by the sword thanks to great Arab commanders... Hah! Can you imagine a bunch of Bedouins on camels conquering the whole of Asia from Turkey to Indonesia and so much of Africa within a generation or two? Any historian would tell you this is pure hogwash. "Islam spread by the sword" is a myth left over from the European Middle Ages and it refuses to die.

In contrast, there is no mention of the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, or the Conquistadors on the section on Christianity.

The book says women are not allowed into "Islam's holiest place"? I imagine the authors mean Kaaba in Mecca, where men and women pray side by side. So... um, again, not true. I checked the bibliography at the end. Where is this "information" coming from?

My point is not to write an apologia for the bloody history of any organized religion -- all thought systems are guilty of not standing by their best tenets again and again. (The world's longest civil war took place in Buddhist Sri Lanka, remember?) But such blatant misinformation really made me wonder... what else is hogwash in this book?

I do hope the authors re-write the Islam section and consult a scholar as they do. This section really damages a book I greatly enjoyed otherwise. The chapter on yoga, for example, is stellar.

When some hear the word meditation different things come to mind. For me I have had my belief and understanding of what mediation is refined and clarified. In the book MEDITATION by Patricia Monaghan and Eleanor Viereck we are given a look at the true definition of what meditation is and how there is literally some form of it for everyone. What I really appreciated about the book was the way it made it something that everyone of us have access to instead of something that is limited to a certain group of people.

By taking us around the world and looking at how meditation is used in the lives of our human counterparts in various areas, we are able to see that there are truly more things that we have in common than what we might think separates us. I understand better now that meditation is really our way of zeroing in on what is important and appreciating the gift of the now. It's easy to let our minds wonder and worry about the things going on around us, but the authors of MEDITATION show that people around the world are learning how they can enjoy a much better and longer life by taking the time to see the world for what it is right now and understanding our role in it.

Authors Patricia Monaghan and Eleanor Viereck have given readers a complete look at what meditation is and isn't in their new book---and we are better off because of it.

This review originally appeared on The Magical Buffet website on 12/11/11.

I know it will sound like the start of some sort of silly advertisement, but when I first pulled my copy of "Meditation: The Complete Guide" out of the envelope from New World Library I found myself thinking, "Complete guide? We'll see about that." Well consider me soundly put in my place because Patricia Monaghan and Eleanor G. Viereck couldn't have created a more complete resource without shipping actual living meditation instructors to your home. Honestly, the thoroughness of their book would border on ridiculous if it didn't create such an amazing resource.

"Meditation: The Complete Guide" begins with an introductory section that discusses meditation in general, why people practice meditation, what kind of meditation practice might work best for you, and more. For those who may be curious, following the suggestions in this section of the book, my top types of meditation practice would be biofeedback and/or Qigong followed closely by Yoga and/or Tai Chi.

The rest is divided into 10 parts and you just won't believe everything to be found: trance dancing, drumming, ritual body postures, Yoga Asanas, Yoga breathing, Yoga meditation, Mantra, Yantra, Vipassana, loving-kindness, Zazen, Zen in action, Haiku, brush painting, Tai Chi, Qigong, the Mussar Movement, Hitbodedut, contemplative prayer, Hesychasm, Taize singing, Quaker worship, Sufi breathing, Sufi dancing, candle meditation, inspirational reading, free-form meditation groups, labyrinth walking, prayer beads, biofeedback, sketching from nature, needle crafts, journaling, dialogues with self, visualization, sports as meditation, gardening, pilgrimage, and nature. Whew! My fingers are exhausted! And each of these things includes a checklist for practice and resources specific to the type of meditation being discussed.

I would imagine whether a beginner, or someone with an established practice they enjoy, anyone with an interest in meditation would find "Meditation: The Complete Guide" a valuable resource.

You can tell that this book was written by two mediative and peaceful women. This guide really is complete- everything from Shamanism to gardening. For a beginner to a more experienced spiritual person, this book is wonderful.