***How to Meditate Has Been Named One of Library Journal’s Best Books of 2013***

Pema Chodron is treasured around the world for her unique ability to transmit teachings and practices that bring peace, understanding, and compassion into our lives. With How to Meditate, the American-born Tibetan nun presents her first book exploring in depth what she considers the essentials for a lifelong practice.

When we look for a meditation teacher, we want someone who has an intimate knowledge of the path. That's why so many have turned to Pema Chödrön, whose gentle yet straightforward guidance has been a lifesaver for both first-time and experienced meditators. With How to Meditate, the American-born Tibetan Buddhist nun presents her first book that explores in-depth what she considers the essentials for an evolving practice that helps you live in a wholehearted way.

More and more people are beginning to recognize a profound inner longing for authenticity, connection, compassion, and aliveness. Meditation, Pema explains, gives us a golden key to address this yearning. This comprehensive guide shows readers how to honestly meet and openly relate with the mind to embrace the fullness of our experience as we discover:

• The basics of meditation, from getting settled and the six points of posture to working with your breath and cultivating an attitude of unconditional friendliness
• The Seven Delights-how moments of diffi culty can become doorways to awakening and love
• Shamatha (or calm abiding), the art of stabilizing the mind to remain present with whatever arises
• Thoughts and emotions as "sheer delight"-instead of obstacles-in meditation

Here is in indispensable book from the meditation teacher who remains a first choice for students the world over.

Part One: The Technique of Meditation

1. Preparing for Practice and Making the Commitment

2. Stabilizing the Mind

3. The Six Points of Posture

4. Breath: The Practice of Letting Go

5. Attitude: Keep Coming Back

6. Unconditional Friendliness

7. You Are Your Own Meditation Instructor

Part Two: Working With Thoughts

8. The Monkey Mind

9. The Three Levels of Discursive Thought

10. Thoughts as the Object of Meditation

11. Regard All Dharmas as Dreams

Part Three: Working With Emotions

12. Becoming Intimate with Our Emotions

13. The Space within the Emotion

14. Emotions as the Object of Meditation

15. Getting Our Hands Dirty

16. Hold the Experience

17. Breaking with the Emotion

18. Drop the Story and Find the Feeling

Part Four: Working with Sense Perception

19. The Sense Perceptions

20. The Interconnection of All Perceptions

Part Five: Opening Your Heart to Include Everything

21. Giving Up the Struggle

22. The Seven Delights

23. The Bearable Lightness of Being

24. Beliefs

25. Relaxing with Groundlessness

26. Create a Circle of Practitioners

27. Cultivate a Sense of Wonder

28. The Way of the Bodhisattva

Excerpt

The mind is very wild. The human experience is full of unpredictability and paradox, joys and sorrows, successes and failures.

In this book Pema Chödrön shows us how to break free of destructive patterns in our lives and experience a new sense of freedom and happiness. Drawing on the Buddhist concept of shenpa, she helps us to see how certain habits of mind tend to “hook” us and get us stuck in states of anger, blame, self-hatred, and addiction. The good news is that once we start to see these patterns, we can begin to change our lives for the better.

The key is learning a new way of facing the inevitable difficulties and insecurities of our daily lives: we must learn how to stay present and open our hearts. “This path entails uncovering three basic human qualities,” explains Pema. “These qualities have always been with us but perhaps have gotten buried and almost forgotten. They are natural intelligence, natural warmth, and natural openness. Everyone, everywhere, all over the globe, has these qualities and can call on them to help themselves and others."

This book gives us the insights and practices we can immediately put to use in our lives to awaken these essential qualities. In her friendly and encouraging style, Pema Chödrön helps us to take a bold leap toward a new way of living—one that will bring about positive transformation for ourselves and for our troubled world.