Article 885 of alt.meditation:
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From: dyates@panix.com (Don Yates)
Newsgroups: alt.meditation
Subject: Re: books on meditation ?
Date: 22 Oct 1993 20:05:09 -0400
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC
Lines: 32
Message-ID: <2a9sfl$cd@panix.com>
References: <750887986@romeo.cs.duke.edu>
Keywords: meditation, learning, books

The best book Ive seen recently is "Mindfulness in Plain English" by
Venerable Henepola Gunaratana (pub: Wisdom Publications, Boston).

It really is what it says -- a friend went back to meditating after nearly
wenty years away from it;  another friend who reads a lot in this area was
very taken by it.  The method is called "Vipassana" (Insight) meditation
and uses no visualizing and no chanting;  you use your breath as your
anchor (and then expand attention to sensation, emotion and thought,
always keeping in the now).  He talks about eating and walking meditation
as well.  (I have had some success doing it on the subway in the morning
on the way to work.)

There is a strong tradition that spiritual teachers do not charge us for
their teachings or healings -- they live on the gifts (dana, in Sanskrit)
that grateful students give them freely and proportionate to the value of
the teaching and the capacity of the student to pay.  (A retreat I
attended charged only for food and housing;  the teachers accepted
whatever the students put in the box at the end.  This is how it should
be, and if I encountered a teacher charging up front I would continue
looking.

Native American medicine people have the same system -- no Native healer
will charge a price for healings, vision quests, etc.;  it is considered
highly suspect.

Do you need a teacher?  Probably, at some point.  But books like
Gunaratana's will give you some pretty challenging prep work before you
start with a master.  Probbly enough for this life for most of us!

Metta,

D

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