Meditation for Dummies

Has changed my life! I love these books! And I really like this one because I am very familiar with Mindfulness as I have done DBT therapy which is very much based off of mindfulness. So I could go to the parts I needed to do like how to sit and what to do. I then could skip to the other parts that interested me at the moment. Like loving kindness and other topics. I just loved the fact that you can get everything you need to meditate out of this book and then you get a great link to the website and app by the same people. Mental Workout - and that app comes with a bunch of free exercises, but when you get the paid parts, you get even more out of it. The best part is this book helps so much with the the app. But you don't need the app. The CD is helpful too. I just like the app because I can use it on the go.This book answers all the questions I ever had about meditation and it goes deeper into it. And you don't have to be intense if you don't want to be or you can be. The guy knows what he is talking about. He is not only an expert in meditation he is also a therapist. There is a section on spirituality, but that is a totally separate part of the book, which I like.This is for the 5 minutes a day to the 90 minute or more a day person. It goes into all the different types of meditation - if you want to. You don't have to go there and you don't miss out. If he mentions something that was in previous chapters, he mentions where to go read about it if you're curious, but you don't have to go read it to get what he is talking about in what you are reading at the time.

This book has way too much information for a book that is meant to be a quick reference guide with simple and accessible tips. You will get the whole history of meditation. The author is trying to put meditation in a really comprehensive context. This book does contain helpful tips and techniques, but you need to get through a lot of text to extract them. I just couldn't digest this book. It reads more like a comprehensive overview of meditation history and techniques rather than a guide to meditation. You don't need to know all of this to be able to practice meditation (and the practice of meditation is really not that complicated), so if you do get this book, don't feel that you need to read it before you can start meditating. You might enjoy knowing some background on the history and techniques (or maybe learning few new techniques), but you can still meditate without knowing all of this.

I have never meditated, but thought I'd give it a try to help with a little insomnia... try to shut down my over-active mind before bedtime. This book is insightful. The author really understands the problems for which he believes meditation could be a solution. If he's right, I could solve a lot more problems than just the insomnia! He provides very simple approaches to get started. He provides just the right amount of background, and enough "acceleration" to send you past the "beginner" stage - if you want to get deeper, you have a solid foundation.While meditation is rooted in spirituality, you don't need to change your dogma and move to Tibet to do it - and unlike a lot of other books on the subject which drown you in theology - and a lot of, quite frankly, mumbo-jumbo, from chapter 1, this book allows you to get started right away with simple stress-relievers and "mind quieters" - while exposing you to the truly "transendental" potential. You decide your level of involvement. (Like Project Mayhem.)I think it's a great book.

This book can help essentially anyone who wants to learn what meditation is, why it’s valuable and how to do it. Author Stephan Bodian draws on his 40 years of experience practicing and teaching meditation, and he includes plenty of insights from world leaders on the subject: Dean Ornish, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Stephen Levine, Jack Kornfield, the Dalai Lama and lots of swamis with long names. He writes in a friendly, down-to-earth style that’s also true to the “Dummies Book” approach of elaborating on practically every point before moving ahead.Writing a broad-based primer on meditation is no easy trick. Meditation has incredible spiritual significance but also huge value for secular folks looking for physical and psychological healing. Bodian plays to both audiences well, providing mystical messages under light-hearted “Spiritual Stuff” headings, while explaining many scientific studies for left-brained readers.Another advantage of Bodian’s approach is that he clearly separates definition from dogma. Page one states up-front that the basics of meditation are simple and few, and he highlights them before page 2. The rest of the book is a set of refinements, background, commentary and step-by-step explanations of various different meditations. I certainly would have benefited from this perspective years ago, as my first meditation teacher was much more focused on a particular technique.For me, one of the most important points of the book is that happiness is our natural state, and meditation helps remove the negative thoughts that lead us astray. (Hopefully we're centered enough to place a high value on happiness!) I also like how the book compares meditation to surfing, saying that both require a “constantly shifting balance of yang and yin, driving and following, effort and effortlessness.”For a future edition I’d suggest including various first-person accounts of experiences in meditation. So many people are shy to ask others about their meditation experiences, and they’re equally reluctant to mention their own. But when I hear about the breadth and depth of actual meditation experiences, I’m inspired.

I hope it would brake meditation down in to small ez to follow tips on how. It tell a lot of different thing you can do after you start to meditate but the section on how is vary short. Not imperative at all.

M4D is the best book on meditation I have read. It is simply and clearly written, and very well structured. It provides background, research results and describes the various things meditation is seeking to achieve, from the 'lowly' ability to focus attention, through relaxing, dealing with stress, gaining insight into the way one's mind has been conditioned, cultivating compassion, to the 'lofty' goal of spiritual Oneness. He even shows how you can use it to develop skill levels. In an undogmatic and good humoured way, SB shows how one can disembark at any of these 'destinations' and still benefit from meditation. He provides many examples of different types of meditation to serve different tastes and different purposes as well as detailing a comprehensive list of resources (books, organisations) to assist one on the journey. If all Dummies books are this good, I'm a convert.

Received promptly and packaged well. Excellent service. Written very clearly and the CD is particularly useful - guided meditations CD. Anyone interested in this topic I highly recommend this book.

Excellent read, straight to the point with very little unpronounceable word usage.Does not focus on any religion or spiritual practise but gets straight down to the bones of the issue.I have found it both an interesting read and very useful for getting me started along the way.My thanks to the author.

Comprehensive guide in plain easy to understand language to the many forms of meditation andits benefits

I found this book very informative from the point of view of a complete novice. It is always important to keep the reader interested and this does just that.