Unlearning Meditation What to Do When the Instructions Get In the Way

by Siff, Jason

• ISBN13: 9781590307526
• ISBN10: 1590307526
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-07-06
• Publisher: Shambhala

Summary

When we meditate, our minds often want to do something other than the meditation instructions we've been taught. When that happens repeatedly, we may feel frustrated to the point of abandoning meditation altogether. Jason Siff invites us to approach meditation in a new way, one that honors the part of us that doesn't want to do the instructions. He teaches us how to become more tolerant of intense emotions, sleepiness, compelling thoughts, fantasies-the whole array of inner experiences that are usually considered hindrances to meditation. The meditation practice he presents inUnlearning Meditationis gentle, flexible, permissive, and honest, and it's been wonderfully effective for opening up meditation for people who thought they could never meditate, as well as for injecting a renewed energy for practice into the lives of seasoned practitioners.

Author Biography

Jason Siff is cofounder of the Skillful Meditation Project, based in the Los Angeles area. He was a Theravadin monk in Sri Lanka in the 1980s but returned to the U.S. in 1990 to study counseling psychology. He teaches regularly at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Cloud Mountain, and the Esalen Institute. He leads retreats widely, including in the Los Angeles area, Vermont, Washington, New Mexico, and Australia.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. ix
Unlearning Meditation
Being Realistic about Meditation	p. 3
Gentle Intentions	p. 11
Instructions as Rules	p. 21
Unlearning for Beginning Meditators	p. 27
Inconsistencies	p. 31
Putting Meditation Experiences into Words	p. 39
Personal Stories	p. 47
Qualities	p. 57
Impasses and Calm Spaces
Impasses in Meditation	p. 71
An Impassable Impasse	p. 75
A Partially Cleared Impasse	p. 83
Getting Through an Impasse	p. 93
Effortless Calm	p. 105
Meditating with Drifting Off and Waking Up	p. 113
Drifting to Absorption	p. 123
Questions Surrounding Samadhi	p. 131
Multiple Meditative Processes
A Theory of the Meditative Process	p. 137
The Primary Transition	p. 149
Unlearning Meditation and the Generative Process	p. 157
The Three Developed Meditative Processes	p. 161
The Non-Taking-Up Process	p. 173
The Connected Process	p. 181
How to Use these Meditative Processes Skillfully	p. 185
Leveling the Hierarchy of Experiences
Assessing Meditative States	p. 191
A Postscript to Unlearning Meditation	p. 199
Acknowledgments	p. 201
Index	p. 205
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