Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation

By: Mark W. Muesse, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Mark W. Muesse

Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Meditation - the technique of mental focusing for enhanced awareness and self-mastery - offers deep and lasting benefits for mental functioning and emotional health, as well as for physical health and well-being.

This practice is closely related to "mindfulness," which Professor Muesse defines as "a deliberate way of paying attention to what is occurring within oneself as it is happening. It is the process of attentively observing your experience as it unfolds, without judgment or evaluation."

"Meditation," he adds, "refers to certain exercises that can be used to enlarge and refine mindfulness." Meditation cultivates mindfulness by training you to develop deep attention to the present moment, allowing the mind to become settled and centered. These 24 detailed lectures teach you the principles and techniques of sitting meditation, the related practice of walking meditation, and the highly beneficial use of meditative awareness in many important activities, including eating and driving. You will also learn how to use the skills of meditation in working with thoughts and emotional states, in deepening sensory awareness of the body, and in becoming deeply attentive to the operation of your mind.

You'll come away with a solid basis for your own meditation practice and for bringing meditation's remarkable and empowering benefits to every aspect of your life.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2011 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2011 The Great Courses

Stunning

My expectation was met exceedingly.
This book took me on a journey one that I will never forget. My most abiding memory was "mindfulness" it's such a simple word but pack with profound meanings. Well done, this is a must read

Excellent; interesting, informative, inspiring

this course was Excellently done, very interesting, informative, and inspiring. lectures are easy to follow,

Life Changing

Professor Muesse is highly relatable and openly admits to his failings and imperfections. I've read several books on mindfulness meditation and this one is head and shoulders above the rest.

A bit too church like

I was really excited about this but the narration made me feel too much like I was sitting in church and being preached at

10/10, Please embark on this journey for yourself

Brilliantly lectured, I couldn’t recommend this course more. Even if it’s review for you, you’ll take something valuable away. Implementing these teachings has changed my life for the better.

Intermittently thought-provoking

I learned a lot from this course, although parts of it are more valuable than others. The best sections are those which give advice on meditation practice and how to overcome the difficulties that challenge the beginner. The lecturer has lots of useful, practical ideas that are very helpful. I found the later sections where he spends a great deal of time moralizing in a rather banal way to be less interesting, although here and there I found nuggets of thought-provoking ideas about how mindfulness can help us live our lives better - the chapter on accepting mortality is particularly good.

The lecturer speaks WAY too slowly and has a slightly condescending tone, as if he is explaining the subject to a small kitten. However, I found that if I played him at 2x speed he sounded like a normal human being and was perfectly listenable.

Good recorce if you ignore the Narrator's bias

It was a practice in Mindfulness to regain concentration every time the speaker diverged from actually teaching into repetative moralistic preaching. I reject many of the authors views on sexuality and purity of though. In fact I find that attempting to achieve perfect thought and the idea of injecting morality actively work against the kind of flow and inner tranquility one can achieve through basic Mindfulness.

I really wanted to give this a 4 out of 5. Glad for some of the better parts for sure. The 3/5 is just honest from my perspective. The tangents just added up to where they reduced actual value.

I could honestly give this a higher score had the title been "Mindfulness from a heavily Christian Perspective" - at least then I'd have known what to expect.

Annoying narrator.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Professor Mark W. Muesse?

Dr. Muesse seems to be knowledgeable about the topic, but his cadence and voice was very annoying. He had very little enthusiasm and read in almost a monotone. I could only do a very short session because I kept getting rapped up in the voice and delivery.

Any additional comments?

I was interested in the topic, but had a hard time getting into the book because of the delivery by the reader.

A Good Agnostic Introduction.

Where does Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Well, it's the first audiobook I've listened to, so I'd say it's #1 right now.

What about Professor Mark W. Muesse’s performance did you like?

Having explored meditation in different religious traditions - both willingly as an adult and unwillingly as a child - I've disdained how the meditation aspect is sometimes 'sold' with dingleberries of the specific religion. I suspect his background in teaching Comparative Religion allowed him to allow the mindfullness and meditation to seep through.

That has great value to me since he's done much of the footwork that I tired of.

Life Changing!

Any additional comments?

I started listening to this lecture series just over a year ago. I found it fascinating and wanted to try "practicing". I listed to most lectures 2 to 3 times and took about a week between listens. I practiced the lecture materials between lectures. I can't believe how this has changed me, and the positive impact it has had in my life! I plan on listening to this lecture series again!