The Meditation Summit: Volume 2

Deepen and Expand Your Meditation Practice with the World's Leading Teachers

De: Adyashanti, Anakha Coman, Joseph Goldstein, Lama Surya Das, Pema Chödrön, Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Richard Miller PhD, Shinzen Young, Tara Brach, Thich Nhat Hanh

Most of us are well aware of the benefits of meditation, and new research is providing us with more and more evidence of what the world's spiritual traditions have known for years: meditation can positively impact every area of our lives.

So why do many of us struggle to make time for this powerful practice? Why do we so often wonder if we're doing it right? Or feel as if something more should be happening?

In The Meditation Summit: Volume II, Sounds True publisher and founder Tami Simon speaks with ten leading meditation teachers about their personal understanding of this practice—each with a complete guided meditation. Practitioners of all levels will benefit from the abundance of insight and guidance provided by these diverse voices.

Volume II Guests and Topics:

“A Nourishing and Liberating RAIN” with Tara Brach, PhD

This talk explores the three primary components on a path to healing and freedom: inquiry into truth, remembering love, and embodying awareness. Dr. Brach also introduces us to RAIN, her acronym for an accessible and powerful way to strengthen and apply these domains of spiritual practice, along with a guided meditation.

“Yoga Nidra: The Meditative Heart of Yoga” with Richard C. Miller, PhD

Yoga Nidra is a type of deep yogic meditation. Here, Dr. Miller and Tami discuss the core components of Yoga Nidra, including the easily accessible ways in which Yoga Nidra brings us to an embodied awakening of our essential nature. This presentation includes a guided meditation through all ten steps of the Yoga Nidra process.


“Effort and Release” with Rev. angel Kyodo Williams

Rev. Williams applies wisdom teachings and embodied practice to social issues and is a preeminent thought leader of transformative social change. Here, she talks with Tami about how meditation develops our capacity to be with the suffering in ourselves and others, awakening our warrior spirit and willingness to engage the world.


“Trusting the Buddha Within” with Thich Nhat Hanh

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh illuminates how we can trust in the living presence of the Buddha as a guide for our daily practice. This session explores how to recognize an awakened being through the quality of their actions, letting the Buddha do the work for us when things get overwhelming, and a guided meditation for resting in the present moment.


“Mindfulness Meditation” with Joseph Goldstein

In this presentation, Joseph Goldstein guides us through the common stages in a mindfulness practice, including mindfulness techniques to transform our meditation experience and a guided meditation to help us release identification with the self and observe the changing nature of all that is.


“Tonglen Meditation: News We Can Use” with Pema Chödrön

Tonglen literally means “taking and sending,” and is a powerful Tibetan Buddhist practice for relieving the suffering of ourselves, others, and the world. Here, Pema illuminates this traditional practice with a discussion and guided formal tonglen meditation.


“Exploring the Mind” with Shinzen Young

In this talk, Shinzen examines our relationships with our thoughts and how we can use meditation as a gateway to create a healthier internal dialogue with them. He takes us through a unique guided meditation for parsing thought into mental images and mental talk, opening the way to states of creative flow and tranquil rest.


“Meditation in the Dzogchen Tradition” with Lama Surya Das

Lama Surya Das introduces the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition of meditation, discussing how we can create a better world through the wise action that stems from an expanded meditation practice, the idea of “non-meditation” and seeing through the illusion of separateness, and more.


“True Meditation” with Adyashanti

Adyashanti speaks of true meditation as a path for awakening to the truth of our being through a moment-to-moment state of discovery. With a discussion and guided practice of true meditation, he helps us free ourselves from agenda and technique, drop our preconceived ideas of what meditation should look like, bring awareness to our senses, and awaken to the present moment.


“Awake at Work: Mindfulness for Connection, Creativity, and Collaboration in the Workplace” with Anakha Coman

In this presentation, Anakha discusses how we can use mindfulness practices at work to bring forth our genius and create a culture of engagement, connection, and excellence. She teaches us easy-to-use mindfulness micro-practices that heighten mental clarity, insights, and creativity while on the job.

At perhaps no other time in history has

Not bad. Kind of streatched it a little

I got both meditation summit books and I think they would've been better off trimming a couple of the meditations and just going with one book. Some good meditations. What these are really good for is possibly finding new meditations. I don't think I'll be buying too many books from the author who did any of the meditations in this one. Maybe one. I found a couple in the first book. The two meditation summits combined are okay to pretty good. The first book is definitely better.

Helpful bites and opportunity to try different meditations

I liked this introduction to many teachers. This is not a drive to work book. About half is meditating. The sound quality is not controlled like a studio. Sounds like FaceTime- except for Thich Nhat Hanh and Pema Chodron (retreat recording?). But this doesn't diminish the quality of the interviews and the information transmitted. I, personally, had a breakthrough moment with Thich's meditation. I hope the next one will have more Q & A. Love Tami's questions.

Wish the audio quality was better

I was looking forward to this audio program considering that the content had a great collection of speakers that I wanted to enjoy listening to but unfortunately the audio quality detracted from that experience. Although the sound quality of the interviewer was clear and reminiscent of an NPR host, the actual speakers who were being asked questions and talking sounded poorly mic'd, distant, and tin can toned that was closer to sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher than a high quality Audible program.

dud

I selected this book because I'm a fan of Joseph Goldstein. Tara was somewhat tolerable, Each successive speaker after that got progressively worse. Thich Nhat Hanh was terrible. I had to stop. Returning the book.