Insight Meditation Practice

Freedom from suffering is not only possible, but the means for achieving it are immediately within our grasp - literally as close to us as our own breath. This is the 2,500-year-old good news contained in the Anapanasati Sutra, the Buddha's teaching on cultivating both tranquility and deep insight through full awareness of breathing. In this book, Larry Rosenberg brings this timeless meditation method to life.

The fruit of some twenty years’ experience leading Buddhist meditation retreats, this book touches on a wide range of topics raised repeatedly by meditators and includes favorite stories, key Buddhist teachings, and answers to most-asked questions.

This modern spiritual classic, presented as a 30-day meditation retreat taught by Joseph Goldstein, offers timeless practical instructions and real-world advice for practicing meditation - whether walking or sitting in formal practice or engaging in everyday life. Goldstein uses the retreat format to explain various basic Buddhist teachings including karma, selflessness, and the four noble truths, while also drawing connections to many different spiritual traditions.

Connecting with your mind and body are the first steps to greater insight. In order to access universal wisdom and a more alert state of mind - you must first master yourself. This meditation is all about helping you become more mindful and aware of your own existence and the world around you. It is designed to deepen your understanding and your appreciation of the present moment, allowing you to transcend the physical realm as you reach more insightful perspectives.

Mindfulness and insight - clearly knowing what is happening in one's present moment experience - and concentration - the ability of the mind to remain steady and undistracted - are foundational elements of meditation, yet people are often confused about how these aspects of the practice fit together. Should they be doing insight meditation or concentration practices? How does concentration fit into insight meditation? To help, The Art and Skill of Buddhist Meditation offers specific guidance.

The seven traditional chakras are each associated with a color, an area of the body and with emotional qualities. This set of seven visualization meditations allows you spend a little time focusing on each chakra and the qualities that it embodies. The mediations are all similarly formatted; starting with a simple body scan, then exploring the chakra, and then returning to the present moment. This repetition of structure offers comfort and with repeated use, will help you feel a sense of “coming home”.

Experience the underlying design of the meditation practices found in the great spiritual traditions of the world in a process accommodated to modern active life. Innovative Recollective Centering becomes a balancing counterpoint to the dynamic pressures of the everyday. Insight as meditative practice translates into a journal writing that resolves current issues and the ghosts of the past followed by a Letting Go visual meditation process of replacing those issues and ghosts with a new peace and calm.