What Is Meditation?

What Is Meditation? explains the Buddhist worldview and the age-old practice it perfected to unfold our innate qualities of compassion, self-acceptance, and inner peace. Rob Nairn gives step-by-step instructions for beginning your own meditation practice, including three simple exercises—"Bare Attention," "Remaining in the Present," and "Meditation Using Sound"—to help get you started.

Here is Buddhism in a nutshell: In just over a hundred pages, using simple language that anyone can understand, What Is Meditation? delivers as complete a treatment of Buddhist teaching and practice as many books twice its length. It covers both the basics of the Buddhist worldview-which many people call a philosophy, not a religion-and the age-old practice it offers to help us unfold our innate qualities of compassion, self-acceptance, and inner peace.

Part One contains the essentials of Buddhism: its principles, history, and its main schools, especially as these appear in the West. It outlines basic principles like karma, reincarnation, compassion, and the Four Noble Truths. Part Two provides step-by-step instructions for beginning your own meditation practice. It teaches how to make meditation a daily habit, how to integrate it with the rest of life, and how to deal with typical problems that arise. Three simple exercises-"Bare Attention," "Remaining in the Present," and "Meditation Using Sound"- will help get you started.