Meditation 101: 1 Book, 1 App, and Listening to Myself Breathe

I have a friend who has been talking to me about meditation for several years now. He’s a practicing Buddhist, and leads a meditation session every week at a local Buddhist center. I have attended several times, though not regularly enough to have seen any benefits from the practice of meditation. He leads a meditation service that is also a religious service, and I have sometimes felt awkward, not really knowing how fully to participate. I’ve felt that there could be some benefit to regular meditation, but I don’t know how, or whether, to participate during the prayers which are offered before and after each twenty minute meditation period. I also know myself well enough to realize that I don’t have the fortitude to press ahead with the practice of meditation alone, without some kind of direction.

That has been the state of things for several years. I might attend a meditation service three or four times a year, and come away with the same questions and hesitations about the practice, at the same time seeing that it could be a very fruitful, centering experience.

Chocolate and Meditation

You know those times in your life, when you encounter some new word or idea, and then you just can’t seem to escape it? Me too.

A couple of years ago, I added the book Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World, by Mark Williams and Danny Penman to my reading list. I don’t even remember how I encountered it initially. (It was probably NPR, but I don’t see any reference to the book on their website. Science Friday, perhaps? Anyway…)

So, the title has been sitting on my list for a couple of years, and I finally decided that it was time to check it out. There’s been a convergence of the subject of meditation popping up in my life, and this seemed like an appropriate book to use to help get myself more grounded.