Why Meditate?: Working with Thoughts and Emotions

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. Using the insights gained from his many years of practice and teaching, he makes insight meditation practice accessible to modern practitioners.

Lojong is the Tibetan Buddhist practice that involves working with short phrases (called "slogans") as a way of generating bodhichitta, the heart and mind of enlightened compassion. Though the practice is more than a millennium old, it has become popular in the West only in the last twenty years or so—and it has become very popular indeed, because it's a practice that one can fit very well into an ordinary life, and because it works.Through the influence of Pema Chödrön, who was one of the first American Buddhist teachers to teach it extensively, the practice has moved out of its Buddhist context to affect the lives of non-Buddhists too.

It's in this spirit that Norman Fischer offers his commentary on the lojong slogans. He applies Zen wisdom to them, showing how well they fit in that related tradition, but he also sets the slogans in the context of resonant practices throughout the spiritual traditions. He shows lojong to be a wonderful method for everyone, including those who aren't otherwise interested in Buddhism, who don't have the time or inclination to meditate, or who'd just like to morph into the kind of person who's focused rather than scattered, generous rather than stingy, and kind rather than thoughtless.

A growing body of scientific research indicates that mindfulness can reduce stress and improve mental and physical health. Countless people who have tried it say it's improved their quality of life. Simply put, mindfulness is the practice of paying steady and full attention, without judgment or criticism, to our moment-to-moment experience. Here is a collection of the best writing on what mindfulness is, why we should practice it, and how to apply it in daily life, from leading figures in the field.

Selections include:

• Leading thinking Jon Kabat-Zinn on the essence of mindfulness, stress reduction, and positive change
  
• Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on the transformative power of mindful breathing
  
• Professor of psychiatry Daniel Siegel, MD, on how mindfulness benefits the brain
  
• Physician and meditation teacher Jan Chozen Bays, MD, on how and why to practice mindful eating
  
• Pioneering psychologist Ellen Langer on how mindfulness can change the understanding and treatment of disease
  
• Leadership coach Michael Carroll on practicing mindfulness at work
  
• Psychologist Daniel Goleman on a mindful approach to shopping and consuming
  
• Pianist Madeline Bruser on how mindfulness can help us overcome performance anxiety
• and much more

The Mindfulness Revolution also includes an in-depth discussion by writer-editor Barry Boyce about how mindfulness is being applied in a variety of professional fields—from health care to education, from performing arts to business—to improve effectiveness and enhance well-being.