Introduction.
This is a book to practice, not a book to read.
It is written to help you see yourself deeply. The exercises are based on 35 years spiritual practice by the author. They are taken from Zen Buddhist practices, and the Self-inquiry practice taught by Ramana Maharshi in India in the last century.
These meditations let you take moments of your daily life that are often filled with frustration, your commute, and transform these moments into some of your most precious times, suffused with inner peace and joy. Once you learn these practices you can apply the same approach to other moments where people commonly get impatient, like standing in line at the grocery store, or at a movie, or even in the dentist chair.
In these practices you are not “doing” anything, rather you are simply “looking” within. Spiritual teachers from around the world since time immemorial have said that our greatest treasures are to be found within, but most of us do not know how to go about this looking within. This book is intended to show you how to start this process. You may find, once you start, that it changes your life.
Practice these exercises with an open mind and an open heart.
I recommend that you stick with each exercise for a while, perhaps a week (or more), until you become familiar with what you find. Like all other areas of life, there are skills involved. As you practice, you gain skills at practice. You will also find that as you gain skills, you will be able to go back to beginning exercises and repeat them, and they will become deeper.
You may also find that you want to practice in sitting meditation, not just driving. That is fine, and a good sign. Just sit your body someplace where it is comfortable and you can be still and meditate.
I noticed something funny sometime after I started this practice. I sometimes got upset if there was not enough traffic, so I arrived at my destination too soon, and the time for meditation was over. If you notice this, it means the meditation is starting to work. Meditation is starting to become something that you want to do.
This meditation goes to a deeper level than just the mind. You will be looking within, holding a question where you want the experience, NOT the “answer” to the question. You do continue to use the mind (until the meditation gets much deeper), and you want to use your intellect to sup- port your meditation, not to limit the meditation to your mental concepts. You use the mind by choosing to practice, and by the deep discrimination that you will be taught in this book.
The traditional approach to spiritual teaching is:
Listen (or read), Reflect,
Then deeply meditate.
You may start to notice that your experiences in meditation “flow” to other parts of your life. This is natural, and is a sign that you are taking this in deeply.
I also want to give credit to my own spiritual teacher, Nome, at the Society of Abidance in Truth, in Santa Cruz, California. I had studied Zen on my own for many years. When I started to hear Nome’s teaching of Ramana Maharshi’s wisdom, I started to understand in a much deeper way all that I had read before. His teaching has brought me to much greater depth than I was able to find on my own.
Finally I started my own serious meditation practice. For years now I practice sitting meditation every day (at my best time of the day), practic- ing self-inquiry. I also engage in ongoing meditation during much of my day’s activity. My goal is to meditate all the time.
If there is any wisdom expressed in these pages, it is more likely to be that of my teacher than my own.