This simple, straightforward yet powerful guide has ready helped hundreds of thousands of people reap the greatest rewards of meditation. Lawrence LeShan's easy-to-follow and realistic approach allows you to bring meditation effortlessly into your life, no matter how busy you are, or how great the demands on your time are. His specific programs and exercises provide proven, practical tools for you to begin your journey and explore the many revealing paths of meditation
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Here is one of the most practical guides to meditation. As a psychotherapist and researcher, Lawrence LeShan is more interested in the process and effects of meditation than the spiritual motivations. To LeShan, meditation means training the mind, and he likens it to physical exercise. Like a good trainer, he breaks down the different kinds of meditation into easy-to-learn steps and offers counsel about the best ways to go about it and the pitfalls you are likely to encounter. LeShan isn't pure vanilla, however. He wrote at a time (the early '70s) when meditation was still considered esoteric and strongly associated with the paranormal. Still, he keeps his feet on the ground and suggests that you do, too. Meditation, he says, helps get a new perspective on the world and to attain "an increased serenity and competence in being." If you are a beginning meditator, this perennial favorite is a good place to start. --Brian Bruya
Review
"If you're just considering it, How To Meditate is recommended equipment for the first steps." --Hank Basayne, Association of Humanistic Psychology.
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By abt1950
Format:Paperback
I bought this book in order to have a basic yet comprehensive guide to mediation. I had dabbled a little in the practice over the years and knew the basic breath-counting/mantra technique. But I was looking for additional guidance, having already picked up (and discarded) the "Idiot's Guide to Meditation." For me, that book and others like it spend too much time on details of chakras, postures, and energies. I wanted something broader, something that concentrated on the internal, spiritual aspects of meditation rather than on the specifics of different traditions. All religions have their own schools of meditation, and I wanted commonalities, not New Age cliches. I found what I wanted it in this book.
Leshan, a trained psychotherapist, and researcher presents a concise, comforting, and comprehensive guide to the subject. He's very eclectic in his approach--his sources include Christian mystics, Zen Buddhists, and Hindu yogis. He points out what they all have in common, takes what's useful from each traditiona, and distills them into something that's workable for a beginner. He dispels many of the myths that surround meditation-as-fad in our society and stresses the role of individual discipline. He suggests the general outlines of programs, but leaves the actual choices up to you.
The only problem that I had with this book is probably related to its original date of publication--1973. Back then, meditation was still a "way-out" hippie practice that most people looked upon with suspicion. As a result, Leshan goes to considerable lengths to justify the practice for skeptical Westerners. He does a good job with this, but nowadays those parts of his book are less necessary. Nonetheless, this book retains its value as a classic guide to meditation. For me, at least, it's a keeper.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By G. LeFever
Format:Paperback
LeShan wrote How to Meditate years before the hundreds of popular books presenting easier, more simplistic approaches to meditation. And being a scientist himself, LeShan was compelled to stick to a more clinical, validated -- and thorough -- approach. How to Meditate is an excellent volume for those who've been meditating for a period of time and are interested in expanding into different forms of meditation. LeShan provides sufficient background and helpful lessons for each form. Take note that his approach is not touchy-feely and his writing is borderline austere. This is a slim, but informative book you can refer back to year after year.
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Leshan is a scientist who writes like a poet with the wisdom of a mystic and the pragmatism of an athletic coach.
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4.3 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Informative, concise, and light on New Age wishiwashiness
As a person interested in experimenting with meditation but reluctant to delve into New Age nonsense, this book is exactly what I wanted. Read more
Published on Jun 19 2003
5.0 out of 5 stars
Complete, thorough, yet clear and easy
If you are initiating yourself in meditation, I think this is a great book for you. It teaches you how to do it, its effects, etc. Read more
Published on Mar 17 2002 by "olas"
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Place To Start For Beginners
I stumbled across this little book in the 1970's and have been recommending and sending it to friends, relatives, and acquaintances ever since. Read more
Published on Dec 6 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent first book on mediation
If you are interested in buying just one book on meditation, this should be it. Very straight-forward, readable, and re-readable. An excellent value.
Published on Jan 9 2001 by "dlotspei"
5.0 out of 5 stars
Short, simple, yet comprehensive
Because I have been recommending HOW TO MEDITATE for many years, it seems appropriate to add it to my reviews on amazon.com. Read more
Published on Nov 14 2000 by Joan Mazza
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best basic training manual on meditation written.
Although Lawrence LeShan has degrees from three universities, he writes with a simple, completely straightforward style. The first section is on the benefits of meditation. Read more
Published on Feb 5 2000 by Adam Khan
3.0 out of 5 stars
good but is not deep enough
Leshan has written a book that presents some meditation exercises gathered from the tibetan, christian and other religions. The meditation techniques are valid and they do work. Read more
Published on Jan 15 2000 by louis smith
3.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent overview of schools of meditation.
'How to Meditate' was fun to read giving a easy to digest overview of how one goes about meditating. Read more
Published on July 7 1999
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best $5 I've Ever Spent
I wanted to begin practicing meditation again after some years of absence, and wanted a different approach than the Transcendental Meditation I learned in college. Read more
Published on July 2 1998
4.0 out of 5 stars
A well grounded overview and how to on meditation.
This is a simple and deceptively sophisticated book on meidtation well suited to the Western reader. Dr. LeShan de-mystifies meditation and makes it accessable to everyone. Read more
Published on Aug 20 1997
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