Secular Meditation – BionicOldGuy

Meditation is a scientifically verified method for decreasing stress, enhancing well being, and making constructive modifications within the mind. However it’s typically related to faith, or has a “new-age” air (like sitting in an unique place and burning incense). There’s actually nothing flawed with religious-based or unique strategies, which work effective for many individuals. However some are turned off by it or it makes them skeptical of meditation. For the latter group, Rick Heller has written Secular Meditation, a helpful down-to-earth information.

Rick is related to the humanist neighborhood at Harvard College, the place he teaches meditation. I loved the ebook and would extremely advocate it for anybody who has beforehand been skeptical of meditation. Rick admits that some individuals are vital of making an attempt to give you a secularized model that extracts it from non secular roots. That’s the reason he makes use of the extra generic time period secular meditation as a substitute of one thing like secularized Buddhism. I feel the vital query is whether or not the secularized model continues to be useful. It’s attainable to lose some worth if you happen to decide and select solely what you need. For instance, one may observe mindfulness and calming the thoughts diligently however nonetheless not be a really good particular person. However I consider that is averted if you happen to preserve a minimal important set of parts like meditation, mindfulness, and cultivation of loving-kindness, as I mentioned here. Loving-kindness or equal compassion trainings are an vital facet that’s generally omitted.

So I used to be glad that Rick’s information begins with loving-kindness practices. He describes these and different useful practices intimately within the ebook. It was additionally good to see him cowl a secularized model of mantra meditation. Whereas many individuals discover breath-based strategies to work effectively for meditation, I personally have had extra success with mantra meditation.