Thread: Suggestions?
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Old 03-01-2016, 09:02 PM
  # 3 (permalink)  
PaulDaveSmithJo
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Join Date: Nov 2015
Location: Canada
Posts: 50
I think a great place to start is Bhante Gunaratana's "Mindfulness in Plain English".

It isn't a "guided meditation" per se, but rather a guide to meditation. It deals with the fundamentals of what precisely meditation is, why one should practice it, and how precisely one does it.

Gunaratana's approach to meditation is what is called "vipassana" meditation. It is concerned primarily with fostering as authentic an experience of being as is possible. In my experience with it, it achieves all the things - and more - that other methods of meditation strive for, i.e., methods involving mental images, or those which focus on various mental or physical perceptions or phenomena.

I've found vipassana meditation - and Gunaratana's explanation of it - to be exactly what I needed in my struggles with both addictions and depression. I can't recommend the book (or the method) highly enough. My concentration has improved. My cravings have disappeared. I've never slept better. I've never felt more present to others and to the experience of life generally as I have since beginning vipassana meditation.
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