Jamie's Reviews > Guided Meditation: Six Essential Practices to Cultivate Love, Awareness, and Wisdom

So I still completely suck at meditating, but I rather enjoyed trying out the guided meditations in this book. There were a couple I found particularly useful, although I'm not going to remember the terminology or details so please forgive me as I proceed to mangle both in this review.

But the meditation where you visualize Buddha (or Jesus or the Virgin Mary or Cthulhu or whoever) taking over your body to handle a difficult situation in an appropriate manner? That one was brilliant, and I can actually see using this technique while in the middle of a conflict. “Hang on, Mom, I understand that you think the 'War of Northern Aggression' was about 'states' rights,' but I need to go consult the Buddha on how to handle this one without losing my shit.” Or something like that.

And the last meditation? Where you focus on "seeing your mind" (or whatever he called it) and external sounds instead of your breathing? I actually might've almost, maybe, possibly meditated with this one?! I'm absolute rubbish at the whole “focus on your breathing” thing, but sounds I can do. For once my hound's ear flapping and sleep-whining isn't a detriment!

So, yeah, I think I'm going to go through this audiobook a couple more times and see where things go. (It's a library book, but let's face it – this is Western Michigan and meditation isn't exactly a beloved pastime. I can likely keep it for as long as I want.) Jack Kornfield-with-a-K has a last name that drives me to distraction, but he's really quite good at this whole meditation thing.