Audio Meditation Recommendations
In learning to meditate, it is very useful to have the instructions come in over the audio channel, in contrast to reading. When you are listening, you can close the eyes and immerse yourself in your inner experience.
Camille and I have just completed our first audio CD, which is available with the book, Meditation 24/7, and also as a direct audio download (if audible.com ever gets around to putting it up.)
Meditation 24/7 (Amazon link)
The CD contains 14 different meditations and awareness exercises you can do as you move through your day. The first one, Awakening, is a meditation to do when you first come to awareness upon awakening from sleep.
Fill Your Cup is a practice to do when drinking your morning cup of coffee or tea.
Road Peace is an awareness practice to do while commuting to and from work.
Coming Home is a meditation to do when you come home in the evening.
Fall into Sleep is a meditation for when you get in bed and are ready for sleep.
Still of the Night is for those times when you wake up in the middle of the night and want something soothing to focus on.
1 AWAKENING 6:39
2 FILL YOUR CUP 5:36
3 GROOM & ZOOM 3:40
4 GOOD TO GO 2:19
5 MOVE IT 7:13
6 FEAST YOUR SENSES 2:47
7 MINI SIESTA 3:48
8 WAIT UP 4:05
9 ROAD PEACE 6:40
10 COMING HOME 7:11
11 PARTY ON 5:32
12 HEART WARMING 5:39
13 FALL INTO SLEEP 6:48
14 STILL OF THE NIGHT 6:45
Notes
During the late 60's and early 70's, I did not like "guided meditations." I wanted to follow my own experience and not impose anything. But one day in 1975 I was listening to one of my students talk about her experience and this evoked a deep response in me. I realized that anyone speaking from experience can lead or read a meditation exercise. There are lots of inspired meditation teachers, therapists, spiritual guides, and NLP practitioners out there with interesting insights into meditation. I have found that it broadens my experience to give over and enjoy them just as I enjoy music.
In a recent Bottom Line article, I recommended several tapes and CDs by other teachers.
8 Meditations by the Mind Body Institute staff is a favorite of mine. This is a CD containing eight (or is it seven?) different meditations. The production is very good and it is aimed at beginners. Even though I've been meditating for 36 years, I can listen to this over and over, enjoying it each time. Two women and a man lead the meditations, and they all have good voices this kind of work. The MBMI, Mind Body Medical Institute, is headed by Herbert Benson, a Harvard cardiologist who has done more than 30 years of research on the physiology of meditation. I think he's done the best science in the field.
Most meditation instructions have some irritating whininess and semantic mistakes in them: "OK now CLASS, TRY to concentrate on this mandala for JUST ONE MINUTE more," or "Try to relax." This CD has almost none of that. Only twice does one the teachers on one of the cuts say, "try to concentrate." This is important because when the instructions are inept, students fail and blame themselves rather than saying, "these instructions are terrible."
As of 6/12/2002, you need to order it directly from the Mind Body Medical Institute, via their web site store, www.mbmi.org, or by phone, Tel: (617) 632-9530.
The liner says, "This CD includes seven guided relaxation exercises with background music and one music track. Ranging from 7-10 minutes in length, these relaxations include breath focus, muscle relaxation, and a beach, mountain and garden relaxation. Both adults and children have found this CD beneficial as a guide for relaxation during the day or before going to sleep at night. Voices include two females and a male voice."
Focusing,by Eugene Gendlin, is a CD with a whole series of short guided sensation and emotion meditations. Gendlin shows you how to listen to your emotions and sensations, and gut feelings, and let them teach you. This skill is essential for all meditators to know and practice, and Gendlin does the best job of explaining it I've ever heard.
Some people listen to their gut feelings and know instinctively and through experience how to work with them. But meditation can throw a monkeywrench into the works, because it opens you up to so many messages from inside. There are so many signals to attend to, and you may have to re-learn things you already know.
Many meditators are unaware of the extent to which they struggle to block out experiences that they think are not "meditative." If you ask people if they are suppressing themselves during meditation, they will usually say no. Then they proceed to try to block out uncomfortable sensations and emotions. This is tiring and stalemates the meditation, and is a major reason why people quit meditating consistently. One way or another, every meditator needs to get the insight presented here. If you have meditated in the past and stopped for some reason, or have an uncomfortable feeling coming up in your meditation currently, check out Gendlin's Focusing meditations. If you want to read about Focusing theory, check out the Focusing web site
in this CD, Tara Goldman leading you through some emotional clearing meditations. Her teaching is informed by Vipassana Buddhism and psychotherapy.
The liner of Emotional Alchemy says,
According to ancient legends, alchemists use a magical philosopher's stone to transmute lead into gold. In Emotional Alchemy, Tara Bennett-Goleman shows readers how they can use this alchemist metaphor to transform emotional confusion (lead) into insightful clarity (gold). And what does the magic stone represent? "Mindfulness," a lifelong practice that can bring readers more joy and contentment than the gold, according to Bennett-Goleman. "Mindfulness means seeing things as they are without trying to change them," she writes. "The point is to dissolve our reactions to disturbing emotions, being careful not to reject the emotion itself."
What I Am Listening To
Until recently, Cohen was living in a Zen monastery up in the mountains above Los Angeles. Now he has come back down the hill and I heard he is living in Venice. He's back on Boogie Street. This album puts forth a tone of almost unbearable heartache and loss, refined and made into infinite beauty. You feel you are staying up late, drinking scotch, with a Zen master with a broken heart. The harmony, the words, the impact of the songs are staggering. This is one of the few albums in the past ten years that I have listened to over and over for months, without tiring. Friends come over and listen to it, then call me a couple of days later saying, they went to the record store and bought five copies to give to friends, and some of those friends then went out and bought several copies. 10 New Songs lyrics. See also the Leonard Cohen files.
