I will give you what advice I can about meditation.

All profound types of meditation have their origins in eastern religions. The religions (of which I'm aware) which have at least fairly deep methods of meditation are Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Sufism. Hinduism, Taoism, and Sufism believe in either a god or an underlying, absolute essence of the universe, whereas Buddhism and Jainism do not. These two religions believe in the innate power and goodness of every being's mind, and meditation is the way to progressively actualize this. Since Buddhism (specifically, Tibetan Buddhism) is what I know most about and is what I practice regularly, that is what I will discuss here. You can research the others on your own. Here are some good links about the general theory of Tibetan Buddhist meditation (presented in a concise, but down-to-earth way). http://mingyur.org/teachings/index.html I'd recommend starting by reading these two on this site: http://mingyur.org/teachings/shamatha1.html http://mingyur.org/teachings/lovingkindness1.html Okay, now let's talk meditation. Like all other things in life, you get out of meditation what you put into it. Your motivation for practicing meditation is also very important. In the beginning it's certainly fine to simply want to try it out and explore, but hopefully after a while, you will want to begin each session with the intention to benefit all living creatures (which includes yourself) with your meditation practice. Now let's talk about meditation posture. Ancient texts frequently say that the full-lotus posture is best, but I'm not flexible enough to do that. Other good postures are half-lotus, quarter-lotus, and the Burmese posture. The spine should be as straight as possible while remaining relaxed. Some people place their hands folded on top of each other in front them like this man is doing: http://www.mro.org/zmm/teachings/meditation.php However, in my tradition we simply place our hands on our knees. I find this is simpler and gives my torso more support. The chin should be tucked in just slightly to straighten the vertebrae in the neck. The chest should be raised a bit and the shoulders should be drawn back. Your eyes should look down at a point on the floor about 2 meters in front of you, but leave your eyes relaxed and unfocused.

Your lips should be closed, but your jaw should be relaxed so that your teeth don't touch. You should place the tip of your tongue just behind your front upper teeth on your palate. My lama once said that if you find the right spot, the saliva will be automatically redirected down your throat so you won't have to swallow. However, if you need to swallow periodically, that's fine. Don't stress too much about posture details. Relax. Unless I explicitly state otherwise, all breathing is done through the nose. Now here is a preliminary exercise to do before meditating (or whenever you feel like it throughout the day) to purify the energies in your body: Do this 3 times: -Exhale somewhat forcefully and completely (it takes about 3 seconds) while visualizing that you are exhaling all the negative energies which cause sickness and other problems. -Inhale slowly but completely (this will me much slower than the exhalation was) and visualize that you are filling up with the positive, pure, healing energy of all Buddhas and wise beings. All Buddhist meditation starts with Shamatha (Tibetan: Shinay). This is calming meditation which is the basis of all others. Here is a very simple version of Shinay (calming meditation) which my lama taught me: -When you exhale, feel yourself relaxing and dissolving more and more. -When you inhale, just rest and do absolutely nothing. -If you notice a thought of yours, just think "thought" and go back to focusing on your exhalations as described above. -Similarly, if you hear something, just think "sound" and go back to focusing on your exhalations as described above. If seeing something, "sight," etc. Don't fight your thoughts just be aware of them. Another variation is simply to focus on the posture of your body instead of on your breathing. When your posture changes from the ideal posture, change it back. When your mind wanders, bring your focus back to your posture. That's it. Here is an explanation in the words of my lama in response to an email I sent him a long time ago: "Generally speaking, in Shine you are not supposed to formulate, visualize things, or thoughts. You just are, and don't do anything particular. You have a general awareness of your present situation, the environment and body posture. At the beginning you bring your mind to where you are by feeling the atmosphere of the place. At this point you simplify everything to the feeling of earth beneath - you feel well-grounded, stable - and the feeling of space around - you feel eased, no pressure, no expectations

on you, no obstacles, no barriers, you can relax, be what you are. You are feeling all this, not thinking. Just sit heavy on the ground and open, easy in space - during meditation these are your reference points. You return again and again to these two feelings. Then you have the posture. You feel comfortable sitting, and keep awareness of the feeling of the main points of your posture, returning again and again to the feeling of them. You are alert, but not tense, relaxed. The breathing: You work with the outbreath, during inhalation just wait. Again, feeling is important, not thinking. You feel the outgoing breath dissolving, and together with that feeling of dissolution you let all your tensions, thoughts etc whatever there is, just vanish as they like, similarly to letting go a bird you are holding in your hand, by just opening your hand. The bird will find its way, don't worry. Then during the next inhalation just wait. Don't think about emptiness or whatever. Everything is just very simple, nothing to do, not even meditation, nothing to accomplish, no hope, no fear, just be. A perfect holiday from ordinary busy-ness and worries. Then thoughts: Don't fight with them, let them be where they are, just recognize their occurance, by saying: "thought" and with the same movement return to the feeling of posture, well-groundedness, openness or exhalation-dissolution, whichever you like."

****** I am now going to teach you some other meditations so that you can have a complete practice. In Tibetan Buddhism, the goal is always to develop both wisdom and compassion. Shinay (the breathing meditation I gave you instructions for in my last email) is the foundation of the wisdom meditations. The meditations in Tibetan Buddhism which develop compassion and loving-kindness are collectively called Lojong meditations. In this email, I will give you instructions for two different Lojong meditations. Lojong meditation 1: Awakening an inner stream of love To start, just get into your meditation posture, relax, and breathe naturally for a bit. Then think of something which makes you feel a great deal of love. It could be a special memory, something you read, a religious symbol,

a movie, etc. Spend a while focusing on this feeling of love and trying to increase it. It might take a while to discover what the best thing for you to trigger this feeling is. I often prefer to think about cute animals as my starting point because I distrust most people. If you're thinking about a special memory, you want to feel that you're actually reliving it. Anyway, once you've got this inner feeling of love, think of someone you are very close to and then try feel this same intense feeling of love for them. Think of many people in this category and do the same thing. Then think about people who you're friendly with, but not quite as close to and do the same thing. Then think about strangers, people whom you've never met, and do the same thing. After you've practiced this for a while, then you can also try this with people who you consider enemies or who you have difficulty with. Once you have extended your love to all beings, just focus on maintaining it and rest in this state for as long as you wish. ****** Lojong meditation 2: Atmospheric Tonglen Breathe naturally and observe your thoughts and feelings the same way that you would sense the atmosphere of a room. If you notice a negative thought or feeling (it could be a specific angry thought or it could be something more mild such feeling a bit of pain in your legs or feeling sleepy or having a headache), imagine that you breathe it in when you inhale. Imagine that this negative thought enters your body from all sides (if you want, you can visualize it as dirty, black smoke), and once it's in your body, it dissolves, is purified, and disappears (the true nature of our minds is strong enough to purify any amount of negativity). When you breathe out, imagine that you breathing out bright, clean, positive energy which comes out of your body from all sides and benefits all beings (including yourself) and makes them happy. Make sure to keep your breathing natural. Don't force it to be slow and deep or any certain way. If you are truly feeling so positive for a while that you observe no negative thoughts during some inhalations, then don't do anything but continue to observe your thoughts, and on the exhalations, breathe out postive energy as I described before--don't try and force yourself to have a negative thought artificially. The important thing is to simply observe your thoughts without judging them. Don't think, "Oh I have such mean thoughts. I'm a bad person," or "I have no bad thoughts right now, so I'm a great person." The thoughts that you encounter don't matter. All that matters is continuing the method of the meditation.

****** Atmospheric Tonglen is one of my favorite meditations and was one of the main reasons that I was able to get through last year without being crushed by difficulties and negative feelings. It develops generosity because you are taking negativities into yourself and sending out positive energy to others. So in order to have a balanced meditation practice, you should do both Shinay and Lojong meditations. The traditional way is to start with Shinay and then do one Lojong meditation immediately afterwards. This is what I usually do. Since I'm not too flexible my legs serve as "timers." I do Shinay until my legs become very uncomfortable, and then I switch which leg is on top and do a Lojong meditation (usually, I just do one of these two). Another meditation you can do, if you wish, is to recite mantras of Buddhist deities (their nature is a complicated mixture of the real and the unreal--you can think of them as symbols of an enlightened mind). The classic Buddhist mantra is OM MANI PADME HUM (Tibetans usually say OM MANI PEME HUNG). This is the mantra of Avalokitesvara (Tibetan: Chenrezig) the (male) bodhisattva of compassion. If you want to meditate on this mantra, simply say it out loud over and over again so that you can comfortable with it and feel it resonate in your lower abdomen. You don't need to sychronize the syllables with your breathing in any particular way. According to my lama, repeating mantras purifies your body's energies. Here is that mantra set to music (one of the few attempts to mix Buddhist chants with popular music that isn't terrible): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38d2fDny91k&feature=related There are more advanced types of Tibetan Buddhist meditations, but these require certain initiation ceremonies. The two main stages are the generation stage and the completion stage. In generation stage meditations, you visualize yourself as one of the deities--whose forms are quite elaborate, so it's actually quite difficult to visualize them clearly--, while repeating their mantras (often there is a preliminary chant as well). In the completion stage, this elaborate visualization is then dissolved into emptiness and the true nature of the mind is meditated upon directly. There may also be special yogic exercises dealing with the energy channels in the body as well. A lot of this stuff is quite secret and often is only taught in long-term meditation retreats. Anyway, I hope that these new meditations will benefit you as well.